winsomme2 wrote:Hal14 wrote:With how thin we are on this SL roster at PG, wonder if we'll experiment a little bit with Amari bringing the ball up..
I think I am putting an unfair amount of pressure on Williams but for me
he has to be good. Brad passed on some real talent at 32 at a time when the teams needs draft picks to become NBA players.
I expect at least one of Fleming, Kalkbrenner, and Raynaud to be legit NBA players (maybe all three), so Williams can't just be a G League/End of the bench guy.
There should never be that high of an expectation on a guy picked 46th in the draft.
It also doesn't make sense to compare what Amari does in the NBA to those other 3 bigs in a vacuum because:
a) we didn't simply pass on those other 3 bigs to draft Amari at 32. That's not reality. We traded the 32nd pick for FOUR picks - 46 & 57 in 2025 draft (which turned out to be Amari and Shulga) plus 2 future 2nd rounders. So the real question is, a player we could've taken at 32 (not Fleming because he was off the board at 32, he went 31st) so either Penda, Kalkbrenner or Raynaud. (And we don't get to play this game with all 3 of them because you don't get to draft 3 different guys at 32. You only get 1 crack at it) does that 1 guy we could've taken at 32 end up being a better, more valuable asset long term than the FOUR picks we acquired in that deal? Those other 2 2nd rounders we got are in 2026 and 2027 draft. So we won't know the answer to the question until 2030 at the earliest, since you gotta wait at least 3 years after a guy is drafted to know how they turned out.
And also factor in that these 3 extra 2nd round picks we acquired are assets we can use in future deals. It's not like we're stuck and can only use those picks to select players in the draft. Who knows, maybe we take 3 of those 2nd rounders we just acquired and package them up to get a star player at the deadline? It's better to have those assets than not have them. Chances are slim that a player drafted at 32 will end up being a star. And chances are slim that a player drafted at 32 will end up being more valuable than FOUR 2nd rounders
b) Even if all of those other bigs you wanted instead of Amari end up being better than him, it still doesn't prove that those other bigs would have been a good fit here in our system. How good certain players turn out in the NBA - a lot of it comes down to circumstance, like the circumstances with the team that drafted them. Are they a fit for that team's system? Is there enough playing time available for them? Were there any trades, FA signings or coaching changes which opened up more (or less) playing time for them? There's so many variables and difference between teams that it really doesn't make sense to say "oh, this player turned out better on some other team so therefore we made a bad trade by trading that pick away".
Like, we have no idea if that player would have had that same level of success in Boston.
Lastly, there's other factors here such as money and roster spots/flexibility. We were already picking at 28. And had 32. If we made that pick at 32, that's 2 guys we'd likely have to give guaranteed 4 year contracts to which is less flexibility than being able to give the 46th pick a 2-way contract. And on a team like the Celtics, we have lots of good players so it is hard to just hand over 2 of your 15 standard roster spots to unproven rookies..especially when 3 of our other roster spots are going to guys like Walsh, JD and Tillman who are either very unproven NBA players or they offer very little to no value on an NBA floor. But if you've got a good player who you have the flexibility to put on a 2-way (like Amari, like Queta and Peterson in previous years) you basically expand the size of your roster by 1 which makes a difference, especially with a few meh guys at the end of your bench offering little to no value.
And given our financial situation and how we're paying 2 guys supermax contracts, anything you can do to save some $ on the lower part of your roster helps..such as paying a guy much less $ who you drafted 46th than you would have had to pay a guy you draft at 32.
