Game Thread – Wizards @ Celtics – 7:30PM, Wed, Nov. 5, 2025

[Hal14]

That would be unfortunate.

Being a .500 team is the worst place to be - too good for a high draft pick or a chance to move into the top 4 picks with some lottery luck..and not good enough to contend for a title.

Even worse spot to be in a season like this, with such a loaded draft class coming up.

Potetiinally generational draft with zero chamce at winning title.

Only one logical outcome.

It looks like a great draft…but what really are the tiers? There looks like a pretty clear top 3 that is top prospects in any draft, and then we have really good options down into the late teens. There might be some tiers in that group, but it seems like being a .500 team this year you still have a good shot at drafting a stud. Top 20 feels like top 10 most years, and it seems deeper than last year.
That said sure you’d rather have a lotto shot at one of those top 3, I won’t be mad if we are picking in the teens.

Short answer is, who cares? These top 3 guys are so damn good that the best case scenario is being in the lottery to have a chance at drafting 1 of them.

Longer answer:

Tier 1:
The big 3

Tier 2:
4-8 range are also studs who could really change the trajectory of a franchise, have high upside but also lower floor. Less of a sure thing, and less upside as the top 3 guys

Tier 3:
9 to 15 range are some good prospects but probably just solid role players.

Tier 4:
16 to 40 range..around here the draft gets pretty flat where there's solid prospects, not great ones, just solid and very little separation among them..mine as well trade down to the 31-40 range, unless there's someone you *really* like in the 16-21 range and you don't think they will fall that far.

It's still very early on though, only November so this is subject to change.

[Celts17Pride]

Being a .500 team is the worst place to be - too good for a high draft pick or a chance to move into the top 4 picks with some lottery luck..and not good enough to contend for a title.

That's what this team is, win a few lose a few. Celtics are going to win 36-38 wins, they are just too good. Too many hungry guys trying to prove they belong in the NBA. Once DWhite and Pritchard start hitting shots they may even be better than that. Celtics won't tank.

[jmr07019]

Alex Sarr was the #2 pick in the 2024 draft. He's a 7'er who is putting up 17/8/4 on 53/35/81 shooting splits. Kinda scared of what he'll do to our frontline. If Queta wants to be a long term starter he needs to do a decent job on Sarr and not let him take over the game. The end of last game was obviously disappointing from Queta.

Wizards are also playing these guys a lot of minutes.
- Bub Carrington - 14th pick 2024 - 20 years old
- Kyshawn George - 24th pick, 2024 draft - 22 years old
- Bilal Coulibaly - 7th pick, 2023 draft - 21 years old
- Tre Johnson - 6th pick, 2025 draft - 19 years old

That's 5/6 of the top minute getters on Washington. I'm unfamiliar with all these guys.

Wizards are 1-6 having lost 5 straight. To be fair it's been a hard schedule for them. They last played Monday in NY.

Former tanker binky Marvin Bagley is also on the Wizards. He was one of those "Can't miss" prospects once upon a time. The year he was drafted Ayton went #1 overall. A good reminder that drafting is a roll of the dice.

[jonige94]

Unlosable game unfortunately, the Wizards tank game is only beaten by the Nets.

[Curmudgeon]

I think this game is very losable, and I can predict exactly what will happen.

The game will begin and the Celtics starters will build up a 10-12 point lead. Then halfway through the quarter they will take Queta and one of the starting guards out, and put in Garza and Simons. The will take out Minott and put Scheierman in. By the end of the quarter the game will be tied and it will go downhill whenever Simons is in the game and Queta is out. In the second half Brown will try to win the game all by himself and fail.

Alex Sarr is a stud, and the Celtics have no answer for him when Queta is on the bench.

[tfribs45]

Being a .500 team is the worst place to be - too good for a high draft pick or a chance to move into the top 4 picks with some lottery luck..and not good enough to contend for a title.

That's what this team is, win a few lose a few. Celtics are going to win 36-38 wins, they are just too good. Too many hungry guys trying to prove they belong in the NBA. Once DWhite and Pritchard start hitting shots they may even be better than that. Celtics won't tank.

AGREED, you don't have to tank to reload. Warriors been doing it for over a decade. How many different contending lineups have they put out their?

[Hal14]

Being a .500 team is the worst place to be - too good for a high draft pick or a chance to move into the top 4 picks with some lottery luck..and not good enough to contend for a title.

That's what this team is, win a few lose a few. Celtics are going to win 36-38 wins, they are just too good. Too many hungry guys trying to prove they belong in the NBA. Once DWhite and Pritchard start hitting shots they may even be better than that. Celtics won't tank.

AGREED, you don't have to tank to reload. Warriors been doing it for over a decade. How many different contending lineups have they put out their?

The Warriors went 29-53 in 08-09, putting themselves in position to draft Steph with the 7th pick. They won 4 titles with him and would have 0 without him.

They also tanked when KD, Steph and Klay had injuries..resulting in lottery picks in the 2020 and 2021 draft. With better drafting, those picks could have been Lamelo/Haliburton + Franz Wagner = Sengun..

[jmr07019]

Tanking implies finishing with a bottom 5 record. People would rightfully be pissed if the team was trying to tank and ended up with only the 7th worst record.

[playa-hater]

Tanking implies finishing with a bottom 5 record. People would rightfully be pissed if the team was trying to tank and ended up with only the 7th worst record.

Perhaps. But which is worse? Your scenario with us at 7 or Us trying and ending up with 13 or 14?

[Celts17Pride]

Tanking implies finishing with a bottom 5 record. People would rightfully be pissed if the team was trying to tank and ended up with only the 7th worst record.

Perhaps. But which is worse? Your scenario with us at 7 or Us trying and ending up with 13 or 14?

The better question is what is the most realistic?

[jfs1000d]

Can we at least agree that losing at home to Washington means we should be 100% on board with tanking!! I mean has there been a worse franchise for a decade now?

Not at all. Tank talk is way too early. We aren't even 10 games into the season. This team can win two straight and be back to the .500.

Agree.

JB is going to try to play 65 games so that he'll qualify for All-NBA teams.

If there's really nothing to look forward to then tank during the last 30 games of the season.

Right now it's too early.

Tankin is dumb. You wait until after all star break to do that.

Don't worry. We aren't good enough inside to be anything more than a 35 win team. And we are probably below that line since 35 is healthy.

I think we are headed to 30-52.


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[redslastlaugh]

Not at all. Tank talk is way too early. We aren't even 10 games into the season. This team can win two straight and be back to the .500.

Agree.

JB is going to try to play 65 games so that he'll qualify for All-NBA teams.

If there's really nothing to look forward to then tank during the last 30 games of the season.

Right now it's too early.

Tankin is dumb. You wait until after all star break to do that.

Don't worry. We aren't good enough inside to be anything more than a 35 win team. And we are probably below that line since 35 is healthy.

I think we are headed to 30-52.

I really am not looking forward toa 30-52 season. At least ticket prices will come down

I remember fondly the rebuild when Wyc/Ainge took over in 2003. They sort of tried at first to be competitive bringing in Raef Lafrentz, Antoine Walker and Gary Payton, but they pivoted into tankville after 2005. That team under Ainge had a lot of young, recently drafted players, so tuning in was fun even though the team was losing because we were seeing Marcus Banks, Perkins, Al Jefferson, TA, Delonte, Gerald Green, Telfair, Gomes etc so it was fun to see young guys and having hopes in them.

this team our players on rookie deals are Scheierman who is already >25 yrs old, Walsh and Hugo. And Hugo has a chance to me to be a good defensive wing, but otherwise we don't have the young kids who we can root for to become the next batch of stars.

Even the young vets we giving a chance to: Queta and Minott and Garza. Those players aren't locked up under favorable terms like Hugo is, so each of them could play this year and next and leave for more money because we don't have any matching rights, so it's not that same as Watching Al Jefferson and Kendrick Perkins twenty years ago ... (I'm just including Luka Garza so he doesn't feel left out, lol)

I just don't get that excited about watching a team win 30 games if we don't have team control over the guys we are developing, I guess

[strokerace]

The players we have now are ready to win another chip within the next 2-3 years.

So I don't understand the fascination of lottery picks.

Just look at Cooper Flagg.
Flagg is supposed to be a generational talent like Lebron.
So far Flagg has been underwhelming.
14 points per game?
Really???

How about the #1 pick Risacher?
He's certainly not looking like a #1 pick right now.

If Brad wanted lottery picks then he would have traded DWhite last June.

The better option is to surround the Jays with the right pieces.
We don't need another star player.
What the Cs need now are complementary players.

There's just too much luck involved when it comes to lottery picks.

Why do we need to actually use the pick to draft? Having even a top 10 pick gives us something to trade for a talented big with another team. I am just going with the flow this year but would like more playing time with the younger guys but Joe isn't having any of that. He wants wins at any cost. I am just hoping we play better than the last 2 games tonight.

[redslastlaugh]

The players we have now are ready to win another chip within the next 2-3 years.

So I don't understand the fascination of lottery picks.

Why do we need to actually use the pick to draft? Having even a top 10 pick gives us something to trade for a talented big with another team. I am just going with the flow this year but would like more playing time with the younger guys but Joe isn't having any of that. He wants wins at any cost. I am just hoping we play better than the last 2 games tonight.

We don't have to use the pick but impactful rookies, say top 5 picks, on rookie scale salary are better value, basically underpaid for four years, so it works better within our salary cap if we have a rookie. Like in the 2018 playoffs JT was our best player, but he was also a rookie making only $6 million, and ideally we could have a repeat of that circumstance with a great player on a 4yr rookie contract... but trading the pick would be an option too

[tfribs45]

That's what this team is, win a few lose a few. Celtics are going to win 36-38 wins, they are just too good. Too many hungry guys trying to prove they belong in the NBA. Once DWhite and Pritchard start hitting shots they may even be better than that. Celtics won't tank.

AGREED, you don't have to tank to reload. Warriors been doing it for over a decade. How many different contending lineups have they put out their?

The Warriors went 29-53 in 08-09, putting themselves in position to draft Steph with the 7th pick. They won 4 titles with him and would have 0 without him.

They also tanked when KD, Steph and Klay had injuries..resulting in lottery picks in the 2020 and 2021 draft. With better drafting, those picks could have been Lamelo/Haliburton + Franz Wagner = Sengun..

injuries happen, they didn't plan on tanking. Roster was depleted.....Unless this C's team gets the injury bug, I could see a playoff spot in the end. Time will tell, but I don't Forsee the effort changing let alone MMA Joey tanking, that's against all his beliefs! Tomorrows never guaranteed

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

Assuming Boston does not miss 40 threes and does not get out-rebounded by 22 should be a win.

NGL, really tough to get excited to watch these games especially since this a 35 win team at the most.

[darrendaye]

Assuming Boston does not miss 40 threes and does not get out-rebounded by 22 should be a win.

NGL, really tough to get excited to watch these games especially since this a 35 win team at the most.

I'm always going to be invested in the younger players' development. We'll see where things stand by the quarter mark. I'm very focused on Joe's rotations he's testing. Personally I don't think he's quite got the right strategy yet, but he's definitely testing a bunch still.

[darrendaye]

Was encouraged to see another game Minott was used as a multi-time screener and multi-time ball mover. Let's see how Gonzalez/Scheierman/Boucher plays out tonight.

[Fierce1]

It's just the shooting.

If the Cs return to form, shooting the 3, Cs will win games.

I think if Cs start to shoot well, they'll go on a run.

Maybe this could be the game that will be the start of something great.

[Hal14]

Tanking implies finishing with a bottom 5 record. People would rightfully be pissed if the team was trying to tank and ended up with only the 7th worst record.

As long as you're in the lottery, you've got a chance to get the no. 1 pick. So you could have the 14th worst record and still get the no. 1 pick.

Hawks were in the play-in tourney, then got no. 1 pick.

The worse the record though, the better you're lottery odds..