Austin Ainge: Celtics Draft was about keeping flexibility, not taking best player, so Celts could hold out for home run

[NelsonRules]

http://www.celticsblog.com/2016/8/14/12469656/austin-ainge-on-celtics-beat-we-were-holding-out-for-the-home-run

[165bows]

I read a summary of this on Twitter. Seemed like a good interview.

Good take on the offseason.

[Froob]

Headline looks worse than it is, needed to save money to go for KD + Horford.

[Green89]

Biggest point in this article to me is what I've pretty much been saying since draft night. Did Ainge lose out on making lesser potential deals because he was too busy swinging for the fences? Something we'll never know.

What’s surprising is the Celtics may never have seriously sought complementary pieces like Jahlil Okafor, Gordon Hayward, and other often-mentioned names. They were holding out for the “home run,”

[chakdaddy]

Reasonable swing and miss...but rather than stash Yabusele I'd draft Skal and trade or Even cut him if we needed space for KD. Not much of a bigger waste than Yabu who won't sniff an NBA rotation.

[gammajamma]

Reasonable swing and miss...but rather than stash Yabusele I'd draft Skal and trade or Even cut him if we needed space for KD. Not much of a bigger waste than Yabu who won't sniff an NBA rotation.

I got a very different impression of Yabu in the summer league, he looks like someone who could contribute down the line.

[Captain_Caveman]

I don't mind staying patient and not overpaying for a guy. Don't even mind passing on trades that make marginal improvements, but goddamn at taking lesser draft picks to preserve flexibility.

Failed strategy in the short-term, and detrimental in the long-term. You just don't leave better players on the board.

[Homerclease]

I don't mind staying patient and not overpaying for a guy. Don't even mind passing on trades that make marginal improvements, but goddamn at taking lesser draft picks to preserve flexibility.

Failed strategy in the short-term, and detrimental in the long-term. You just don't leave better players on the board.

Agreed, this to me confirms my stance that we didn't even bother trying to move up to 8 with Sacto for Chriss. Very disappointing

[DK-All Day]

I don't mind staying patient and not overpaying for a guy. Don't even mind passing on trades that make marginal improvements, but goddamn at taking lesser draft picks to preserve flexibility.

Failed strategy in the short-term, and detrimental in the long-term. You just don't leave better players on the board.

Agreed, this to me confirms my stance that we didn't even bother trying to move up to 8 with Sacto for Chriss. Very disappointing

Disappointing if true. Boston could've easily beat out Phoenix's offer. This team needs all of the young talent it can get. If it came down to it, making room for Durant would've been easy.

[jfs1000d]

Reasonable swing and miss...but rather than stash Yabusele I'd draft Skal and trade or Even cut him if we needed space for KD. Not much of a bigger waste than Yabu who won't sniff an NBA rotation.

10000 disagree. Kid can play.


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[chakdaddy]

Reasonable swing and miss...but rather than stash Yabusele I'd draft Skal and trade or Even cut him if we needed space for KD. Not much of a bigger waste than Yabu who won't sniff an NBA rotation.

10000 disagree. Kid can play.


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I just can't see a ceiling beyond Ryan Gomes, an OK bench guy who would be a nice 2nd round hit. But at 16, aim higher. We have a million 2nd round darts to throw at Yabus.

[Chris4Vikes]

Reasonable swing and miss...but rather than stash Yabusele I'd draft Skal and trade or Even cut him if we needed space for KD. Not much of a bigger waste than Yabu who won't sniff an NBA rotation.

10000 disagree. Kid can play.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

I just can't see a ceiling beyond Ryan Gomes, an OK bench guy who would be a nice 2nd round hit. But at 16, aim higher. We have a million 2nd round darts to throw at Yabus.

I like Brown pick a lot. But rest of draft was horrid and disgraceful. There were guys at 16 we should have taken. Ellenson would have been my pick. But apparently Stevens is incapable of developing 2 rookies at once? My goodness.

[GregB]

10000 disagree. Kid can play.


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I just can't see a ceiling beyond Ryan Gomes, an OK bench guy who would be a nice 2nd round hit. But at 16, aim higher. We have a million 2nd round darts to throw at Yabus.

I like Brown pick a lot. But rest of draft was horrid and disgraceful. There were guys at 16 we should have taken. Ellenson would have been my pick. But apparently Stevens is incapable of developing 2 rookies at once? My goodness.

That's pretty weak analysis. Had we not draft and stashed. We would be talking about developing 9 guys drafted over the last two years. With Kelly and Marcus on top of that. We will see how it all turns out. Chris looked pretty athletic but physically he looked like more of 3 to me. Which seems pretty redundant when you just picked Jaylen Brown.

[Wes-J]

Chriss is a nice prospect but far from the kind that's a lock to be a frontline player.

[Taget]

At #8 I might have taken Sabonis over Chriss.

It's obvious that Ainges was going for a stash strategy. I question whether Yabusele was the right guy to pick to stash. Then again Zizic was high on my list and I would not have complained about taking him at 16. So I am not all that upset that we took him at 23 instead. But might have preferred Furkan Korkmaz as the other stash. But I don't have a terrible degree of confidence in either making much of an impact.

[Andrew McCeltic]

The headline does wrongly imply that Jaylen was a 'flexibility' pick. I didn't get that from the article at all.

16/23/31 may be tough to defend going forward. I feel like we poured so much time into getting the third pick right (I think we did, but it's early) that the rest stayed on the back burner and were under-cooked. The stash-ability was a big factor, and I love the potential with both guys. But it was such an even draft that we may be spending a decade going "Why did we pass on Henry Ellenson at 16? WTF Ainge".

Guys in the mix at 23- Luwawu, Korkmaz, Siakam, Skal- even Dejounte and Damian Jones- could all make an impact. Luwawu is flashy and athletic, but I'm safe betting he's Pietrus-caliber. We've seen Korkmaz types before, he's more likely to bust than be a star. Siam's interesting, but I'd take Zizic over him. Skal is weird, interesting, would probably still take Zizic.

The guys at 31, though- we traded that pick for a future protected 1st because we had to- but passed on Deyonta and Zubac. Even 35 would've been a flyer on Diamond Stone or Zhou Qi. The 31 could absolutely kill us, Deyonta is a wild card, could boom or bust- but Zubac looks skilled, possibly better than Zizic. Both would've been great. But we're not the ones making the calls, don't have the same information.

[Patsfan1081]

The headline does wrongly imply that Jaylen was a 'flexibility' pick. I didn't get that from the article at all.

16/23/31 may be tough to defend going forward. I feel like we poured so much time into getting the third pick right (I think we did, but it's early) that the rest stayed on the back burner and were under-cooked. The stash-ability was a big factor, and I love the potential with both guys. But it was such an even draft that we may be spending a decade going "Why did we pass on Henry Ellenson at 16? WTF Ainge".

Guys in the mix at 23- Luwawu, Korkmaz, Siakam, Skal- even Dejounte and Damian Jones- could all make an impact. Luwawu is flashy and athletic, but I'm safe betting he's Pietrus-caliber. We've seen Korkmaz types before, he's more likely to bust than be a star. Siam's interesting, but I'd take Zizic over him. Skal is weird, interesting, would probably still take Zizic.

The guys at 31, though- we traded that pick for a future protected 1st because we had to- but passed on Deyonta and Zubac. Even 35 would've been a flyer on Diamond Stone or Zhou Qi. The 31 could absolutely kill us, Deyonta is a wild card, could boom or bust- but Zubac looks skilled, possibly better than Zizic. Both would've been great. But we're not the ones making the calls, don't have the same information.

My opinion is I hated this draft, yes I understand how their cap situation is and how they want to remain flexible but the idea of not taking the best player available and "Ainge's type of player" just bugs me. I really liked Zizic going into the draft, he might be the best young rebounder in Europe, what's irritates me is Boston did zip to fix their shooting and rebounding problems. This would have been the perfect season to have a young center developing with the team and they had plenty of chances to grab one in this draft. However they chose two stash options early on in the draft and decided to add two roster players with their late second round picks, sounds upside down to me. You could have used the 16th to trade up or stay put and picked up one of many bugs that fell in the first. I would have even been fine if the used the 16th,23rd, and 31st on Yab, Zizic, and Zubac as long as they brought either Zubac or Zizic over to develope as a back up center. Yes they have a lot of young players to develope but honestly how many of the will contribute as at least a rotational player. Young, Hunter, Iverson, Mickey, Jackson, Bentil, Thorton, Nader, that's eight players drafted in the last three years that have a very good chance of not becoming even a role player for this team. Just way too many so called "assets" that are being wasted, they need to do more with those picks then just bodies for camp.

[Patsfan1081]

At #8 I might have taken Sabonis over Chriss.

It's obvious that Ainges was going for a stash strategy. I question whether Yabusele was the right guy to pick to stash. Then again Zizic was high on my list and I would not have complained about taking him at 16. So I am not all that upset that we took him at 23 instead. But might have preferred Furkan Korkmaz as the other stash. But I don't have a terrible degree of confidence in either making much of an impact.

It's easy to say we aren't GM's so we know very little but I question if in a couple seasons Zubac ends up as a better player then Yabsule, then what would have been the difference between stashing a player at 16 rather than 31, the extra cash they wanted to save for a max player? I don't mind the stash strategy, I just didn't like the picks they used to do it.

[Chris4Vikes]

After the 3rd pick, this draft was horrible. 7 more picks and the best player taken after Brown was Jackson at 45. A 4th PG.

I'll be watching the careers of Ellenson, Richardson, Skal, Davis, etc. very closely.

The off-season still gets a B+ from me because I think they nailed free agency (Horford) and Brown. The two most important pieces. But I feel a great opportunity was thrown away (16, 23, 31, 35). Ainge spent years acquiring those picks to cast them aside.

I understand that the Cs can't develop 8 rookies. How about 2 or 3? Cut Young. If the Cs can give Jackson guaranteed money at 45, why can't they give money to Ellenson?

DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

Could it be that they needed to save a roster spot for KD, just in case? If so, this infuriates me. Someone needs to show me the math where KD is not sign-able if Ainge drafts Ellenson or Richardson at 16.

[cl2117]

After the 3rd pick, this draft was horrible. 7 more picks and the best player taken after Brown was Jackson at 45. A 4th PG.

I'll be watching the careers of Ellenson, Richardson, Skal, Davis, etc. very closely.

The off-season still gets a B+ from me because I think they nailed free agency (Horford) and Brown. The two most important pieces. But I feel a great opportunity was thrown away (16, 23, 31, 35). Ainge spent years acquiring those picks to cast them aside.

I understand that the Cs can't develop 8 rookies. How about 2 or 3? Cut Young. If the Cs can give Jackson guaranteed money at 45, why can't they give money to Ellenson?

DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

Could it be that they needed to save a roster spot for KD, just in case? If so, this infuriates me. Someone needs to show me the math where KD is not sign-able if Ainge drafts Ellenson or Richardson at 16.

Zizic wasn't a bad pick, especially as far as stashes go. His upside is debatable, but I don't think he was a reach at #23 and I think he definitely comes over so it's not a case of one of those guys you never get to see. I would have rather he had taken Skal, Davis or Luwauwu there, but I think he was a good value pick there.

He's gonna end up like Olynyk, someone who went after him is going to be a beast a la Giannis and we are going to kick ourselves for not taking them, but I think he himself will still be at least a solid rotation piece.

The Yabs pick was the big head scratcher for me. I was really hoping it was going to come out that other teams were interested because he was a sleeper and they took him at #16 to ensure they didn't miss out, but it looks like Danny just said f' it I want him and took him. Reminds me of the Rozier/Hunter picks where I would have actually been happier with Zizic at #16 and Yabs at #23. Zizic is a reach there and Yabs is still a reach at #23, but at least it'd make more sense.

I agree though, I'm definitely going to be watching Ellenson, Richardson, Skal, Davis and also Luwawu, Korkmaz and Qi. I was really excited that we might be able to swing a trade to consolidate our young pieces and then fill in a 2-4 rookies that I could get excited about. I think it's thread-worthy to follow the could-have-drafteds' like Davis and Skal and see where they end up.