Washburn: Coaching Staff Felt Helpless to Solve Locker Room Issues

[CeltsfanSinceBirth]

Looking back at it......Brad's job was impossible, just like Terry said. Just look at all of the players' and their motivations. It was going to be impossible to achieve all of these and blend them with team goals.

1. Kyrie - wants his chance to be the number 1 guy. Also wants to get paid, so he needs his shots. To be fair to him, he shot at roughly the same rate as he did last season (20.3FGA/per 36 vs 20.2 FGA/per 36 this year), but he managed to lower his usage rate while upping his assist totals. Kyrie tried to fit in. He failed at leadership though.

2. Jaylen and Jayson - the 2 young guns, who read a lot of press clippings over the summer about how they were going to either be Boston's future, or likely shipped out in the future for another All-Star to pair with Kyrie. These guys are young, are on their rookie deals, and looking to make names for themselves. Their FGA/per 36 minutes increased this season. These guys didn't sacrifice any shot attempts this year. Jaylen went from 13.4 FGA/36 last year to 14.5 FGA/36 this year. Tatum went from 12.3 up to 15.2 FGA/per 36 this season. Both kids weren't shy.

3. Marcus Morris - another FA to be. 29 years old, and probably looking at his last chance for a big contract while he's in his prime this summer. Just became a dad. Of course he wants the ball - so he can get paid. He shot slightly less FGA/per 36 minutes this year as he did last year. 14.5 FGA/36min this year compared to 15.2 FGA/36 last season. Well, at least he tried.

4. Terry Rozier - fresh off of last year's successful sales of Scary Terry shirts, which then led him to getting a pretty good Puma deal - another FA to be, also a young player who now feels he's capable of starting. Terry also wants to get paid. When he said he sacrificed a lot - well, it looks like Terry did try, chopping his FGA per 36 min rate from 13.9 last season, down to 13.4 FGA/36 minutes this season. Slightly increased his assists/36 minutes as well.

So for all of this talk about sacrificing, the only guys who took a real backseat in terms of FGA per 36 minutes this season were Marcus Smart (not a shocker, because Smart doesn't care about offense) and Gordon Hayward, who looked timid all season and seemed more concerned about fitting in, rather than being himself. Even Al shot the ball roughly the same amount as last season.

And it also looks like Brad's main thing all season was, instead of reigning in his players, he decided to try to keep them all happy by just upping the pace, which would then lead to more FGA to spread around. Sounds good on paper, but if you watched even just 25% of the games this year, it would explain all of the terrible possessions where the ball would be passed once and the team would just take the first open shot it saw. Really, Brad was going to lose at this no matter what. Who does he reign in?

Does he tell Kyrie to shoot less? Nope. Gotta suck up to him to make sure he stays. He is, after all, the most talented player on the team. Do you curb the shot attempts for Jaylen and Jayson? No, because that destroys their confidence. At the very least, you hurt their trade value. Do you get Mook to lower his FGA? You can try, but you already know, based on last season, that Mook can get very grumpy. What about Rozier? Sure, but you also know that he's going to sulk. There were just way too many personal agendas to blend in with the main team goal - winning.

Looking at all of these factors, we can blame Brad for not manning up and taking control. However, the more I look at it, the onus was on Ainge to do something. Mook had already asked for a trade before the season began. What was the point of letting him stay and eat up minutes at the 3/4 spots, when realistically, we weren't going to be able to keep him beyond this season? And Terry Rozier was another guy who was going to leave anyways, since Ainge's primary goal has always been to retain Kyrie. Terry wasn't going to stick around to come off the bench. Last but not least, Ainge has worked with Brad for 5, going on 6, seasons. At that point, maybe Ainge should have known that Brad wasn't going to tell guys to STFU and shoot less. He didn't have that kind of control in the locker room.

TL;DR - Brad is too nice to yell at players, so his solution in keeping everyone happy was to up the pace. No one really took less FGA despite introducing 2 players back into the rotation. Ainge should have really cleared some logjams during the summer because Brad doesn't want to take away from his players' confidence.

[TheOGJabroni]

We tried to build a team similar to the Warriors where they are free flowing on offense and guys get their shots in, without sacrificing team ball, but that is just a once-in-a-lifetime type team & nearly impossible to replicate.

They have, perhaps, the greatest shooter of all time in Steph Curry & one of the best scorers this league has seen in Kevin Durant. On top of this, Klay Thompson is the closest thing to Ray Allen in his ability to impact the offense without ever touching the ball for more than a second or two. Draymond Green may be one of the least selfish bigs in the game, too.

So it's easy for their supporting cast to take a back seat, because there's no questioning the totem pole there. They also had a nice blend of vets that just want to win at this point (no additional individual motives) and youth that quite frankly, aren't as good as ours & weren't taking away shots from the stars of their team.

In comparison, Kyrie & Al is not too far off from Curry & Green, but none of Brown, Tatum or Hayward can impact the game like Durant does from the wing position. And we, in no shape or form, have the equivalent player to Thompson (like we did ten years ago with Ray), that is willing to sacrifice touches and shots like he is.

I think it's time go all in, as long as we can get Kyrie to commit, & make the trade for AD. Trading off two of Tatum, Brown and Smart (plus whatever picks necessary) provides us with more elite talent ready to win now & gives us a better balance.

It's not perfect & I'm taking some liberties here but for comparison's sake:
1a. Davis = Durant
1b. Kyrie = Curry
3. Hayward = Thompson
4. Horford = Green

Their is a clear pecking order here. From there, you surround these players with role players that can impact the game without scoring.

[Joshyjess]

Looking back at it......Brad's job was impossible, just like Terry said. Just look at all of the players' and their motivations. It was going to be impossible to achieve all of these and blend them with team goals.

1. Kyrie - wants his chance to be the number 1 guy. Also wants to get paid, so he needs his shots. To be fair to him, he shot at roughly the same rate as he did last season (20.3FGA/per 36 vs 20.2 FGA/per 36 this year), but he managed to lower his usage rate while upping his assist totals. Kyrie tried to fit in. He failed at leadership though.

2. Jaylen and Jayson - the 2 young guns, who read a lot of press clippings over the summer about how they were going to either be Boston's future, or likely shipped out in the future for another All-Star to pair with Kyrie. These guys are young, are on their rookie deals, and looking to make names for themselves. Their FGA/per 36 minutes increased this season. These guys didn't sacrifice any shot attempts this year. Jaylen went from 13.4 FGA/36 last year to 14.5 FGA/36 this year. Tatum went from 12.3 up to 15.2 FGA/per 36 this season. Both kids weren't shy.

3. Marcus Morris - another FA to be. 29 years old, and probably looking at his last chance for a big contract while he's in his prime this summer. Just became a dad. Of course he wants the ball - so he can get paid. He shot slightly less FGA/per 36 minutes this year as he did last year. 14.5 FGA/36min this year compared to 15.2 FGA/36 last season. Well, at least he tried.

4. Terry Rozier - fresh off of last year's successful sales of Scary Terry shirts, which then led him to getting a pretty good Puma deal - another FA to be, also a young player who now feels he's capable of starting. Terry also wants to get paid. When he said he sacrificed a lot - well, it looks like Terry did try, chopping his FGA per 36 min rate from 13.9 last season, down to 13.4 FGA/36 minutes this season. Slightly increased his assists/36 minutes as well.

So for all of this talk about sacrificing, the only guys who took a real backseat in terms of FGA per 36 minutes this season were Marcus Smart (not a shocker, because Smart doesn't care about offense) and Gordon Hayward, who looked timid all season and seemed more concerned about fitting in, rather than being himself. Even Al shot the ball roughly the same amount as last season.

And it also looks like Brad's main thing all season was, instead of reigning in his players, he decided to try to keep them all happy by just upping the pace, which would then lead to more FGA to spread around. Sounds good on paper, but if you watched even just 25% of the games this year, it would explain all of the terrible possessions where the ball would be passed once and the team would just take the first open shot it saw. Really, Brad was going to lose at this no matter what. Who does he reign in?

Does he tell Kyrie to shoot less? Nope. Gotta suck up to him to make sure he stays. He is, after all, the most talented player on the team. Do you curb the shot attempts for Jaylen and Jayson? No, because that destroys their confidence. At the very least, you hurt their trade value. Do you get Mook to lower his FGA? You can try, but you already know, based on last season, that Mook can get very grumpy. What about Rozier? Sure, but you also know that he's going to sulk. There were just way too many personal agendas to blend in with the main team goal - winning.

Looking at all of these factors, we can blame Brad for not manning up and taking control. However, the more I look at it, the onus was on Ainge to do something. Mook had already asked for a trade before the season began. What was the point of letting him stay and eat up minutes at the 3/4 spots, when realistically, we weren't going to be able to keep him beyond this season? And Terry Rozier was another guy who was going to leave anyways, since Ainge's primary goal has always been to retain Kyrie. Terry wasn't going to stick around to come off the bench. Last but not least, Ainge has worked with Brad for 5, going on 6, seasons. At that point, maybe Ainge should have known that Brad wasn't going to tell guys to STFU and shoot less. He didn't have that kind of control in the locker room.

TL;DR - Brad is too nice to yell at players, so his solution in keeping everyone happy was to up the pace. No one really took less FGA despite introducing 2 players back into the rotation. Ainge should have really cleared some logjams during the summer because Brad doesn't want to take away from his players' confidence.

Well put!
The only thing I would add to all that is instead of helping the situation, Ainge actually threw a bucket of gasoline on the fire with all the mid-season talk about guys being traded for Davis. What was already a very brittle situation, now became a down-right toxic environment. Good luck handling that Brad

[UNCBlue012]

We don't need to blow the team up, but a mini-rebuild would probably be for the best if we can't retain Kyrie and grab Davis.

[Andrew McCeltic]

I'm paraphrasing here, but "Stevens didn't pay attention to Jaylen's and Jayson's feelings?" and "they need a coach who can be a "big brother" to the players?" What the **** is this, kindergarten? I understand some of these guys are 22 and some of them are older (and every age in between), but come on...these are grown ass men getting paid millions of dollars to play a game. Be a professional and figure it out FFS! I'm not saying Brad is blameless in this, he's not and he rightfully accepted responsibility for what happened. But the players bear a lot of the blame for this season...more than Brad does, IMO.

Stupidity like this is why the NBA is so much harder to watch and be a fan of than it was even 10 years ago let alone when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. You don't see this kind of millennial garbage in the NFL or MLB or NHL, even from the young superstars, but that's because the players don't run those leagues the way they do in the NBA. It's truly a case of the inmates running the asylum and it's tiresome.

/rant over

Idk, at least from the outside, the NBA looks the least like that it's ever been. Since 2008 there's been much more of an emphasis on team play, and having stars sacrifice. The only problem team I can think of was the Harden/Dwight pairing - and that wasn't about coaches. This year was a little worse with Butler's reality TV show and the Bulls' roster feuding with their replacement coach, but NBA drama, especially with headstrong or unhappy players, has been muted for a decade. Cousins is the only other example.. 20 years ago it was much worse.

[SichtingLives]

Looking back at it......Brad's job was impossible, just like Terry said. Just look at all of the players' and their motivations. It was going to be impossible to achieve all of these and blend them with team goals.

1. Kyrie - wants his chance to be the number 1 guy. Also wants to get paid, so he needs his shots. To be fair to him, he shot at roughly the same rate as he did last season (20.3FGA/per 36 vs 20.2 FGA/per 36 this year), but he managed to lower his usage rate while upping his assist totals. Kyrie tried to fit in. He failed at leadership though.

2. Jaylen and Jayson - the 2 young guns, who read a lot of press clippings over the summer about how they were going to either be Boston's future, or likely shipped out in the future for another All-Star to pair with Kyrie. These guys are young, are on their rookie deals, and looking to make names for themselves. Their FGA/per 36 minutes increased this season. These guys didn't sacrifice any shot attempts this year. Jaylen went from 13.4 FGA/36 last year to 14.5 FGA/36 this year. Tatum went from 12.3 up to 15.2 FGA/per 36 this season. Both kids weren't shy.

3. Marcus Morris - another FA to be. 29 years old, and probably looking at his last chance for a big contract while he's in his prime this summer. Just became a dad. Of course he wants the ball - so he can get paid. He shot slightly less FGA/per 36 minutes this year as he did last year. 14.5 FGA/36min this year compared to 15.2 FGA/36 last season. Well, at least he tried.

4. Terry Rozier - fresh off of last year's successful sales of Scary Terry shirts, which then led him to getting a pretty good Puma deal - another FA to be, also a young player who now feels he's capable of starting. Terry also wants to get paid. When he said he sacrificed a lot - well, it looks like Terry did try, chopping his FGA per 36 min rate from 13.9 last season, down to 13.4 FGA/36 minutes this season. Slightly increased his assists/36 minutes as well.

So for all of this talk about sacrificing, the only guys who took a real backseat in terms of FGA per 36 minutes this season were Marcus Smart (not a shocker, because Smart doesn't care about offense) and Gordon Hayward, who looked timid all season and seemed more concerned about fitting in, rather than being himself. Even Al shot the ball roughly the same amount as last season.

And it also looks like Brad's main thing all season was, instead of reigning in his players, he decided to try to keep them all happy by just upping the pace, which would then lead to more FGA to spread around. Sounds good on paper, but if you watched even just 25% of the games this year, it would explain all of the terrible possessions where the ball would be passed once and the team would just take the first open shot it saw. Really, Brad was going to lose at this no matter what. Who does he reign in?

Does he tell Kyrie to shoot less? Nope. Gotta suck up to him to make sure he stays. He is, after all, the most talented player on the team. Do you curb the shot attempts for Jaylen and Jayson? No, because that destroys their confidence. At the very least, you hurt their trade value. Do you get Mook to lower his FGA? You can try, but you already know, based on last season, that Mook can get very grumpy. What about Rozier? Sure, but you also know that he's going to sulk. There were just way too many personal agendas to blend in with the main team goal - winning.

Looking at all of these factors, we can blame Brad for not manning up and taking control. However, the more I look at it, the onus was on Ainge to do something. Mook had already asked for a trade before the season began. What was the point of letting him stay and eat up minutes at the 3/4 spots, when realistically, we weren't going to be able to keep him beyond this season? And Terry Rozier was another guy who was going to leave anyways, since Ainge's primary goal has always been to retain Kyrie. Terry wasn't going to stick around to come off the bench. Last but not least, Ainge has worked with Brad for 5, going on 6, seasons. At that point, maybe Ainge should have known that Brad wasn't going to tell guys to STFU and shoot less. He didn't have that kind of control in the locker room.

TL;DR - Brad is too nice to yell at players, so his solution in keeping everyone happy was to up the pace. No one really took less FGA despite introducing 2 players back into the rotation. Ainge should have really cleared some logjams during the summer because Brad doesn't want to take away from his players' confidence.

Great take and great read on what we all witnessed, regardless of how many people refused to see it. Props to everyone who was all over this from the jump and a final towel of shame for the doomsday deniers or whatever it is that outfit was about. Roster construction = terrible. Red PopoJackson wouldn't have done **** with this mess of colliding agendas. Not sure what motivated the odd reads of this team all year but a concerted effort of focusing on the product itself and less doubling down on hot takes followed by more doubling down on the same poor takes would go a long way towards the overall quality of this forum.

[GoGreen]

Danny really should've traded Morris, and maybe Terry. Sometimes he did things that are brilliant, sometimes he does things that make you scratch your head.

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

I love the talk of bringing Perk in as well because you know a huge dude who a was a pretty bad basketball player is just the person to set Irving straight.

[MyInsatiableOne]

I'm paraphrasing here, but "Stevens didn't pay attention to Jaylen's and Jayson's feelings?" and "they need a coach who can be a "big brother" to the players?" What the **** is this, kindergarten? I understand some of these guys are 22 and some of them are older (and every age in between), but come on...these are grown ass men getting paid millions of dollars to play a game. Be a professional and figure it out FFS! I'm not saying Brad is blameless in this, he's not and he rightfully accepted responsibility for what happened. But the players bear a lot of the blame for this season...more than Brad does, IMO.

Stupidity like this is why the NBA is so much harder to watch and be a fan of than it was even 10 years ago let alone when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. You don't see this kind of millennial garbage in the NFL or MLB or NHL, even from the young superstars, but that's because the players don't run those leagues the way they do in the NBA. It's truly a case of the inmates running the asylum and it's tiresome.

/rant over

Idk, at least from the outside, the NBA looks the least like that it's ever been. Since 2008 there's been much more of an emphasis on team play, and having stars sacrifice. The only problem team I can think of was the Harden/Dwight pairing - and that wasn't about coaches. This year was a little worse with Butler's reality TV show and the Bulls' roster feuding with their replacement coach, but NBA drama, especially with headstrong or unhappy players, has been muted for a decade. Cousins is the only other example.. 20 years ago it was much worse.

You think so? What about all of the super-teaming and players openly tampering to get their buddies to play with them, coach killing, etc. It's been bad like that for at least the last 20 years but it seems to have accelerated over the last decade starting with all of that Lebron/The Decision garbage. Also I'm just not a big fan of the style of play prevalent in the league these days...

[soxfan2003]

Looking back at it......Brad's job was impossible, just like Terry said. Just look at all of the players' and their motivations. It was going to be impossible to achieve all of these and blend them with team goals.

1. Kyrie - wants his chance to be the number 1 guy. Also wants to get paid, so he needs his shots. To be fair to him, he shot at roughly the same rate as he did last season (20.3FGA/per 36 vs 20.2 FGA/per 36 this year), but he managed to lower his usage rate while upping his assist totals. Kyrie tried to fit in. He failed at leadership though.

2. Jaylen and Jayson - the 2 young guns, who read a lot of press clippings over the summer about how they were going to either be Boston's future, or likely shipped out in the future for another All-Star to pair with Kyrie. These guys are young, are on their rookie deals, and looking to make names for themselves. Their FGA/per 36 minutes increased this season. These guys didn't sacrifice any shot attempts this year. Jaylen went from 13.4 FGA/36 last year to 14.5 FGA/36 this year. Tatum went from 12.3 up to 15.2 FGA/per 36 this season. Both kids weren't shy.

3. Marcus Morris - another FA to be. 29 years old, and probably looking at his last chance for a big contract while he's in his prime this summer. Just became a dad. Of course he wants the ball - so he can get paid. He shot slightly less FGA/per 36 minutes this year as he did last year. 14.5 FGA/36min this year compared to 15.2 FGA/36 last season. Well, at least he tried.

4. Terry Rozier - fresh off of last year's successful sales of Scary Terry shirts, which then led him to getting a pretty good Puma deal - another FA to be, also a young player who now feels he's capable of starting. Terry also wants to get paid. When he said he sacrificed a lot - well, it looks like Terry did try, chopping his FGA per 36 min rate from 13.9 last season, down to 13.4 FGA/36 minutes this season. Slightly increased his assists/36 minutes as well.

So for all of this talk about sacrificing, the only guys who took a real backseat in terms of FGA per 36 minutes this season were Marcus Smart (not a shocker, because Smart doesn't care about offense) and Gordon Hayward, who looked timid all season and seemed more concerned about fitting in, rather than being himself. Even Al shot the ball roughly the same amount as last season.

And it also looks like Brad's main thing all season was, instead of reigning in his players, he decided to try to keep them all happy by just upping the pace, which would then lead to more FGA to spread around. Sounds good on paper, but if you watched even just 25% of the games this year, it would explain all of the terrible possessions where the ball would be passed once and the team would just take the first open shot it saw. Really, Brad was going to lose at this no matter what. Who does he reign in?

Does he tell Kyrie to shoot less? Nope. Gotta suck up to him to make sure he stays. He is, after all, the most talented player on the team. Do you curb the shot attempts for Jaylen and Jayson? No, because that destroys their confidence. At the very least, you hurt their trade value. Do you get Mook to lower his FGA? You can try, but you already know, based on last season, that Mook can get very grumpy. What about Rozier? Sure, but you also know that he's going to sulk. There were just way too many personal agendas to blend in with the main team goal - winning.

Looking at all of these factors, we can blame Brad for not manning up and taking control. However, the more I look at it, the onus was on Ainge to do something. Mook had already asked for a trade before the season began. What was the point of letting him stay and eat up minutes at the 3/4 spots, when realistically, we weren't going to be able to keep him beyond this season? And Terry Rozier was another guy who was going to leave anyways, since Ainge's primary goal has always been to retain Kyrie. Terry wasn't going to stick around to come off the bench. Last but not least, Ainge has worked with Brad for 5, going on 6, seasons. At that point, maybe Ainge should have known that Brad wasn't going to tell guys to STFU and shoot less. He didn't have that kind of control in the locker room.

TL;DR - Brad is too nice to yell at players, so his solution in keeping everyone happy was to up the pace. No one really took less FGA despite introducing 2 players back into the rotation. Ainge should have really cleared some logjams during the summer because Brad doesn't want to take away from his players' confidence.

Stevens had an impossible job from 1 aspect. Team if everyone healthy wasn't going to live up to its talent level Needed Tatum or Hayward or Brown to be a center. Too many SF's but not enough high quality help for Horford. When Horford not on court vs Milwaukee, Celtics destroyed.

But that being said from admittedly my outsider's perspective, I don't think Brad had an impossible job at all to get this team to play moderately better and to incentivize better team play. Among many other things, he just had to define "bad shot" and consistently enforce it against everybody including Kyrie Irving. A little more rope for Kyrie since he is a great shooter but a bad shot is Tatum taking deep 2's, Kyrie taking fallaway 20 ft shots while covered with more than 5 seconds on the shot clock. Brown driving into a wall that he should see in advance while someone is open for a corner 3.

And get on Hayward in the playoffs if he isn't helping out on D enough. Take Irving/Tatum or anyone else out of the game rather consistently if they are not getting back on D when they should.

Flat out tell Rozier that he can't be taken contested 3's early in shot clock. If he does, the 3rd string PG comes in.

Give Bucks 70% of the credit since they were the superior team but the Celtics did not play up to their talent level vs Milwaukee.

I have seen more outgunned Celtics team like the 35 year old Dominique led team put up better efforts and that team was a 35 win team facing a Shaq led team that went to the finals. For that era at least, Celtics played smart/unselfish basketball and tried their best on both ends. Lost 3-1 but a few losses competitive. Talent disparity greater than the Bucks series.

Finally, Stevens should have let the team directly know in front of everyone that Horford is old in NBA terms and having to deal with knee issues so he isn't expecting max effort out of the guy in some areas during regular season and that Hayward is working his way back from injury so he may be a negative on the court for a while but the plan is to have him and everyone else playing at their highest level by playoffs.

I am sure Stevens communicated some of this stuff but I suspect not wanting to step on Kyrie's toes and Stevens demeanor hurt him with a roster like this where he just assumed the players would figure it out.

[Andrew McCeltic]

I'm paraphrasing here, but "Stevens didn't pay attention to Jaylen's and Jayson's feelings?" and "they need a coach who can be a "big brother" to the players?" What the **** is this, kindergarten? I understand some of these guys are 22 and some of them are older (and every age in between), but come on...these are grown ass men getting paid millions of dollars to play a game. Be a professional and figure it out FFS! I'm not saying Brad is blameless in this, he's not and he rightfully accepted responsibility for what happened. But the players bear a lot of the blame for this season...more than Brad does, IMO.

Stupidity like this is why the NBA is so much harder to watch and be a fan of than it was even 10 years ago let alone when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. You don't see this kind of millennial garbage in the NFL or MLB or NHL, even from the young superstars, but that's because the players don't run those leagues the way they do in the NBA. It's truly a case of the inmates running the asylum and it's tiresome.

/rant over

Idk, at least from the outside, the NBA looks the least like that it's ever been. Since 2008 there's been much more of an emphasis on team play, and having stars sacrifice. The only problem team I can think of was the Harden/Dwight pairing - and that wasn't about coaches. This year was a little worse with Butler's reality TV show and the Bulls' roster feuding with their replacement coach, but NBA drama, especially with headstrong or unhappy players, has been muted for a decade. Cousins is the only other example.. 20 years ago it was much worse.

You think so? What about all of the super-teaming and players openly tampering to get their buddies to play with them, coach killing, etc. It's been bad like that for at least the last 20 years but it seems to have accelerated over the last decade starting with all of that Lebron/The Decision garbage. Also I'm just not a big fan of the style of play prevalent in the league these days...

The super-teaming is annoying, I’ve gotten used to it - but that’s just an abandonment of Bird, Jordan style competitiveness - we’d have to count examples of players getting coaches removed - my memory is probably wrong, but says that’s declined lately, too - Lebron/Blatt and Carmelo/D’Antoni are the only examples coming to mind..

[truth18]

Looking back at it......Brad's job was impossible, just like Terry said. Just look at all of the players' and their motivations. It was going to be impossible to achieve all of these and blend them with team goals.

1. Kyrie - wants his chance to be the number 1 guy. Also wants to get paid, so he needs his shots. To be fair to him, he shot at roughly the same rate as he did last season (20.3FGA/per 36 vs 20.2 FGA/per 36 this year), but he managed to lower his usage rate while upping his assist totals. Kyrie tried to fit in. He failed at leadership though.

2. Jaylen and Jayson - the 2 young guns, who read a lot of press clippings over the summer about how they were going to either be Boston's future, or likely shipped out in the future for another All-Star to pair with Kyrie. These guys are young, are on their rookie deals, and looking to make names for themselves. Their FGA/per 36 minutes increased this season. These guys didn't sacrifice any shot attempts this year. Jaylen went from 13.4 FGA/36 last year to 14.5 FGA/36 this year. Tatum went from 12.3 up to 15.2 FGA/per 36 this season. Both kids weren't shy.

3. Marcus Morris - another FA to be. 29 years old, and probably looking at his last chance for a big contract while he's in his prime this summer. Just became a dad. Of course he wants the ball - so he can get paid. He shot slightly less FGA/per 36 minutes this year as he did last year. 14.5 FGA/36min this year compared to 15.2 FGA/36 last season. Well, at least he tried.

4. Terry Rozier - fresh off of last year's successful sales of Scary Terry shirts, which then led him to getting a pretty good Puma deal - another FA to be, also a young player who now feels he's capable of starting. Terry also wants to get paid. When he said he sacrificed a lot - well, it looks like Terry did try, chopping his FGA per 36 min rate from 13.9 last season, down to 13.4 FGA/36 minutes this season. Slightly increased his assists/36 minutes as well.

So for all of this talk about sacrificing, the only guys who took a real backseat in terms of FGA per 36 minutes this season were Marcus Smart (not a shocker, because Smart doesn't care about offense) and Gordon Hayward, who looked timid all season and seemed more concerned about fitting in, rather than being himself. Even Al shot the ball roughly the same amount as last season.

And it also looks like Brad's main thing all season was, instead of reigning in his players, he decided to try to keep them all happy by just upping the pace, which would then lead to more FGA to spread around. Sounds good on paper, but if you watched even just 25% of the games this year, it would explain all of the terrible possessions where the ball would be passed once and the team would just take the first open shot it saw. Really, Brad was going to lose at this no matter what. Who does he reign in?

Does he tell Kyrie to shoot less? Nope. Gotta suck up to him to make sure he stays. He is, after all, the most talented player on the team. Do you curb the shot attempts for Jaylen and Jayson? No, because that destroys their confidence. At the very least, you hurt their trade value. Do you get Mook to lower his FGA? You can try, but you already know, based on last season, that Mook can get very grumpy. What about Rozier? Sure, but you also know that he's going to sulk. There were just way too many personal agendas to blend in with the main team goal - winning.

Looking at all of these factors, we can blame Brad for not manning up and taking control. However, the more I look at it, the onus was on Ainge to do something. Mook had already asked for a trade before the season began. What was the point of letting him stay and eat up minutes at the 3/4 spots, when realistically, we weren't going to be able to keep him beyond this season? And Terry Rozier was another guy who was going to leave anyways, since Ainge's primary goal has always been to retain Kyrie. Terry wasn't going to stick around to come off the bench. Last but not least, Ainge has worked with Brad for 5, going on 6, seasons. At that point, maybe Ainge should have known that Brad wasn't going to tell guys to STFU and shoot less. He didn't have that kind of control in the locker room.

TL;DR - Brad is too nice to yell at players, so his solution in keeping everyone happy was to up the pace. No one really took less FGA despite introducing 2 players back into the rotation. Ainge should have really cleared some logjams during the summer because Brad doesn't want to take away from his players' confidence.

Great take and great read on what we all witnessed, regardless of how many people refused to see it. Props to everyone who was all over this from the jump and a final towel of shame for the doomsday deniers or whatever it is that outfit was about. Roster construction = terrible. Red PopoJackson wouldn't have done **** with this mess of colliding agendas. Not sure what motivated the odd reads of this team all year but a concerted effort of focusing on the product itself and less doubling down on hot takes followed by more doubling down on the same poor takes would go a long way towards the overall quality of this forum.

Does less hot takes mean more safe platitudes?

Because that's definitely what we need here. Even more safe platitudes.

I can start us off: While I understand that he isn't perfect and makes mistakes, Brad did the best job he could all year with this team. The squad isn't blameless either though. Ainge should have maybe done something at sometime with some player as well. We'll just have to see how things play out soon and hope for the best guys. Gordon will come back stronger than ever next year, hopefully. Celtic pride!

[MyInsatiableOne]

Idk, at least from the outside, the NBA looks the least like that it's ever been. Since 2008 there's been much more of an emphasis on team play, and having stars sacrifice. The only problem team I can think of was the Harden/Dwight pairing - and that wasn't about coaches. This year was a little worse with Butler's reality TV show and the Bulls' roster feuding with their replacement coach, but NBA drama, especially with headstrong or unhappy players, has been muted for a decade. Cousins is the only other example.. 20 years ago it was much worse.

You think so? What about all of the super-teaming and players openly tampering to get their buddies to play with them, coach killing, etc. It's been bad like that for at least the last 20 years but it seems to have accelerated over the last decade starting with all of that Lebron/The Decision garbage. Also I'm just not a big fan of the style of play prevalent in the league these days...

The super-teaming is annoying, I’ve gotten used to it - but that’s just an abandonment of Bird, Jordan style competitiveness - we’d have to count examples of players getting coaches removed - my memory is probably wrong, but says that’s declined lately, too - Lebron/Blatt and Carmelo/D’Antoni are the only examples coming to mind..

*cough cough* Lebron and Luke Walton THIS YEAR *cough cough*

[K For Three]

I love the talk of bringing Perk in as well because you know a huge dude who a was a pretty bad basketball player is just the person to set Irving straight.

You are starting to become one of my favorite posters.

[ThirtyFour]

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[chrisab123]

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Smitty is correct. Brad needs a respected assistant that can help handle egos. Bickerstaff can do that. Hes just not a fantastic x's and o's guy. But massive upgrade over Micah. Bring Perk and Posey in as well. Imagine Smart with Posey as his tutor?

[soxfan2003]

Danny really should've traded Morris, and maybe Terry. Sometimes he did things that are brilliant, sometimes he does things that make you scratch your head.

If he could have pulled it off, trading Morris plus the Celtics worst first round pick this year for a 2 way center significantly better than Baynes made sense. But I can't bash Ainge too much for that since that player may not have existed at a salary the Celtics were willing to pay.

I don't think Wyc wanted to pay tons of luxury tax for a roster whose big 3 is Horford, Irving and Hayward.

[truth18]

I love the talk of bringing Perk in as well because you know a huge dude who a was a pretty bad basketball player is just the person to set Irving straight.

You are starting to become one of my favorite posters.

JB is a homie.

Dumbest part about people complaining about getting called out for being emo in the GTs this year was that JB has been doing that for years, regardless of our team's quality, and no one cares because he's consistent and doesn't feel insecure when he's (often) wrong. Frankly, he doesn't even seem to care or respond when called out about that.