Tai wrote:itrsteve wrote:Froob wrote:People really in this thread roasting Ainge for not trading his picks and young players for guys like George, Butler and Kawhi who have already jumped ship twice?
It's standard operating procedure around these parts.
Meanwhile, completely overlooking that he did in fact roll the dice with one of the coveted picks for an all-star who wasn't interested in finishing out their contract just like the rest of them... Look how that turned out? I have the utmost confidence that Boston would have been left in shambles if they had rolled the dice on any of those 3 just the same.
They're going to crap on him and the celtics either way, it's best to try not to reason with them.
To be fair on Paul George, I think he woulda stayed in Boston (and actually did for the Thunder once); I think he just legit saw the writing on the wall for the Thunder and was like "yea it ain't happening here". But everyone else? Yea no doubt they were probably leaving.
I hate to speculate on the rumored hulls for the PG pick. But if I recall correctly, it was the #1 pick + Jaylen + Salary fillers (Avery Brown and Crowder). Also, I believe there were cap implications where they wanted to lock up Hayward in RFA then move PG on a S&T before being hardcapped.. This screwed up the timeline as well because they had to wait until July 4th for Hayward.
So if you think about the talent left to surround PG, what's to say he wouldn't have pulled an OKC?
I do agree, out of the entire bunch, PG would have had the highest probability of staying as he had previously called Boston as a potential destination but I'm not confident that the needle would have been pushed in our favor.