Tatum and Brown, as 1-2 Options

[OldCeltics]

https://www.nba.com/allstar

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[sam_I_am]

The Sixers got the consensus best players (on draft night ) in 3 drafts due to tanking and even paid a mint for 2 top free agents .... and yet they look to me to be a second round playoff exit for 3rd year in a row. To think a pro tank argument is more right than wrong is misguided to say the least.

We could reignite it all, but Philly has been screwing up Hinkie’s plan since Colangelo got his first burner account. Tanking works if you get one of the top picks in a year with a transcendental player. AND follow it up with good moves. Beyond that, it doesn’t.

But other options work even less.

The 4 years that Hinkle tanked came after the Sixers took the Celtics to the brink in a 7 game series with Iggy, Turner, Thaddeous and JRue. That team was blown up....3 #1 picks and a 4th that was ROY.....and here they are basically in the same boat as they were to start but their fans had to endure 5 joyless years of tanking and their 4 years of their #1 picks not playing at all. Meanwhile, the Brad Stevens era has been wildly entertaining even without a single season of being a legit contender (until now???)

Anyway, as far as calling out Caveman....I disagree with him vehemently often and he is completely disrespectful of my opinions at times ...and yet I think he is one of best posters here. He knows a lot about the game and the draft. The dude told everybody KD was going to GS months before it was hinted at in media and insisted it was still happening even when OKC was up 3-2 in WCF.

[Slax]

The Sixers got the consensus best players (on draft night ) in 3 drafts due to tanking and even paid a mint for 2 top free agents .... and yet they look to me to be a second round playoff exit for 3rd year in a row. To think a pro tank argument is more right than wrong is misguided to say the least.

We could reignite it all, but Philly has been screwing up Hinkie’s plan since Colangelo got his first burner account. Tanking works if you get one of the top picks in a year with a transcendental player. AND follow it up with good moves. Beyond that, it doesn’t.

But other options work even less.

The 4 years that Hinkle tanked came after the Sixers took the Celtics to the brink in a 7 game series with Iggy, Turner, Thaddeous and JRue. That team was blown up....3 #1 picks and a 4th that was ROY.....and here they are basically in the same boat as they were to start but their fans had to endure 5 joyless years of tanking and their 4 years of their #1 picks not playing at all. Meanwhile, the Brad Stevens era has been wildly entertaining even without a single season of being a legit contender (until now???)

Anyway, as far as calling out Caveman....I disagree with him vehemently often and he is completely disrespectful of my opinions at times ...and yet I think he is one of best posters here. He knows a lot about the game and the draft. The dude told everybody KD was going to GS months before it was hinted at in media and insisted it was still happening even when OKC was up 3-2 in WCF.

I think it's challenging to say whether tanking "works" or "doesn't work" in a general sense. Short tanks of a couple seasons where a team trades away a bunch of mid-level talent, becomes bad enough to get into the top of the lottery for one to three years, then quickly rebuilds its talent using trades or cap space while their recently drafted players are still on rookie deals works sometimes - in fact Ainge has tried to do something like this a couple times, although I think less successfully than he wanted (eg, comments he made suggested he wanted to run fewer games to get higher picks than we did in the 2004, 2014, and 2015 drafts).

By contrast, long term multi-year tanks lasting longer than two or three years are actually really challenging to do successfully, and I think their biggest proponents significantly underestimate how hard they are to do without damaging your roster construction. The reason for this is that if the purpose of a multi-year rank is to get multiple really good players, once you draft those players, you have to come up with ways to keep them from actually playing well for your team too early. Sometimes that requires trading away talent each season to prevent your team from becoming good enough to win games. The Sixers in particular actually ended up kind of "lucky" with Embiid and Simmons being so badly injured that they couldn't contribute to wins early in their careers. I don't think the idea of a multi-year tank is totally meritless, but a) you have to acknowledge that it sucks to watch as a fan, and b) just saying "you should do it" without a real strategy for how to sustain it isn't really that helpful, because it probably won't work - most teams that are bad for multiple years, it's because they're drafting bad players, or they have a toxic environment for player development, or they are giving up on good players too early, or something along those lines, and none of those are usually a great way to become good long term. And you have to pull out of these tanks really quickly in order to prevent your star players from demanding trades or signing somewhere else, which is hard if you've been working to make the team bad for years.

The thing that frustrated me most about the actual tanking debate as it happened was the people who insisted we should tank leading up to the 2016-17 season, when we had already easily made the playoffs the season before and had a pick swap with Brooklyn which ended up yielding the #1 pick in the 2017 draft. It still boggles my mind that that conversation happened, and it feels like nobody has really acknowledged how dumb it was since. Oh well.

[djFan71]

The Sixers got the consensus best players (on draft night ) in 3 drafts due to tanking and even paid a mint for 2 top free agents .... and yet they look to me to be a second round playoff exit for 3rd year in a row. To think a pro tank argument is more right than wrong is misguided to say the least.

We could reignite it all, but Philly has been screwing up Hinkie’s plan since Colangelo got his first burner account. Tanking works if you get one of the top picks in a year with a transcendental player. AND follow it up with good moves. Beyond that, it doesn’t.

But other options work even less.

The 4 years that Hinkle tanked came after the Sixers took the Celtics to the brink in a 7 game series with Iggy, Turner, Thaddeous and JRue. That team was blown up....3 #1 picks and a 4th that was ROY.....and here they are basically in the same boat as they were to start but their fans had to endure 5 joyless years of tanking and their 4 years of their #1 picks not playing at all. Meanwhile, the Brad Stevens era has been wildly entertaining even without a single season of being a legit contender (until now???)

Anyway, as far as calling out Caveman....I disagree with him vehemently often and he is completely disrespectful of my opinions at times ...and yet I think he is one of best posters here. He knows a lot about the game and the draft. The dude told everybody KD was going to GS months before it was hinted at in media and insisted it was still happening even when OKC was up 3-2 in WCF.

It’s all timing and skilled moves to me. Dallas got a #5 pick, made a good trade and is set for the next decade. Philly took way longer, but then got league induced cold feet and pissed it all away. They’re not really a success story, but if Embiid ever plays consistently like he did against MIL they could be, despite the other moves.

I wasn’t even that big on tanking, I liked our path - though Terry instead of Turner hurt. Tanking is just one way to get the superstar, so I don’t discount it either.

[SmartWentCrazy]

Multiple peope calling out Cave is lame, at least he will quote the people he argues with.

I do think he is selling the improvements Jaylen has made short though lol. But I am pretty confident he will come around.

I think that people who are typically right dont flaunt it when they are right.

Calling out a good poster for being wrong is lame AF. Act like you’ve been there before and move on. We have two awesome young players— lets just be happy and move on.

[5InOfLouisville]

Multiple peope calling out Cave is lame, at least he will quote the people he argues with.

I do think he is selling the improvements Jaylen has made short though lol. But I am pretty confident he will come around.

I think that people who are typically right dont flaunt it when they are right.

Calling out a good poster for being wrong is lame AF. Act like you’ve been there before and move on. We have two awesome young players— lets just be happy and move on.

I agree that calling him out is unnecessary. Note that i havent really done it.

But i think its weak to tell other people they are wrong for clapping back a little after he insulted everyone personally.

AND youre saying that people who are generally right dont need to flaunt it...I 100% agree..now look who youre defending.

Im not saying you cant stick up for up for your boy. But caves allowed to do his thing, and its not the end of the world, but then, its not a big deal when he gets an i told you so or 2.

Im with you. I dont do victory laps. Hell, i dont even think the debate is completely over...but it i ultimately enjoy a little back and forth on both sides

Its not that deep. Hes STILL telling everyone that JB is andy dalton.

Remember. Im new. Dont know any history. My only real interaction is getting called stupid over and over for disagreeing that jbs contract is an overpay

[SmartWentCrazy]

Multiple peope calling out Cave is lame, at least he will quote the people he argues with.

I do think he is selling the improvements Jaylen has made short though lol. But I am pretty confident he will come around.

I think that people who are typically right dont flaunt it when they are right.

Calling out a good poster for being wrong is lame AF. Act like you’ve been there before and move on. We have two awesome young players— lets just be happy and move on.

I agree that calling him out is unnecessary. Note that i havent really done it.

But i think its weak to tell other people they are wrong for clapping back a little after he insulted everyone personally.

AND youre saying that people who are generally right dont need to flaunt it...I 100% agree..now look who youre defending.

Im not saying you cant stick up for up for your boy. But caves allowed to do his thing, and its not the end of the world, but then, its not a big deal when he gets an i told you so or 2.

Im with you. I dont do victory laps. Hell, i dont even think the debate is completely over...but it i ultimately enjoy a little back and forth on both sides

Its not that deep. Hes STILL telling everyone that JB is andy dalton.

Remember. Im new. Dont know any history. My only real interaction is getting called stupid over and over for disagreeing that jbs contract is an overpay

Me, personally: I live by my own creed and just do what I feel is right. I’ve generally never been a fan of “you did it to me, so I’ll do it to you” and try to avoid that because it just perpetuates negative situations.

Noted exception to the above to Nets fans— after all their chirping last summer, **** those guys. Cave is a Celts fan to his core though and I’ll never ether one of us.

[Feed Your Head]

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He means 47 assisted for Tatum. Jaylen has the ability to create more separation on the drives, but god damn he is absolutely thriving as a 3rd option. When he takes an open three now, I'm SHOCKED if it doesn't go in.

[5InOfLouisville]

I think that people who are typically right dont flaunt it when they are right.

Calling out a good poster for being wrong is lame AF. Act like you’ve been there before and move on. We have two awesome young players— lets just be happy and move on.

I agree that calling him out is unnecessary. Note that i havent really done it.

But i think its weak to tell other people they are wrong for clapping back a little after he insulted everyone personally.

AND youre saying that people who are generally right dont need to flaunt it...I 100% agree..now look who youre defending.

Im not saying you cant stick up for up for your boy. But caves allowed to do his thing, and its not the end of the world, but then, its not a big deal when he gets an i told you so or 2.

Im with you. I dont do victory laps. Hell, i dont even think the debate is completely over...but it i ultimately enjoy a little back and forth on both sides

Its not that deep. Hes STILL telling everyone that JB is andy dalton.

Remember. Im new. Dont know any history. My only real interaction is getting called stupid over and over for disagreeing that jbs contract is an overpay

Me, personally: I live by my own creed and just do what I feel is right. I’ve generally never been a fan of “you did it to me, so I’ll do it to you” and try to avoid that because it just perpetuates negative situations.

Noted exception to the above to Nets fans— after all their chirping last summer, **** those guys. Cave is a Celts fan to his core though and I’ll never ether one of us.

100% fair and an admirable philosophy. Very mature.

[Tatumfor2]

stop holding on to our online scouting reputations.

So good!

[TommyPointGawd]

He means 47 assisted for Tatum. Jaylen has the ability to create more separation on the drives, but god damn he is absolutely thriving. When he takes an open three now, I'm SHOCKED if it doesn't go in.

Fixed. No need to shade the man lol.

[Feed Your Head]

He means 47 assisted for Tatum. Jaylen has the ability to create more separation on the drives, but god damn he is absolutely thriving. When he takes an open three now, I'm SHOCKED if it doesn't go in.

Fixed. No need to shade the man lol.

It's not "shading", it's what it is lol. I'm not saying it to knock him, but he is absolutely treated as the 3rd option by opposing defenses. I've said i think he's become a top 30 player already, there's no shame in destroying the defenders put in front of him.

[sam_I_am]

We could reignite it all, but Philly has been screwing up Hinkie’s plan since Colangelo got his first burner account. Tanking works if you get one of the top picks in a year with a transcendental player. AND follow it up with good moves. Beyond that, it doesn’t.

But other options work even less.

The 4 years that Hinkle tanked came after the Sixers took the Celtics to the brink in a 7 game series with Iggy, Turner, Thaddeous and JRue. That team was blown up....3 #1 picks and a 4th that was ROY.....and here they are basically in the same boat as they were to start but their fans had to endure 5 joyless years of tanking and their 4 years of their #1 picks not playing at all. Meanwhile, the Brad Stevens era has been wildly entertaining even without a single season of being a legit contender (until now???)

Anyway, as far as calling out Caveman....I disagree with him vehemently often and he is completely disrespectful of my opinions at times ...and yet I think he is one of best posters here. He knows a lot about the game and the draft. The dude told everybody KD was going to GS months before it was hinted at in media and insisted it was still happening even when OKC was up 3-2 in WCF.

It’s all timing and skilled moves to me. Dallas got a #5 pick, made a good trade and is set for the next decade. Philly took way longer, but then got league induced cold feet and pissed it all away. They’re not really a success story, but if Embiid ever plays consistently like he did against MIL they could be, despite the other moves.

I wasn’t even that big on tanking, I liked our path - though Terry instead of Turner hurt. Tanking is just one way to get the superstar, so I don’t discount it either.

Interestingly, the tanking argument was linked to IT. Had we not traded for IT, we would have been a lottery team and had a shot at Turner, Booker, Porzingas or KAT instead of Rozier. Interestingly, Rozier turned out as good or better than the other 12 players drafted ahead of him. Would we be so much better with any of those guys that it would have been worth not going to playoffs with IT, not getting Horford, not getting Hayward, Kyrie or Kemba?

What if IT didn’t hurt hip until the following year and we signed him to 3 year 75 mil extension like I and others suggested? No Kyrie trade. Draft #8 in 2018 ( maybe trade up for Doncic, JJJ, Bamba or take Shai or Sexton ). Draft Jaylen, Jason, Langford. Decide to pay Horford or let him walk. Decide to sign Rozier or let him walk or sign and trade for Kemba. Keep Baynes. ?keep Morris. Have IT 25 million contract to trade to combine with picks to trade for Love, Gallinari, Adams etc. Smart, Brown, Hayward, Tatum, Horford starting 5 with Morris, Shai, Romeo, Baynes, Theis bench isn’t too shabby and Memphis pick on the way.....and still with Tacko, Waters, Grant, Green and Edwards entertaining Maine.

Great thing about Ainge is that this organization is never tied down or married to only one way to win like the Sixers and absurd tanking, or pre-Ainge Celtics and Baker contract, stuck in no man’s land like Wizards for past 8 years and foreseeable future etc.

[djFan71]

The 4 years that Hinkle tanked came after the Sixers took the Celtics to the brink in a 7 game series with Iggy, Turner, Thaddeous and JRue. That team was blown up....3 #1 picks and a 4th that was ROY.....and here they are basically in the same boat as they were to start but their fans had to endure 5 joyless years of tanking and their 4 years of their #1 picks not playing at all. Meanwhile, the Brad Stevens era has been wildly entertaining even without a single season of being a legit contender (until now???)

Anyway, as far as calling out Caveman....I disagree with him vehemently often and he is completely disrespectful of my opinions at times ...and yet I think he is one of best posters here. He knows a lot about the game and the draft. The dude told everybody KD was going to GS months before it was hinted at in media and insisted it was still happening even when OKC was up 3-2 in WCF.

It’s all timing and skilled moves to me. Dallas got a #5 pick, made a good trade and is set for the next decade. Philly took way longer, but then got league induced cold feet and pissed it all away. They’re not really a success story, but if Embiid ever plays consistently like he did against MIL they could be, despite the other moves.

I wasn’t even that big on tanking, I liked our path - though Terry instead of Turner hurt. Tanking is just one way to get the superstar, so I don’t discount it either.

Interestingly, the tanking argument was linked to IT. Had we not traded for IT, we would have been a lottery team and had a shot at Turner, Booker, Porzingas or KAT instead of Rozier. Interestingly, Rozier turned out as good or better than the other 12 players drafted ahead of him. Would we be so much better with any of those guys that it would have been worth not going to playoffs with IT, not getting Horford, not getting Hayward, Kyrie or Kemba?

What if IT didn’t hurt hip until the following year and we signed him to 3 year 75 mil extension like I and others suggested? No Kyrie trade. Draft #8 in 2018 ( maybe trade up for Doncic, JJJ, Bamba or take Shai or Sexton ). Draft Jaylen, Jason, Langford. Decide to pay Horford or let him walk. Decide to sign Rozier or let him walk or sign and trade for Kemba. Keep Baynes. ?keep Morris. Have IT 25 million contract to trade to combine with picks to trade for Love, Gallinari, Adams etc. Smart, Brown, Hayward, Tatum, Horford starting 5 with Morris, Shai, Romeo, Baynes, Theis bench isn’t too shabby and Memphis pick on the way.....and still with Tacko, Waters, Grant, Green and Edwards entertaining Maine.

Great thing about Ainge is that this organization is never tied down or married to only one way to win like the Sixers and absurd tanking, or pre-Ainge Celtics and Baker contract, stuck in no man’s land like Wizards for past 8 years and foreseeable future etc.

Yeah, there's a million what-ifs and we've probably been over them as many times each. I really didn't go to the tank thread all that much at the time, and really don't want to rehash it now in a Tatum/Brown thread. I should have just not replied, sorry.

[lon3lytoaster]

Can we talk about the month of December Jaylen has had?

23.5/7/3 on 56%, 68 TS% from mostly the 2/3 spots. That’s absurd efficiency and he’s been arguably our most consistent player over that stretch. How is he not an all-star?

[Fencer reregistered]

We could reignite it all, but Philly has been screwing up Hinkie’s plan since Colangelo got his first burner account. Tanking works if you get one of the top picks in a year with a transcendental player. AND follow it up with good moves. Beyond that, it doesn’t.

But other options work even less.

The 4 years that Hinkle tanked came after the Sixers took the Celtics to the brink in a 7 game series with Iggy, Turner, Thaddeous and JRue. That team was blown up....3 #1 picks and a 4th that was ROY.....and here they are basically in the same boat as they were to start but their fans had to endure 5 joyless years of tanking and their 4 years of their #1 picks not playing at all. Meanwhile, the Brad Stevens era has been wildly entertaining even without a single season of being a legit contender (until now???)

Anyway, as far as calling out Caveman....I disagree with him vehemently often and he is completely disrespectful of my opinions at times ...and yet I think he is one of best posters here. He knows a lot about the game and the draft. The dude told everybody KD was going to GS months before it was hinted at in media and insisted it was still happening even when OKC was up 3-2 in WCF.

I think it's challenging to say whether tanking "works" or "doesn't work" in a general sense. Short tanks of a couple seasons where a team trades away a bunch of mid-level talent, becomes bad enough to get into the top of the lottery for one to three years, then quickly rebuilds its talent using trades or cap space while their recently drafted players are still on rookie deals works sometimes - in fact Ainge has tried to do something like this a couple times, although I think less successfully than he wanted (eg, comments he made suggested he wanted to run fewer games to get higher picks than we did in the 2004, 2014, and 2015 drafts).

By contrast, long term multi-year tanks lasting longer than two or three years are actually really challenging to do successfully, and I think their biggest proponents significantly underestimate how hard they are to do without damaging your roster construction. The reason for this is that if the purpose of a multi-year rank is to get multiple really good players, once you draft those players, you have to come up with ways to keep them from actually playing well for your team too early. Sometimes that requires trading away talent each season to prevent your team from becoming good enough to win games. The Sixers in particular actually ended up kind of "lucky" with Embiid and Simmons being so badly injured that they couldn't contribute to wins early in their careers. I don't think the idea of a multi-year tank is totally meritless, but a) you have to acknowledge that it sucks to watch as a fan, and b) just saying "you should do it" without a real strategy for how to sustain it isn't really that helpful, because it probably won't work - most teams that are bad for multiple years, it's because they're drafting bad players, or they have a toxic environment for player development, or they are giving up on good players too early, or something along those lines, and none of those are usually a great way to become good long term. And you have to pull out of these tanks really quickly in order to prevent your star players from demanding trades or signing somewhere else, which is hard if you've been working to make the team bad for years.

The thing that frustrated me most about the actual tanking debate as it happened was the people who insisted we should tank leading up to the 2016-17 season, when we had already easily made the playoffs the season before and had a pick swap with Brooklyn which ended up yielding the #1 pick in the 2017 draft. It still boggles my mind that that conversation happened, and it feels like nobody has really acknowledged how dumb it was since. Oh well.

The highest Celtics pick Ainge ever got was a #5, and that was for a season in which the team's star (Pierce) had a serious injury.

[Slax]

The 4 years that Hinkle tanked came after the Sixers took the Celtics to the brink in a 7 game series with Iggy, Turner, Thaddeous and JRue. That team was blown up....3 #1 picks and a 4th that was ROY.....and here they are basically in the same boat as they were to start but their fans had to endure 5 joyless years of tanking and their 4 years of their #1 picks not playing at all. Meanwhile, the Brad Stevens era has been wildly entertaining even without a single season of being a legit contender (until now???)

Anyway, as far as calling out Caveman....I disagree with him vehemently often and he is completely disrespectful of my opinions at times ...and yet I think he is one of best posters here. He knows a lot about the game and the draft. The dude told everybody KD was going to GS months before it was hinted at in media and insisted it was still happening even when OKC was up 3-2 in WCF.

I think it's challenging to say whether tanking "works" or "doesn't work" in a general sense. Short tanks of a couple seasons where a team trades away a bunch of mid-level talent, becomes bad enough to get into the top of the lottery for one to three years, then quickly rebuilds its talent using trades or cap space while their recently drafted players are still on rookie deals works sometimes - in fact Ainge has tried to do something like this a couple times, although I think less successfully than he wanted (eg, comments he made suggested he wanted to run fewer games to get higher picks than we did in the 2004, 2014, and 2015 drafts).

By contrast, long term multi-year tanks lasting longer than two or three years are actually really challenging to do successfully, and I think their biggest proponents significantly underestimate how hard they are to do without damaging your roster construction. The reason for this is that if the purpose of a multi-year rank is to get multiple really good players, once you draft those players, you have to come up with ways to keep them from actually playing well for your team too early. Sometimes that requires trading away talent each season to prevent your team from becoming good enough to win games. The Sixers in particular actually ended up kind of "lucky" with Embiid and Simmons being so badly injured that they couldn't contribute to wins early in their careers. I don't think the idea of a multi-year tank is totally meritless, but a) you have to acknowledge that it sucks to watch as a fan, and b) just saying "you should do it" without a real strategy for how to sustain it isn't really that helpful, because it probably won't work - most teams that are bad for multiple years, it's because they're drafting bad players, or they have a toxic environment for player development, or they are giving up on good players too early, or something along those lines, and none of those are usually a great way to become good long term. And you have to pull out of these tanks really quickly in order to prevent your star players from demanding trades or signing somewhere else, which is hard if you've been working to make the team bad for years.

The thing that frustrated me most about the actual tanking debate as it happened was the people who insisted we should tank leading up to the 2016-17 season, when we had already easily made the playoffs the season before and had a pick swap with Brooklyn which ended up yielding the #1 pick in the 2017 draft. It still boggles my mind that that conversation happened, and it feels like nobody has really acknowledged how dumb it was since. Oh well.

The highest Celtics pick Ainge ever got was a #5, and that was for a season in which the team's star (Pierce) had a serious injury.

Yeah but not by design. Ainge publicly acknowledged (albeit with plausible deniability) during interviews that we weren't trying to win games in a few of those years, hinting that we were aiming for better draft picks. For example, we offered to pay Carroll some incentives not to win when he was interim coach, and he said that we probably got better a little too quickly after the IT trade. Ainge was always too good at collecting talent to properly tank the way he wanted lol.

[sam_I_am]

I guess my point in regards to tanking is that here the Celtics are with Smart, Brown, Tatum Langford as a young core, supplemented by 2 all star veterans and some young promising assets. In addition there is a great chance to add another high lottery pick from Memphis. That is a great place to be.

[Big Joke Line]

Can we talk about the month of December Jaylen has had?

23.5/7/3 on 56%, 68 TS% from mostly the 2/3 spots. That’s absurd efficiency and he’s been arguably our most consistent player over that stretch. How is he not an all-star?

He seems to have cut down on the foul trouble that was getting him early on too.

[Slax]

I guess my point in regards to tanking is that here the Celtics are with Smart, Brown, Tatum Langford as a young core, supplemented by 2 all star veterans and some young promising assets. In addition there is a great chance to add another high lottery pick from Memphis. That is a great place to be.

To be clear, I agree with this. I think tanking can be an appropriate way to build a team, but I'm very happy with where we are without much tanking.