KG and Pierce to Brooklyn?

[Bleeding Green]

Jaylen, Jayson, Romeo.

And a couple years of Kyrie. Crazy haul and most media thought Boston got taken to the woodshed when it happened live. I did too probably, I dunno what I thought at the time.

[Bleeding Green]

Other thing I just noticed is that there is essentially no protection on the 2014 pick as well. It is merely the lesser of their's and Atlanta's, and the Hawks are probably going to be terrible. The deal would not work if there was any greater protection, because we would not be able to get 3 picks if one of them rolled over to the following season (there's a 5-year limit on 1st rounders being conveyed).

So basically, we could get as much as the #2 overall in 2014, and the #1 overall in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. That won't happen, but what also won't happen IMO is the Nets not having at least one bad year over the next 5 seasons due to injuries or missing out on FAs or whatever. Even ONE top 10 pick would justify this entire transaction all by itself, no?

So, at the end of this, I am left with the following two conclusions:

1. I cannot believe how badly we VIOLATED these guys for 3 old dudes who have 1-2 years left as role players.

2. I cannot believe how many Celtics fans are completely oblivious to that fact.

Goog luck, Paul and KG. You'll be missed. But good thing you are retiring soon, lol.

A rare non-whiff indeed.

[Captain_Caveman]

Jaylen, Jayson, Romeo.

And a couple years of Kyrie. Crazy haul and most media thought Boston got taken to the woodshed when it happened live. I did too probably, I dunno what I thought at the time.

Nurkic went a spot ahead of James Young. Imagine that one, lol.

[Bleeding Green]

Jaylen, Jayson, Romeo.

And a couple years of Kyrie. Crazy haul and most media thought Boston got taken to the woodshed when it happened live. I did too probably, I dunno what I thought at the time.

Nurkic went a spot ahead of James Young. Imagine that one, lol.

Aren't we dealing with enough right now? Next you'll tell me the Celtics missed on Jokic and Siakam too. A +1 to anyone who called for either guy to be drafted in their respective drafts.

[Captain_Caveman]

And a couple years of Kyrie. Crazy haul and most media thought Boston got taken to the woodshed when it happened live. I did too probably, I dunno what I thought at the time.

Nurkic went a spot ahead of James Young. Imagine that one, lol.

Aren't we dealing with enough right now? Next you'll tell me the Celtics missed on Jokic and Siakam too. A +1 to anyone who called for either guy to be drafted in their respective drafts.

Yeah, and as to the other thread, evaluating draft prospects not my strong suit. It's why I sit most of those threads out. I need to see them in the league first, and then it is pretty immediate for me, as it was with Steph Curry

[CeltsfanSinceBirth]

Lol at some of the takes in this thread. Very glad some of you no longer post on this board anymore, because you have been wrong time and time again.

Another surprise to me was that I never posted in here. I think I was too shell-shocked of seeing Pierce being dealt. However, I vividly recall being stunned that we were really going to deal him, but I felt good after seeing Woj tweet about the picks. I did post on the Knicks board though.

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1258583&p=36275900#p36275900

KG doesn't really need the ball anymore. I think that guy would be happy getting 5 shots a game, so long as his team was winning. As for Pierce - well, everyone thought he was going to have a tough time giving up shots when KG/Ray arrived, and he had no problem doing so. He probably won't mind deferring to Williams and Joe Johnson, so long as he gets to collect all of his $15 million and they're still winning games.

As for the deal - I don't mind it, so long as all of the picks are unprotected. Wallace's deal sucks, but Ainge will probably use it as an expiring anyways. Capspace is kinda overrated if you're Boston, seeing as how no one really wants to play in the cold. Best thing to do is use big expiring deals to package with prospects/picks to trade for stars, much like the Celtics did with Szczerbiak and Ratliff.

If the Nets agree to take Terry or Lee......I could see this deal happening. Makes the Celtics really bad for 2014, which is what Ainge wants anyhow.

[grindtime22]

honestly how the hell do we play gerald wallace and jeff green together?? they are the same player, except green is much smarter. there has to be future moves, and wallace is an unmovable contract. i just dont understand this at all for 25-30 range picks

Maybe we don't play them together, maybe we don't. I think its pretty much irrelevant at this point.

The 25-30 range is something we have no idea about right now. The 2014 pick will probably be in that range. BUT, what about 2016 and 2018. Garnett and Pierce are probably done by 2016 with the rest of their roster adding 2 more years of age. The 2018 could be a great pick by that time.

We are in total rebuild. We are in total suck mode. I don't believe there is a desire to be competitive next year, which makes our current roster irrelevant. Its about stacking assets. 4 first round picks out of Doc, KG, and Pierce is a nice hall at this point in their careers. We also net an expiring contract with Humphries.

I don't think we could do much better. Most of the board was ready for us to suck it up right? This is how you do it.

BUT, i fail to see how they are the same player. They are pretty different IMO. But, once again, its irrelevant.

I think Rondo sits out a big portion of the year and we suck it up, adding a great draft pick to the asset pool.

Feeling pretty good about being rational within hours of the trade. I know my heart sunk when I saw it scroll across the ESPN ticker.

[Squigglepuffin]

Other thing I just noticed is that there is essentially no protection on the 2014 pick as well. It is merely the lesser of their's and Atlanta's, and the Hawks are probably going to be terrible. The deal would not work if there was any greater protection, because we would not be able to get 3 picks if one of them rolled over to the following season (there's a 5-year limit on 1st rounders being conveyed).

So basically, we could get as much as the #2 overall in 2014, and the #1 overall in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. That won't happen, but what also won't happen IMO is the Nets not having at least one bad year over the next 5 seasons due to injuries or missing out on FAs or whatever. Even ONE top 10 pick would justify this entire transaction all by itself, no?

So, at the end of this, I am left with the following two conclusions:

1. I cannot believe how badly we VIOLATED these guys for 3 old dudes who have 1-2 years left as role players.

2. I cannot believe how many Celtics fans are completely oblivious to that fact.

Goog luck, Paul and KG. You'll be missed. But good thing you are retiring soon, lol.

A rare non-whiff indeed.

I remember being sad to see Pierce and KG leave but completely agreed Ainge did the right thing for the franchise in trading them.

I also remember being ecstatic at the haul we got - just for the fact that the Brooklyn picks were completely unprotected and it was blatantly obvious to me that Brooklyn was going to fall apart by 2016. Those picks were going to be gold.

My friends were pretty frustrated and upset at the trade because no more PP and KG. They were looking at the trade from only an emotional perspective.

I tried to explain to them it was an incredible trade because it was so, so, so obvious to me that Deron Williams and Joe Johnson were declining fast (especially Deron), KG, Pierce, and Terry weren't the players they used to be, and the only players that had any real value were Lopez and Evans imo.

The Nets now had brand name players, recognizable, famous basketball names but they were only those players in name at that point - not by play.

I remember being stunned that the commentators at the draft (particularly Jalen Rose) thought it was an only an okay trade. I remember reading on RealGM someone was going at another poster trying to point out how stupid the trade was and that it would only pay off if the Brooklyn picks were top 3 picks and how that had almost no chance of happening and was only a pipe dream.

I immediately thought, "How can you not see that there's a real, real, legit chance they might be top 3-5 picks? How can you not see Brooklyn is going to fall apart very soon?"

I remember after the first two weeks or so of the 2015-2016 season reading that the Celtics front office were surprised at how bad the Nets were going and thinking, "Ainge has been in the league since before I was born, he's a very good GM, you're supposed to be a great basketball mind, how can you be surprised by this?" That was confusing.

To be fair, I thought James Young was going to be a terrible NBA player and we had made a huge mistake in drafting him. He was going to turn out to be a wasted pick like JuJuan Johnson, that Jalen Brown was the right pick at #3 and it would be too risky to trade down because he might be gone by then. I couldn't believe Celtics fans were booing the JB pick at the draft.

I do remember in 2017 thinking I absolutely trust Ainge trading down from #1 to #3 BUT I remember thinking Jayson Tatum was only "meh" - I still trusted Ainge, like if he thinks Tatum is the best player to take instead of Fultz he probably is, because who trades away the number 1 pick in the draft to a division rival who already had Simmons and Embid unless they were absolutely sure they knew what they were doing?

But I wasn't over the moon about the Tatum pick. I was definitely wrong about that. Thankfully he has turned out to be fantastic.

[theman]

I still maintain that had the Nets had a better coach they would have been a far better team. The Jason Kidd experiment was a huge mistake.

[darrendaye]

Jaylen, Jayson, Romeo.

And a couple years of Kyrie. Crazy haul and most media thought Boston got taken to the woodshed when it happened live. I did too probably, I dunno what I thought at the time.

Nurkic went a spot ahead of James Young. Imagine that one, lol.

Ugh, way to reopen that wound for me.

Also, I see I didn't make many contributions to the thread, but somewhat foreshadowed the Olynyk pick later that night...

I don't like getting Gerald Wallace, but is he really THAT much worse than Josh Smith? You would think he is better suited to play in Boston with perimeter bigs Bass/Sullinger and it's likely Ainge is going to pick up a perimeter 5 at some point.

[Slax]

I still maintain that had the Nets had a better coach they would have been a far better team. The Jason Kidd experiment was a huge mistake.

For sure, but they also had a lot of injuries. Obviously Brook was the biggest one, but I think Deron was hampered with knee and ankle issues that year too. If those two had stayed healthy, and they had a good veteran coach, I think they would have been a super dangerous team in the playoffs.

[Captain_Caveman]

I still maintain that had the Nets had a better coach they would have been a far better team. The Jason Kidd experiment was a huge mistake.

For sure, but they also had a lot of injuries. Obviously Brook was the biggest one, but I think Deron was hampered with knee and ankle issues that year too. If those two had stayed healthy, and they had a good veteran coach, I think they would have been a super dangerous team in the playoffs.

It's not in this thread, but it hit me soon afterwards that the Nets really had no chance in the long run. They went all-in on guys who had 1-2 years left, had no trade assets, draft picks, or ability to get cap room. All of which meaning that they would fall off hard, and had no chance to outspend other teams with Prokhorov's cash (unless they wanted to resign KG or Pierce for $20m per). Thought we had a shot at a couple of top 5-10 picks at that point.

Never saw it going to the level it did with the Nets picks, but as much as I love Smart, I do wish we had stayed disciplined and tanked for a couple of years, rather than make an ill-fated playoff run after starting 16-30 the year we traded for IT. Not even a scorched earth tank like the Sixers did, but we gave up very real lottery odds for Embiid, Towns, and Porzingis in the first two years of this rebuild. Possible that lottery balls bounce different and/or Danny would have gone with guys like Jabari Parker or Justise Winslow instead, but that's not on me.

We all know that I posted about exactly this forcefully and extensively for several years, in thousand of posts in many, many threads. To much abuse from many here. Even got sequestered into my own threads so I could continue making the case, and got more abuse in those ones as well.

It was literally my only critique of this entire rebuild, and really, the entire Ainge Era. Now that it is said and done, can ANYONE even possibly try to **** explain why we didn't at least try to do that? It had zero bearing on any of the Nets picks that came later. Can you even imagine if we had Tatum, Jaylen, plus one or even two of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis? Plus the other picks we had and possibly Hayward?

Why in the flying **** did we not at least try for that? To get the **** kicked out of us by the Cavs 4-0 with IT leading the charge as an 8th seed? Because of his great recruiting bringing in Horford?

****. ****. ****.

[BRUNiNHO91]

I still maintain that had the Nets had a better coach they would have been a far better team. The Jason Kidd experiment was a huge mistake.

For sure, but they also had a lot of injuries. Obviously Brook was the biggest one, but I think Deron was hampered with knee and ankle issues that year too. If those two had stayed healthy, and they had a good veteran coach, I think they would have been a super dangerous team in the playoffs.

It's not in this thread, but it hit me soon afterwards that the Nets really had no chance in the long run. They went all-in on guys who had 1-2 years left, had no trade assets, draft picks, or ability to get cap room. All of which meaning that they would fall off hard, and had no chance to outspend other teams with Prokhorov's cash (unless they wanted to resign KG or Pierce for $20m per). Thought we had a shot at a couple of top 5-10 picks at that point.

Never saw it going to the level it did with the Nets picks, but as much as I love Smart, I do wish we had stayed disciplined and tanked for a couple of years, rather than make an ill-fated playoff run after starting 16-30 the year we traded for IT. Not even a scorched earth tank like the Sixers did, but we gave up very real lottery odds for Embiid, Towns, and Porzingis in the first two years of this rebuild. Possible that lottery balls bounce different and/or Danny would have gone with guys like Jabari Parker or Justise Winslow instead, but that's not on me.

We all know that I posted about exactly this forcefully and extensively for several years, in thousand of posts in many, many threads. To much abuse from many here. Even got sequestered into my own threads so I could continue making the case, and got more abuse in those ones as well.

It was literally my only critique of this entire rebuild, and really, the entire Ainge Era. Now that it is said and done, can ANYONE even possibly try to **** explain why we didn't at least try to do that? It had zero bearing on any of the Nets picks that came later. Can you even imagine if we had Tatum, Jaylen, plus one or even two of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis? Plus the other picks we had and possibly Hayward?

Why in the flying **** did we not at least try for that? To get the **** kicked out of us by the Cavs 4-0 with IT leading the charge as an 8th seed? Because of his great recruiting bringing in Horford?

****. ****. ****.

I didn't mind it though. Isaiah helping us win and recruiting Horford led to Hayward and then obviously Isaiah blowing up led to him be a big piece in the Irving trade along with Jae. We were like one Kyrie mood swing away from grabbing a Irving, Smart/Brown, Hayward, Horford and Davis line up..the killshot as you used to say, was so close we could almost taste it..so I think Danny choose the right path..we just got unlucky with how poorly the Irving situation went. Dude **** us, ruined our chemistry, nuked our young players trade value and made us lose him AND Horford in the process. That **** guy should never be allowed to step into Boston again..

[Captain_Caveman]

For sure, but they also had a lot of injuries. Obviously Brook was the biggest one, but I think Deron was hampered with knee and ankle issues that year too. If those two had stayed healthy, and they had a good veteran coach, I think they would have been a super dangerous team in the playoffs.

It's not in this thread, but it hit me soon afterwards that the Nets really had no chance in the long run. They went all-in on guys who had 1-2 years left, had no trade assets, draft picks, or ability to get cap room. All of which meaning that they would fall off hard, and had no chance to outspend other teams with Prokhorov's cash (unless they wanted to resign KG or Pierce for $20m per). Thought we had a shot at a couple of top 5-10 picks at that point.

Never saw it going to the level it did with the Nets picks, but as much as I love Smart, I do wish we had stayed disciplined and tanked for a couple of years, rather than make an ill-fated playoff run after starting 16-30 the year we traded for IT. Not even a scorched earth tank like the Sixers did, but we gave up very real lottery odds for Embiid, Towns, and Porzingis in the first two years of this rebuild. Possible that lottery balls bounce different and/or Danny would have gone with guys like Jabari Parker or Justise Winslow instead, but that's not on me.

We all know that I posted about exactly this forcefully and extensively for several years, in thousand of posts in many, many threads. To much abuse from many here. Even got sequestered into my own threads so I could continue making the case, and got more abuse in those ones as well.

It was literally my only critique of this entire rebuild, and really, the entire Ainge Era. Now that it is said and done, can ANYONE even possibly try to **** explain why we didn't at least try to do that? It had zero bearing on any of the Nets picks that came later. Can you even imagine if we had Tatum, Jaylen, plus one or even two of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis? Plus the other picks we had and possibly Hayward?

Why in the flying **** did we not at least try for that? To get the **** kicked out of us by the Cavs 4-0 with IT leading the charge as an 8th seed? Because of his great recruiting bringing in Horford?

****. ****. ****.

I didn't mind it though. Isaiah helping us win and recruiting Horford led to Hayward and then obviously Isaiah blowing up led to him be a big piece in the Irving trade along with Jae. We were like one Kyrie mood swing away from grabbing a Irving, Smart/Brown, Hayward, Horford and Davis line up..the killshot as you used to say, was so close we could almost taste it..so I think Danny choose the right path..we just got unlucky with how poorly the Irving situation went. Dude **** us, ruined our chemistry, nuked our young players trade value and made us lose him AND Horford in the process. That **** guy should never be allowed to step into Boston again..

You my dude, but not with you on much of that. Stevens was the primary recruiter of Hayward, and IT was a throw-in on the Kyrie trade (as evidenced by them pretending to want to kill the trade over his medicals for a mere 2nd rounder, and then trading him 16 games in). We'd also have had no problem recruiting FAs if we had 1-2 of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis, in addition to Jaylen and Tatum, but it would have been within a proper window.

As we now know IMO, all that IT, Horford, fake contender thing really didn't need to happen. It was always, always about what we got out of the Nets picks, plus those first two Celtics 1st rounders while we are tanking.

I feel like this is beyond irrefutable at this point.

[BRUNiNHO91]

It's not in this thread, but it hit me soon afterwards that the Nets really had no chance in the long run. They went all-in on guys who had 1-2 years left, had no trade assets, draft picks, or ability to get cap room. All of which meaning that they would fall off hard, and had no chance to outspend other teams with Prokhorov's cash (unless they wanted to resign KG or Pierce for $20m per). Thought we had a shot at a couple of top 5-10 picks at that point.

Never saw it going to the level it did with the Nets picks, but as much as I love Smart, I do wish we had stayed disciplined and tanked for a couple of years, rather than make an ill-fated playoff run after starting 16-30 the year we traded for IT. Not even a scorched earth tank like the Sixers did, but we gave up very real lottery odds for Embiid, Towns, and Porzingis in the first two years of this rebuild. Possible that lottery balls bounce different and/or Danny would have gone with guys like Jabari Parker or Justise Winslow instead, but that's not on me.

We all know that I posted about exactly this forcefully and extensively for several years, in thousand of posts in many, many threads. To much abuse from many here. Even got sequestered into my own threads so I could continue making the case, and got more abuse in those ones as well.

It was literally my only critique of this entire rebuild, and really, the entire Ainge Era. Now that it is said and done, can ANYONE even possibly try to **** explain why we didn't at least try to do that? It had zero bearing on any of the Nets picks that came later. Can you even imagine if we had Tatum, Jaylen, plus one or even two of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis? Plus the other picks we had and possibly Hayward?

Why in the flying **** did we not at least try for that? To get the **** kicked out of us by the Cavs 4-0 with IT leading the charge as an 8th seed? Because of his great recruiting bringing in Horford?

****. ****. ****.

I didn't mind it though. Isaiah helping us win and recruiting Horford led to Hayward and then obviously Isaiah blowing up led to him be a big piece in the Irving trade along with Jae. We were like one Kyrie mood swing away from grabbing a Irving, Smart/Brown, Hayward, Horford and Davis line up..the killshot as you used to say, was so close we could almost taste it..so I think Danny choose the right path..we just got unlucky with how poorly the Irving situation went. Dude **** us, ruined our chemistry, nuked our young players trade value and made us lose him AND Horford in the process. That **** guy should never be allowed to step into Boston again..

You my dude, but not with you on much of that. Stevens was the primary recruiter of Hayward, and IT was a throw-in on the Kyrie trade (as evidenced by them pretending to want to kill the trade over his medicals for a mere 2nd rounder, and then trading him 16 games in). We'd also have had no problem recruiting FAs if we had 1-2 of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis, in addition to Jaylen and Tatum, but it would have been within a proper window.

As we now know IMO, all that IT, Horford, fake contender thing really didn't need to happen. It was always, always about what we got out of the Nets picks, plus those first two Celtics 1st rounders while we are tanking.

I feel like this is beyond irrefutable at this point.

Don't forget Jae Crowder was also a big part of that trade as dudes value was sky high due to winning. They were both valuable trade pieces at the time.

When you say didn't need to happen, you mean in order for us to get to where we are today? Or needed to get free agents at the time? Because if it's the latter than I disagree.

Looking back now, feel like we had two paths..one was to tank and add more top picks to the BKN ones..could have likely got us a shot at Towns, Embiid, Porzingis + Tatum, Brown and Sexton(??) and the other path was winning, sacrificing our own picks but quickly becoming players in FA to get Hayward and Horford + Irving and whatever else Tatum + Brown could bring in(AD was the goal). Stevens wasn't getting Horford or Hayward alone if we sucked during those years, even if Embiid was here. We would probably be a hot free agent destination this year or the next had everything went right for us with our draft picks, but not 4 years ago.

I would have picked the same path Danny did at time. I thought it was a rock solid plan, one that didn't require putting all our eggs in the draft basket. That's why I can't fault him too much. Knowing what I know today, I probably would have tanked also.

[Slax]

It's not in this thread, but it hit me soon afterwards that the Nets really had no chance in the long run. They went all-in on guys who had 1-2 years left, had no trade assets, draft picks, or ability to get cap room. All of which meaning that they would fall off hard, and had no chance to outspend other teams with Prokhorov's cash (unless they wanted to resign KG or Pierce for $20m per). Thought we had a shot at a couple of top 5-10 picks at that point.

Never saw it going to the level it did with the Nets picks, but as much as I love Smart, I do wish we had stayed disciplined and tanked for a couple of years, rather than make an ill-fated playoff run after starting 16-30 the year we traded for IT. Not even a scorched earth tank like the Sixers did, but we gave up very real lottery odds for Embiid, Towns, and Porzingis in the first two years of this rebuild. Possible that lottery balls bounce different and/or Danny would have gone with guys like Jabari Parker or Justise Winslow instead, but that's not on me.

We all know that I posted about exactly this forcefully and extensively for several years, in thousand of posts in many, many threads. To much abuse from many here. Even got sequestered into my own threads so I could continue making the case, and got more abuse in those ones as well.

It was literally my only critique of this entire rebuild, and really, the entire Ainge Era. Now that it is said and done, can ANYONE even possibly try to **** explain why we didn't at least try to do that? It had zero bearing on any of the Nets picks that came later. Can you even imagine if we had Tatum, Jaylen, plus one or even two of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis? Plus the other picks we had and possibly Hayward?

Why in the flying **** did we not at least try for that? To get the **** kicked out of us by the Cavs 4-0 with IT leading the charge as an 8th seed? Because of his great recruiting bringing in Horford?

****. ****. ****.

I didn't mind it though. Isaiah helping us win and recruiting Horford led to Hayward and then obviously Isaiah blowing up led to him be a big piece in the Irving trade along with Jae. We were like one Kyrie mood swing away from grabbing a Irving, Smart/Brown, Hayward, Horford and Davis line up..the killshot as you used to say, was so close we could almost taste it..so I think Danny choose the right path..we just got unlucky with how poorly the Irving situation went. Dude **** us, ruined our chemistry, nuked our young players trade value and made us lose him AND Horford in the process. That **** guy should never be allowed to step into Boston again..

You my dude, but not with you on much of that. Stevens was the primary recruiter of Hayward, and IT was a throw-in on the Kyrie trade (as evidenced by them pretending to want to kill the trade over his medicals for a mere 2nd rounder, and then trading him 16 games in). We'd also have had no problem recruiting FAs if we had 1-2 of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis, in addition to Jaylen and Tatum, but it would have been within a proper window.

As we now know IMO, all that IT, Horford, fake contender thing really didn't need to happen. It was always, always about what we got out of the Nets picks, plus those first two Celtics 1st rounders while we are tanking.

I feel like this is beyond irrefutable at this point.

We tanked pretty hard to get Smart, just ended up not being bad enough to really compete with single digits teams like the Sixers and Bucks. And I think we ended up doing pretty well in that draft considering the talent at the top - getting Embiid would have been a game changer of course, but ending up with Parker or Gordon or whoever instead of Smart wouldn't have been good for us. But I do think we should have rolled the dice and tanked harder the next two years in the hopes of lucking into one of Towns, Porzingis, Simmons, or Ingram. I strongly disagree it would have improved our recruiting - the actual FA recruitment experience of the Sixers suggests we almost definitely don't end up with players like Hayward and Kemba in this alternative scenario. But even if you some we end up blowing one of those picks on a guy like Bender instead of lucking into Ingram, Smart, Sexton, Brown, Tatum, Porzingis, and a couple mid-tier free agents would have been an incredible lineup of young stars. Unlike you, I feel like we did ok with what we had by leveraging our regular season and playoff success into free agent recruiting and eventually getting Hayward and Kemba, and that you can't just assume those guys would have gotten tacked onto a team of good young players, but nonetheless there's a high likelihood we could have positioned ourselves even better. So I think you're mostly right on those two years leading up to the 2015 and 2016 drafts.

I do have a bone to pick with you though, Cave. We argued very heavily about whether or not the Celtics should have been tanking the year we had the pick swap with Brooklyn, and I feel vindicated on that point considering we ended up going to the conference finals and then getting the 2017 first pick that ended up being Tatum. Tanking that year would not have helped us in any way, whereas reaching the conference finals helped us recruit Hayward. And I know you say that was all Stevens, but it's hard to imagine Hayward leaving a playoff Jazz team to be with a terrible lottery team just because he had fuzzy feelings about his college coach. And it's also hard to imagine any moves that could have made the Celtics bad enough to get a good lottery pick that year even if it could have been useful, which it wasn't.

[MagicBagley18]

It's not in this thread, but it hit me soon afterwards that the Nets really had no chance in the long run. They went all-in on guys who had 1-2 years left, had no trade assets, draft picks, or ability to get cap room. All of which meaning that they would fall off hard, and had no chance to outspend other teams with Prokhorov's cash (unless they wanted to resign KG or Pierce for $20m per). Thought we had a shot at a couple of top 5-10 picks at that point.

Never saw it going to the level it did with the Nets picks, but as much as I love Smart, I do wish we had stayed disciplined and tanked for a couple of years, rather than make an ill-fated playoff run after starting 16-30 the year we traded for IT. Not even a scorched earth tank like the Sixers did, but we gave up very real lottery odds for Embiid, Towns, and Porzingis in the first two years of this rebuild. Possible that lottery balls bounce different and/or Danny would have gone with guys like Jabari Parker or Justise Winslow instead, but that's not on me.

We all know that I posted about exactly this forcefully and extensively for several years, in thousand of posts in many, many threads. To much abuse from many here. Even got sequestered into my own threads so I could continue making the case, and got more abuse in those ones as well.

It was literally my only critique of this entire rebuild, and really, the entire Ainge Era. Now that it is said and done, can ANYONE even possibly try to **** explain why we didn't at least try to do that? It had zero bearing on any of the Nets picks that came later. Can you even imagine if we had Tatum, Jaylen, plus one or even two of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis? Plus the other picks we had and possibly Hayward?

Why in the flying **** did we not at least try for that? To get the **** kicked out of us by the Cavs 4-0 with IT leading the charge as an 8th seed? Because of his great recruiting bringing in Horford?

****. ****. ****.

I didn't mind it though. Isaiah helping us win and recruiting Horford led to Hayward and then obviously Isaiah blowing up led to him be a big piece in the Irving trade along with Jae. We were like one Kyrie mood swing away from grabbing a Irving, Smart/Brown, Hayward, Horford and Davis line up..the killshot as you used to say, was so close we could almost taste it..so I think Danny choose the right path..we just got unlucky with how poorly the Irving situation went. Dude **** us, ruined our chemistry, nuked our young players trade value and made us lose him AND Horford in the process. That **** guy should never be allowed to step into Boston again..

You my dude, but not with you on much of that. Stevens was the primary recruiter of Hayward, and IT was a throw-in on the Kyrie trade (as evidenced by them pretending to want to kill the trade over his medicals for a mere 2nd rounder, and then trading him 16 games in). We'd also have had no problem recruiting FAs if we had 1-2 of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis, in addition to Jaylen and Tatum, but it would have been within a proper window.

As we now know IMO, all that IT, Horford, fake contender thing really didn't need to happen. It was always, always about what we got out of the Nets picks, plus those first two Celtics 1st rounders while we are tanking.

I feel like this is beyond irrefutable at this point.

I am just glad how things are now compared to how doom and gloom it looked in July, kyrie leaves, ad trade dies, horford leaves.- the fact that Tatum is a legit stud at least makes things bearable moving forward even if we missed the real plan getting AD

[Captain_Caveman]

I didn't mind it though. Isaiah helping us win and recruiting Horford led to Hayward and then obviously Isaiah blowing up led to him be a big piece in the Irving trade along with Jae. We were like one Kyrie mood swing away from grabbing a Irving, Smart/Brown, Hayward, Horford and Davis line up..the killshot as you used to say, was so close we could almost taste it..so I think Danny choose the right path..we just got unlucky with how poorly the Irving situation went. Dude **** us, ruined our chemistry, nuked our young players trade value and made us lose him AND Horford in the process. That **** guy should never be allowed to step into Boston again..

You my dude, but not with you on much of that. Stevens was the primary recruiter of Hayward, and IT was a throw-in on the Kyrie trade (as evidenced by them pretending to want to kill the trade over his medicals for a mere 2nd rounder, and then trading him 16 games in). We'd also have had no problem recruiting FAs if we had 1-2 of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis, in addition to Jaylen and Tatum, but it would have been within a proper window.

As we now know IMO, all that IT, Horford, fake contender thing really didn't need to happen. It was always, always about what we got out of the Nets picks, plus those first two Celtics 1st rounders while we are tanking.

I feel like this is beyond irrefutable at this point.

We tanked pretty hard to get Smart, just ended up not being bad enough to really compete with single digits teams like the Sixers and Bucks. And I think we ended up doing pretty well in that draft considering the talent at the top - getting Embiid would have been a game changer of course, but ending up with Parker or Gordon or whoever instead of Smart wouldn't have been good for us. But I do think we should have rolled the dice and tanked harder the next two years in the hopes of lucking into one of Towns, Porzingis, Simmons, or Ingram. I strongly disagree it would have improved our recruiting - the actual FA recruitment experience of the Sixers suggests we almost definitely don't end up with players like Hayward and Kemba in this alternative scenario. But even if you some we end up blowing one of those picks on a guy like Bender instead of lucking into Ingram, Smart, Sexton, Brown, Tatum, Porzingis, and a couple mid-tier free agents would have been an incredible lineup of young stars. Unlike you, I feel like we did ok with what we had by leveraging our regular season and playoff success into free agent recruiting and eventually getting Hayward and Kemba, and that you can't just assume those guys would have gotten tacked onto a team of good young players, but nonetheless there's a high likelihood we could have positioned ourselves even better. So I think you're mostly right on those two years leading up to the 2015 and 2016 drafts.

I do have a bone to pick with you though, Cave. We argued very heavily about whether or not the Celtics should have been tanking the year we had the pick swap with Brooklyn, and I feel vindicated on that point considering we ended up going to the conference finals and then getting the 2017 first pick that ended up being Tatum. Tanking that year would not have helped us in any way, whereas reaching the conference finals helped us recruit Hayward. And I know you say that was all Stevens, but it's hard to imagine Hayward leaving a playoff Jazz team to be with a terrible lottery team just because he had fuzzy feelings about his college coach. And it's also hard to imagine any moves that could have made the Celtics bad enough to get a good lottery pick that year even if it could have been useful, which it wasn't.

That absolutely did not happen. I always saw tanking as a two-year proposition, for the Smart and Rozier drafts, specifically. Tatum was drafted a full two years after those drafts. Not one person here called for tanking during 2016-17. That would have been asinine, for any number of reasons, but certainly because we would have to beaten out the 20-win Nets for it to even matter because of the pick swap.

FWIW, I also definitely didn't call for tanking the year before that, either. I don't recall anyone else calling for that, either.

[Slax]

You my dude, but not with you on much of that. Stevens was the primary recruiter of Hayward, and IT was a throw-in on the Kyrie trade (as evidenced by them pretending to want to kill the trade over his medicals for a mere 2nd rounder, and then trading him 16 games in). We'd also have had no problem recruiting FAs if we had 1-2 of Embiid, Towns, or Porzingis, in addition to Jaylen and Tatum, but it would have been within a proper window.

As we now know IMO, all that IT, Horford, fake contender thing really didn't need to happen. It was always, always about what we got out of the Nets picks, plus those first two Celtics 1st rounders while we are tanking.

I feel like this is beyond irrefutable at this point.

We tanked pretty hard to get Smart, just ended up not being bad enough to really compete with single digits teams like the Sixers and Bucks. And I think we ended up doing pretty well in that draft considering the talent at the top - getting Embiid would have been a game changer of course, but ending up with Parker or Gordon or whoever instead of Smart wouldn't have been good for us. But I do think we should have rolled the dice and tanked harder the next two years in the hopes of lucking into one of Towns, Porzingis, Simmons, or Ingram. I strongly disagree it would have improved our recruiting - the actual FA recruitment experience of the Sixers suggests we almost definitely don't end up with players like Hayward and Kemba in this alternative scenario. But even if you some we end up blowing one of those picks on a guy like Bender instead of lucking into Ingram, Smart, Sexton, Brown, Tatum, Porzingis, and a couple mid-tier free agents would have been an incredible lineup of young stars. Unlike you, I feel like we did ok with what we had by leveraging our regular season and playoff success into free agent recruiting and eventually getting Hayward and Kemba, and that you can't just assume those guys would have gotten tacked onto a team of good young players, but nonetheless there's a high likelihood we could have positioned ourselves even better. So I think you're mostly right on those two years leading up to the 2015 and 2016 drafts.

I do have a bone to pick with you though, Cave. We argued very heavily about whether or not the Celtics should have been tanking the year we had the pick swap with Brooklyn, and I feel vindicated on that point considering we ended up going to the conference finals and then getting the 2017 first pick that ended up being Tatum. Tanking that year would not have helped us in any way, whereas reaching the conference finals helped us recruit Hayward. And I know you say that was all Stevens, but it's hard to imagine Hayward leaving a playoff Jazz team to be with a terrible lottery team just because he had fuzzy feelings about his college coach. And it's also hard to imagine any moves that could have made the Celtics bad enough to get a good lottery pick that year even if it could have been useful, which it wasn't.

That absolutely did not happen. I always saw tanking as a two-year proposition, for the Smart and Rozier drafts, specifically. Tatum was drafted a full two years after those drafts. Not one person here called for tanking during 2016-17. That would have been asinine, for any number of reasons, but certainly because we would have to beaten out the 20-win Nets for it to even matter because of the pick swap.

FWIW, I also definitely didn't call for tanking the year before that, either. I don't recall anyone else calling for that, either.

Whoops, I guess I misremembered a conversation I had with another poster as being with you (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1447401&p=47489109&hilit=swap+tank#p47489109). I sincerely apologize for that. My bad!

Anyway I do have some thoughts on whether a two year tank instead of one year tank would have been likely to significantly change our fortunes. I would say the answer is a solid... maybe. It's theoretically possible to imagine a situation where we end up with Sexton/Brown/Tatum/Porzingis/Embiid plus one or two max free agents for example. It's also possible (even more likely imo) to imagine we end up with trash like Exum and Okafor. Probabilistically, the median outcome is somewhere in between those two extremes. It's really easy to think about the best case hypotheticals where we end up near the top of the lottery and make the perfect pick every time, but that's not the most likely outcome. But even the outside chance of that rosy outcome would have made it the right move.

If nothing else, I was on board with the logic that getting extra lottery picks would have been decent insurance against blowing the high picks we did end up getting. But we are super lucky that Ainge didn't blow the Brown and Tatum picks. I pointed out in another thread that if we drafted say Bender and Fultz, that would have been the end of the rebuild, and we would be starting all over again now.