Celtics General Offseason Thread Pt. 10: Free Agency is in Free Flow

[winsomme2]

If only we could find a center like Zubac and we could be favorites to win it all.

That’s a good point. I get that Hayward-Brown-Tatum isn’t Kawhi and Paul George, but no one’s sweating the lack of traditional size on that team.

We match up well with the Clippers. Like we did the Warriors.

We have to go through at least two of the Bucks (Lopez Bros./Giannis), Sixers (Embiid/Horford/Simmons), Indy (Turner/Sabonis), and Raptors (Ibaka/Gasol) first. Though I'm really not concerned about those last two teams.

Interior defense has been a weakness of the team for a few years now. We addressed the rebounding but not the paint protection part. Kyrie-to-Kemba on the point-of-attack defense isn't an upgrade either. I think the major upgrade we will get could be the togetherness and oncourt chemistry we lost last season. So there would be less defensive breakdowns if these guys are in sync and communicating on the floor.

Until there is some resolution of the Hayward/Brown issue, I'm not convinced the chemistry issues will go away.

[sam_I_am]

If only we could find a center like Zubac and we could be favorites to win it all.

That’s a good point. I get that Hayward-Brown-Tatum isn’t Kawhi and Paul George, but no one’s sweating the lack of traditional size on that team.

Paul George and Kawhi might be one of the best defensive duos this league has ever seen. Add in Beverley and Montrez Harrell and you probably have the best team defense in the league. There is no comparison.

Listen, this isn't about our roster not being perfect. It has holes so big you could drive a bus through it. Which is exactly what teams will do.

You can fill holes during a season, but not the size we got.

I keep going back the the Red Sox telling us we would be fine without a closer. Our lack of rebounding and interior defense is the same thing. We all know better. We all watched Giannis completely annihilate us last year. We all know what's going to happen if Tatum is our PF and second string center is RWill.

Additionally, we are already hearing the "Hayward hasn't earned his minutes" angle. How long before that leads to the "Stevens is babying him" claim? Do we really want another season of that? Cuz it's not going anywhere. You can't even post a starting line up with Hayward in it without people complaining. Just wait till the articles start coming about Brown being upset....

Danny needs to save us all from another season of that insanity.

So size only matters with the Celtics? Giannis can’t drive a hole through LA Clippers because their jerseys aren’t green? Clippers don’t have Gasol, Ibaka and Siakam. They might be great defensively but they are even softer in middle than Celtics. Bulls in 90s had 6-10 Pippin and still needed Cartwright, Grant, Rodman, Longley etc.

I get that our team has holes....but it has incredible strengths too. Maybe not at level of PG/Kawhi yet but enough to cause problems in the East.

[winsomme2]

Theis not signed yet? We can give him $19.3M/2 years, 2nd year non-guaranteed. $9.28M is a better trade ballast midseason. We at least have to have the option of trading up in late January.

Ojeleye + Yabu can get us Crowder, expiring ($7.82M).

Add Kanter and you can get into the Adams/Drummond/Gasol trade range.

Lose 3 rotational players for a starting center. At this point, is it still worth it?

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

[zoyathedestroya]

That’s a good point. I get that Hayward-Brown-Tatum isn’t Kawhi and Paul George, but no one’s sweating the lack of traditional size on that team.

We match up well with the Clippers. Like we did the Warriors.

We have to go through at least two of the Bucks (Lopez Bros./Giannis), Sixers (Embiid/Horford/Simmons), Indy (Turner/Sabonis), and Raptors (Ibaka/Gasol) first. Though I'm really not concerned about those last two teams.

Interior defense has been a weakness of the team for a few years now. We addressed the rebounding but not the paint protection part. Kyrie-to-Kemba on the point-of-attack defense isn't an upgrade either. I think the major upgrade we will get could be the togetherness and oncourt chemistry we lost last season. So there would be less defensive breakdowns if these guys are in sync and communicating on the floor.

Until there is some resolution of the Hayward/Brown issue, I'm not convinced the chemistry issues will go away.

Team net rating when our 3 wings shared the floor together last season was elite, so this Hayward-Brown thing could be overblown. Was Brown still complaining when he was putting up numbers on the second unit while playing alongside Hayward? It could've been an early-season issue last year when Hayward was starting and it got overplayed by the media. More shots/opportunity for the four of them now that Morris and Rozier are replaced by low usage, low shot attempt guys.

We just don't want Ainge to sell low on either.

[zoyathedestroya]

Theis not signed yet? We can give him $19.3M/2 years, 2nd year non-guaranteed. $9.28M is a better trade ballast midseason. We at least have to have the option of trading up in late January.

Ojeleye + Yabu can get us Crowder, expiring ($7.82M).

Add Kanter and you can get into the Adams/Drummond/Gasol trade range.

Lose 3 rotational players for a starting center. At this point, is it still worth it?

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Theoretically, we could.

[winsomme2]

That’s a good point. I get that Hayward-Brown-Tatum isn’t Kawhi and Paul George, but no one’s sweating the lack of traditional size on that team.

Paul George and Kawhi might be one of the best defensive duos this league has ever seen. Add in Beverley and Montrez Harrell and you probably have the best team defense in the league. There is no comparison.

Listen, this isn't about our roster not being perfect. It has holes so big you could drive a bus through it. Which is exactly what teams will do.

You can fill holes during a season, but not the size we got.

I keep going back the the Red Sox telling us we would be fine without a closer. Our lack of rebounding and interior defense is the same thing. We all know better. We all watched Giannis completely annihilate us last year. We all know what's going to happen if Tatum is our PF and second string center is RWill.

Additionally, we are already hearing the "Hayward hasn't earned his minutes" angle. How long before that leads to the "Stevens is babying him" claim? Do we really want another season of that? Cuz it's not going anywhere. You can't even post a starting line up with Hayward in it without people complaining. Just wait till the articles start coming about Brown being upset....

Danny needs to save us all from another season of that insanity.

So size only matters with the Celtics? Giannis can’t drive a hole through LA Clippers because their jerseys aren’t green? Clippers don’t have Gasol, Ibaka and Siakam. They might be great defensively but they are even softer in middle than Celtics. Bulls in 90s had 6-10 Pippin and still needed Cartwright, Grant, Rodman, Longley etc.

I get that our team has holes....but it has incredible strengths too. Maybe not at level of PG/Kawhi yet but enough to cause problems in the East.

Size matters more when you are also not a good defender.

Have you watched Harrell play? His wingspan is 7'4". What big on our roster would you take over him?

Also Paul George can actually play PF and like I said a finalist for DPOY. Kawhi is also amongst the best defenders in the league.

Their top two players are top 10 in the league.

[Ernest]

So what bigs are still free agents and might take the vet min from us?

Seems like we need to figure out who we want to trade out of Hayward and Brown and treade them for a big. Problem is, there doesn't seem to be a big worth it to trade for now.

All these lineups people are posting of guys we have now are going to get us killed. Theis and Williams are not starters on a team that wants to win. We have too much talent at the 1-3 spots to be this bad at the 4 and 5. We need some more help, like Chandler or Noah and then hope we can trade from someone like Drummond or something.

We have only the vet min to spend now right?

[Celts17Pride]

Read on Twitter

Very Interesting!

[winsomme2]

Theis not signed yet? We can give him $19.3M/2 years, 2nd year non-guaranteed. $9.28M is a better trade ballast midseason. We at least have to have the option of trading up in late January.

Ojeleye + Yabu can get us Crowder, expiring ($7.82M).

Add Kanter and you can get into the Adams/Drummond/Gasol trade range.

Lose 3 rotational players for a starting center. At this point, is it still worth it?

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Theoretically, we could.

So we chose Theis over Morris?

[winsomme2]

That’s a good point. I get that Hayward-Brown-Tatum isn’t Kawhi and Paul George, but no one’s sweating the lack of traditional size on that team.

Paul George and Kawhi might be one of the best defensive duos this league has ever seen. Add in Beverley and Montrez Harrell and you probably have the best team defense in the league. There is no comparison.

Listen, this isn't about our roster not being perfect. It has holes so big you could drive a bus through it. Which is exactly what teams will do.

You can fill holes during a season, but not the size we got.

I keep going back the the Red Sox telling us we would be fine without a closer. Our lack of rebounding and interior defense is the same thing. We all know better. We all watched Giannis completely annihilate us last year. We all know what's going to happen if Tatum is our PF and second string center is RWill.

Additionally, we are already hearing the "Hayward hasn't earned his minutes" angle. How long before that leads to the "Stevens is babying him" claim? Do we really want another season of that? Cuz it's not going anywhere. You can't even post a starting line up with Hayward in it without people complaining. Just wait till the articles start coming about Brown being upset....

Danny needs to save us all from another season of that insanity.

So size only matters with the Celtics? Giannis can’t drive a hole through LA Clippers because their jerseys aren’t green? Clippers don’t have Gasol, Ibaka and Siakam. They might be great defensively but they are even softer in middle than Celtics. Bulls in 90s had 6-10 Pippin and still needed Cartwright, Grant, Rodman, Longley etc.

I get that our team has holes....but it has incredible strengths too. Maybe not at level of PG/Kawhi yet but enough to cause problems in the East.

"cause problems" is too low a bar IMO. The East is so weak next season, we need to put together a roster that has a legit chance to win it. And right now PHI and MIL will walk all over us. We'd be competitive against everybody else, but PHI and MIL will dance on our head. Just like last year. It's not theoretical. We watched it.

[sam_I_am]

Theis not signed yet? We can give him $19.3M/2 years, 2nd year non-guaranteed. $9.28M is a better trade ballast midseason. We at least have to have the option of trading up in late January.

Ojeleye + Yabu can get us Crowder, expiring ($7.82M).

Add Kanter and you can get into the Adams/Drummond/Gasol trade range.

Lose 3 rotational players for a starting center. At this point, is it still worth it?

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Theis cap hold was only 2 million so we never had to relinquish it. We needed to relinquish Morris hold to have max space for Kemba, but not Theis. We only had exceptions for Morris but with Theis I believe we could pay him whatever. Only option with Morris was to sign him with cap space and then trade him but to get anything back we needed Sixers and Nets to play along.

[zoyathedestroya]

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Theoretically, we could.

So we chose Theis over Morris?

Or Morris chose another team. You have to ask them haha.

[winsomme2]

Theis not signed yet? We can give him $19.3M/2 years, 2nd year non-guaranteed. $9.28M is a better trade ballast midseason. We at least have to have the option of trading up in late January.

Ojeleye + Yabu can get us Crowder, expiring ($7.82M).

Add Kanter and you can get into the Adams/Drummond/Gasol trade range.

Lose 3 rotational players for a starting center. At this point, is it still worth it?

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Theis cap hold was only 2 million so we never had to relinquish it. We needed to relinquish Morris hold to have max space for Kemba, but not Theis. We only had exceptions for Morris but with Theis I believe we could pay him whatever. Only option with Morris was to sign him with cap space and then trade him but to get anything back we needed Sixers and Nets to play along.

What was the cap hold for Morris? Could we have just done a salary dump with Yabusele to create the needed room?

[Andrew McCeltic]

Paul George and Kawhi might be one of the best defensive duos this league has ever seen. Add in Beverley and Montrez Harrell and you probably have the best team defense in the league. There is no comparison.

Listen, this isn't about our roster not being perfect. It has holes so big you could drive a bus through it. Which is exactly what teams will do.

You can fill holes during a season, but not the size we got.

I keep going back the the Red Sox telling us we would be fine without a closer. Our lack of rebounding and interior defense is the same thing. We all know better. We all watched Giannis completely annihilate us last year. We all know what's going to happen if Tatum is our PF and second string center is RWill.

Additionally, we are already hearing the "Hayward hasn't earned his minutes" angle. How long before that leads to the "Stevens is babying him" claim? Do we really want another season of that? Cuz it's not going anywhere. You can't even post a starting line up with Hayward in it without people complaining. Just wait till the articles start coming about Brown being upset....

Danny needs to save us all from another season of that insanity.

So size only matters with the Celtics? Giannis can’t drive a hole through LA Clippers because their jerseys aren’t green? Clippers don’t have Gasol, Ibaka and Siakam. They might be great defensively but they are even softer in middle than Celtics. Bulls in 90s had 6-10 Pippin and still needed Cartwright, Grant, Rodman, Longley etc.

I get that our team has holes....but it has incredible strengths too. Maybe not at level of PG/Kawhi yet but enough to cause problems in the East.

Size matters more when you are also not a good defender.

Have you watched Harrell play? His wingspan is 7'4". What big on our roster would you take over him?

Also Paul George can actually play PF and like I said a finalist for DPOY. Kawhi is also amongst the best defenders in the league.

Their top two players are top 10 in the league.

On paper the Clippers are really good - they also have Beverley and Moe Harkless - not clear on whether they kept Green’s cap hold, or the TE they got in the Tobias Harris trade.. they may have lost both.. but they’re going to be elite defensively.

[zoyathedestroya]

Theis not signed yet? We can give him $19.3M/2 years, 2nd year non-guaranteed. $9.28M is a better trade ballast midseason. We at least have to have the option of trading up in late January.

Ojeleye + Yabu can get us Crowder, expiring ($7.82M).

Add Kanter and you can get into the Adams/Drummond/Gasol trade range.

Lose 3 rotational players for a starting center. At this point, is it still worth it?

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Theis cap hold was only 2 million so we never had to relinquish it. We needed to relinquish Morris hold to have max space for Kemba, but not Theis. We only had exceptions for Morris but with Theis I believe we could pay him whatever. Only option with Morris was to sign him with cap space and then trade him but to get anything back we needed Sixers and Nets to play along.

There was a way to keep Morris's hold or at least come close to what the Spurs offered but it would take some cap maneuvering. djFan and I spent an entire thread for this.

[Smog]

Paul George and Kawhi might be one of the best defensive duos this league has ever seen. Add in Beverley and Montrez Harrell and you probably have the best team defense in the league. There is no comparison.

Listen, this isn't about our roster not being perfect. It has holes so big you could drive a bus through it. Which is exactly what teams will do.

You can fill holes during a season, but not the size we got.

I keep going back the the Red Sox telling us we would be fine without a closer. Our lack of rebounding and interior defense is the same thing. We all know better. We all watched Giannis completely annihilate us last year. We all know what's going to happen if Tatum is our PF and second string center is RWill.

Additionally, we are already hearing the "Hayward hasn't earned his minutes" angle. How long before that leads to the "Stevens is babying him" claim? Do we really want another season of that? Cuz it's not going anywhere. You can't even post a starting line up with Hayward in it without people complaining. Just wait till the articles start coming about Brown being upset....

Danny needs to save us all from another season of that insanity.

So size only matters with the Celtics? Giannis can’t drive a hole through LA Clippers because their jerseys aren’t green? Clippers don’t have Gasol, Ibaka and Siakam. They might be great defensively but they are even softer in middle than Celtics. Bulls in 90s had 6-10 Pippin and still needed Cartwright, Grant, Rodman, Longley etc.

I get that our team has holes....but it has incredible strengths too. Maybe not at level of PG/Kawhi yet but enough to cause problems in the East.

Size matters more when you are also not a good defender.

Have you watched Harrell play? His wingspan is 7'4". What big on our roster would you take over him?

Also Paul George can actually play PF and like I said a finalist for DPOY. Kawhi is also amongst the best defenders in the league.

Their top two players are top 10 in the league.

It’s JULY. They just had a major disruption to the team. They need to see what they have. If they don’t have enough talent to make the playoffs, none of this matters. If they do but look like they have serious flaws still, there’s plenty of time to make a trade. This isn’t the MLB where it’s hard to make the postseason.

Just don’t understand all the freaking out. They are extremely limited in terms of what they can do personnel-wise right now because of the cap. The choice was either building a complete team or getting Walker. Unless you want to be trading away core pieces like Brown or Tatum or Smart, or first-round picks, or both, you’re not getting a playoff-ready team on day 1.

But who cares? Why are people afraid a few bad losses in November? Let’s see how they look, then worry about it.

[winsomme2]

So size only matters with the Celtics? Giannis can’t drive a hole through LA Clippers because their jerseys aren’t green? Clippers don’t have Gasol, Ibaka and Siakam. They might be great defensively but they are even softer in middle than Celtics. Bulls in 90s had 6-10 Pippin and still needed Cartwright, Grant, Rodman, Longley etc.

I get that our team has holes....but it has incredible strengths too. Maybe not at level of PG/Kawhi yet but enough to cause problems in the East.

Size matters more when you are also not a good defender.

Have you watched Harrell play? His wingspan is 7'4". What big on our roster would you take over him?

Also Paul George can actually play PF and like I said a finalist for DPOY. Kawhi is also amongst the best defenders in the league.

Their top two players are top 10 in the league.

It’s JULY. They just had a major disruption to the team. They need to see what they have. If they don’t have enough talent to make the playoffs, none of this matters. If they do but look like they have serious flaws still, there’s plenty of time to make a trade. This isn’t the MLB where it’s hard to make the postseason.

Just don’t understand all the freaking out. They are extremely limited in terms of what they can do personnel-wise right now because of the cap. The choice was either building a complete team or getting Walker. Unless you want to be trading away core pieces like Brown or Tatum or Smart, or first-round picks, or both, you’re not getting a playoff-ready team on day 1.

But who cares? Why are people afraid a few bad losses in November? Let’s see how they look, then worry about it.

It's way harder to fill holes during the season IMO.

And yes, I would trade one of Brown/Hayward plus picks to get it done. I think we need to break those two up anyway.

[winsomme2]

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Theis cap hold was only 2 million so we never had to relinquish it. We needed to relinquish Morris hold to have max space for Kemba, but not Theis. We only had exceptions for Morris but with Theis I believe we could pay him whatever. Only option with Morris was to sign him with cap space and then trade him but to get anything back we needed Sixers and Nets to play along.

There was a way to keep Morris's hold or at least come close to what the Spurs offered but it would take some cap maneuvering. djFan and I spent an entire thread for this.

Seems like all they needed to do was dump Yabu's salary (tons of teams did it this off season) and not keep Theis. No?

[brackdan70]

Theis not signed yet? We can give him $19.3M/2 years, 2nd year non-guaranteed. $9.28M is a better trade ballast midseason. We at least have to have the option of trading up in late January.

Ojeleye + Yabu can get us Crowder, expiring ($7.82M).

Add Kanter and you can get into the Adams/Drummond/Gasol trade range.

Lose 3 rotational players for a starting center. At this point, is it still worth it?

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Had to renounce his cap hold to sign Kemba

[winsomme2]

Theis not signed yet? We can give him $19.3M/2 years, 2nd year non-guaranteed. $9.28M is a better trade ballast midseason. We at least have to have the option of trading up in late January.

Ojeleye + Yabu can get us Crowder, expiring ($7.82M).

Add Kanter and you can get into the Adams/Drummond/Gasol trade range.

Lose 3 rotational players for a starting center. At this point, is it still worth it?

How come we could give Theis that much but not Morris?

Had to renounce his cap hold to sign Kemba

But why couldn't we have renounced Theis and traded Yabu instead?