Grade the Celtics' Draft
- Thread starter BigSoxFan
- Start date
So are you basically saying that the only way for this draft not to be a disaster is for Danny to guess right on which of the second/third tier players were going to be a superstar? That seems, well, unrealistic.
What would you have done?
I voted F, for frustrated, but paradoxically have no particular issue with any single pick or decision made last night. I’m not quite In Danny We Trust, but generally think he did as well as possible given the constraints. The idea that hot-mock-draftz.com, etc. has a better read on prospect valuations than our GM seems quite unlikely.
My huge objection is to the fact they completely misplayed the market for their assets and ended up going into the draft with foreseeable constraints. Up against the simple wall of how many players they can put on the roster, they were repeatedly forced into suboptimal decisions.
The concept their draft/stash picks were ‘best players available’ is fantasy. Could it really be a coincidence? They were effectively forced to take the ‘best stash-able player(s) available’, particularly for first round picks with guaranteed contracts.
Another side effect of their inability to properly price their assets, and/or overestimate pick’s liquidity, was the decision to trade two excellent 2nd rounder for a future asset as well. We’ve been sold on the idea those 2nd round picks were sometimes preferable to late firsts, and suddenly this is the best they could do? I don’t buy it.
I get the recent macroeconomic trend of massive salary cap increases flew in the face of pick valuations, and thus their strategy of stockpiling picks. The increased salary cap does diminish the value of our picks, whose value derives from performance on the cheap, as everyone suddenly has plenty of money.
The problem remains though, from my perspective they clearly ended up making choices other than ‘best play available’ all night and backed themselves into a corner by not making a deal prior to last night. F for failure to adapt their model to the new NBA economics…I reserve the right to change to an A if Brown becomes a star and the euros are players
My huge objection is to the fact they completely misplayed the market for their assets and ended up going into the draft with foreseeable constraints. Up against the simple wall of how many players they can put on the roster, they were repeatedly forced into suboptimal decisions.
The concept their draft/stash picks were ‘best players available’ is fantasy. Could it really be a coincidence? They were effectively forced to take the ‘best stash-able player(s) available’, particularly for first round picks with guaranteed contracts.
Another side effect of their inability to properly price their assets, and/or overestimate pick’s liquidity, was the decision to trade two excellent 2nd rounder for a future asset as well. We’ve been sold on the idea those 2nd round picks were sometimes preferable to late firsts, and suddenly this is the best they could do? I don’t buy it.
I get the recent macroeconomic trend of massive salary cap increases flew in the face of pick valuations, and thus their strategy of stockpiling picks. The increased salary cap does diminish the value of our picks, whose value derives from performance on the cheap, as everyone suddenly has plenty of money.
The problem remains though, from my perspective they clearly ended up making choices other than ‘best play available’ all night and backed themselves into a corner by not making a deal prior to last night. F for failure to adapt their model to the new NBA economics…I reserve the right to change to an A if Brown becomes a star and the euros are players
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Zizic was picked when there were many other players I liked much more left on the board, such as Luwawu, or Davis. He's not a big upside guy from what I've read, and he doesn't profile well statistically. Bentil went 51st, so whatever. I agree, a whiff there doesn't matter.
Re: your other comment, I'm generally something of a Celtics optimist actually. I was predicting them to make the playoffs two years ago, and predicting an improvement to 48-50 wins this year. I just think this draft in particular was just handled extremely poorly. Maybe that makes me insufferable (that's for you to judge), but I'm not a perennial complainer about this team.
I thought the future was extremely bright before. It still is, just less so now, but them's the breaks.
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i'm not sure what grade other than an Incomplete can be given in a draft that many thought was a 2-player draft.
If people want to bitch that #16 pick was really a #25 or higher, beauty is in the eye of Ainge.
Seeing that an Auerbachian fleecing was not in the cards, I'm more or less content to hope the team signs a quality FA, and then continues to use the Nets picks to get better.
I hope they will be a legit title contender 2-3 years from now with a core of young players.
If people want to bitch that #16 pick was really a #25 or higher, beauty is in the eye of Ainge.
Seeing that an Auerbachian fleecing was not in the cards, I'm more or less content to hope the team signs a quality FA, and then continues to use the Nets picks to get better.
I hope they will be a legit title contender 2-3 years from now with a core of young players.
Does anyone know what would happen if (for example) the Cs drafted Korkmaz and Korkmaz wanted to come over to the States to play? Could the Cs tell him that he needs to stay in Europe or do they have to sign him to a guaranteed contract? I wonder if that had anything to do with passing on Korkmaz and Luwawu.
I don't agree that turning down the philly offer is some massive failure. They had no use for late first round picks and the Kings proved the market for them wasn't all that great. It also would have taken away our ability to add a max player. Right now in FA our best selling point is we can add two max guys this year and one more next year.
They would have until next draft to sign him if he didn't play anywhere else I believe.
However the real problem is, if he buys himself out and you don't make him an offer he has to decide between sitting out a year or signing a lucrative long term deal in Europe that is less likely to have a reasonable buyout which means you have to wait 3-5 years for him. So the player has some decent leverage
New to this board. I gave the draft C. Like most everyone here I expected a deal for one of the philly bigs. I think the 23rd pick Zizic was a good pick. The 3rd pick was underwhelming but what can u do it was an okay pick. It's a boom or bust pick. I thought the 16 pick was not a good pick. I would have given Henry Ellenson a shot at that pick.
Well when you're that hard for Euro wings you're going to consider that a monster offer, especially when they were drafted with those exact picks.
They drafted Eurowings bc they can stash not bc Danny had a hardon for them.
Noel 24 and 26 is ok. Maybe they dont like Noel as a circamax player. Certainly did not need even more low value 1sts.
Demakis had this to say about PHX: "Phoenix could have completely bricked the rest of the draft after #4 and still won the draft after taking Bender 4th. While Bender has no guarantee of NBA success, his massive upside gives him franchise changing potential that none of the other #3-8 picks sniffed. Nailing a pick like this can make a franchise’s future when it works out, so Suns fans should feel great about the pick."
So basically he's saying that if BOS had taken Bender over Brown, they would have been fine. I get that statistics really dislike Brown but one thing that DA and Brad appear to have in common is that they are both looking for players who can physically withstand the NBA season. Bender doesn't have that.
I also find this idea that Bender's upside is so much higher than Brown or Dunn or Chriss to be, well, an outlier. Isn't Bender's best case scenario Kukoc?
I get this, since it does look like he has limited room to fill out, but I think it's less of a concern if you view him as primarily a perimeter player, albeit a huge one. Do you think DA/Stevens would've passed on Ingram at #3, given his frame?
As far as the best case scenario, I'd say a bigger, faster, and much better defensively version of Kukoc, and that's a really good player.
Here is a link to a good article by Chad Finn. I did not see it posted elsewhere here, apologies if it is a duplicate. Given some of the vitriol I have seen in Internet posting since the draft, I thought I would be a good read.
Basically and crudely restated, Finn is asking people to step back from the edge and take a breath or two. But he does it in a far more compelling fashion.
https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-celtics/2016/06/24/lets-watch-jaylen-brown-play
Basically and crudely restated, Finn is asking people to step back from the edge and take a breath or two. But he does it in a far more compelling fashion.
https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-celtics/2016/06/24/lets-watch-jaylen-brown-play
Thanks for posting. Unsurprising words of wisdom from Chad.
It's not like we've never drafted someone who made a better pro than college player. It happens all the time, mostly because they are practically two different sports.
He was talking about Dean not Danny. Boston drafted a center and a power forward over the European perimeter players that Dean liked, which is why Dean considered Noel and two late firsts a "monster offer".
A word of caution on Dean though (I post on a board where he's a member), unless things have changed recently he bases his evaluations of European players on the YouTube reels (which is the reason I don't trust my evaluations of them, because that's all I can see). The video footage I've seen makes me cautiously optimistic about the guys they drafted, and if ihey're willing to stay overseas for a year or two, it can work out for Boston in terms of adding low-priced depth to a top heavy roster.
Can't stress this enough. College production doesn't necessarily equate to NBA success if the player doesn't produce in college by using skills that translate to the NBA. It goes the other way as well in the a college player possessing an ideal NBA skillset doesn't necessarily have the ability to best utilize those skills to produce in the college game. Two very different sports.
I'll never forget watching a couple Texas A&M games when DeAndre Jordan was an absolute trainwreck as a college freshman. He couldn't do anything being bottled up in a halfcourt zone on both sides of the ball with half the kids not having a clue what they are doing. Me and a fellow bball junkie were laughing at him and I recall texting him early in Steven Adams career at Pitt telling him he's another like DeAndre who is an NBA player.
Yeah, Dean is interesting and sometimes has good insights, but he isn't a scout. He basically watches a few games and crunches the numbers. I think he does a good job evaluating upperclassmen because there is a good amount of data over multi-year careers. He's less good at evaluating Freshmen and Euro players.
This year was in many ways worse than most (as he admits in his post from yesterday) because he decided to continue doing this late, and didn't really have as much time to watch tape as usual. I think he's a good contrarian view, and he is good at pointing out when upperclassmen are being undervalued, but I trust him not at all on Euros.
Danger... Big time what if coming.
Ainge trades 16 and 23 to Milwaukee for 10 and selects Sabonis. We know Thon Maker would have maken it to 16 for the Bucks to select. Then, there was a small chance that one the Eurostash players, and God forbid, maybe even both of them, would have been there to select at 31 and 35.
How happy would Celtics fans have been at that? And how great would it have been... Damn what ifs...
Ainge trades 16 and 23 to Milwaukee for 10 and selects Sabonis. We know Thon Maker would have maken it to 16 for the Bucks to select. Then, there was a small chance that one the Eurostash players, and God forbid, maybe even both of them, would have been there to select at 31 and 35.
How happy would Celtics fans have been at that? And how great would it have been... Damn what ifs...
That's an interesting question but if there's a world out there where DA had the second pick and took Brown over Bender, it wouldn't surprise me, particularly after DA crossed Bender off his draft board. Ingram is pretty likely to be pretty good but it won't be for a couple of years I think and I think DA and Brad think Brown will be contributing more quickly.
BTW, doing some random internet surfing, there's an interesting blurb on a 2014 matchup between Brown and Ingram here: http://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/2014/07/13/adidas-unrivaled-camp-day-3-recap-jaylen-brownbrandon-ingram-ii-was-special-kobi-simmons-deng-adel-have-strong-days/
"As two of the best players in the adidas Unrivaled Camp, it made for headlines when No. 3 overall prospect Jaylen Brown battled No. 25 overall prospect Brandon Ingram in the opening game at the Unrivaled Camp on Thursday afternoon.
Even more surprising was the way Ingram came out and outplayed Brown, as the wiry 6-foot-8 Ingram went 8-for-9 from the field while Brown was only 2-for-10.
But the rematch of the Class of 2015 wings Saturday night was special.
In Thursday’s game, the two five-star wings rarely defended each other, but this time around, you could tell Brown had a chip on his shoulder and wanted to go directly at Ingram.
And with his brute strength on the wing and general overall intensity, you don’t want to mess with an angry Jaylen Brown.
But to Ingram’s credit, he never backed down from Brown in the second matchup either.
It made for a fun back-and-forth battle of different types of players: Brown’s strength and physicality against Ingram’s slithery skill-based game.
The rest of their respective teams seemingly took a backseat to what was a tremendous one-on-one battle on the wing, which was physical and featured a number of high-level moves. Brown and Ingram went at each other hard each and every possession.
Some other players at the camp might have rested the final game to nurse injuries or fatigue, but that wasn’t going to happen with these two elite players.
Both of them finished 10-for-16 from the field, as Ingram finished with 26 points and three blocks and Brown tallied 21 points and five rebounds. But Brown’s team got revenge by picking up the win. His intensity lifted the rest of his team and they avenged a borderline embarrassing loss on the first day to Ingram’s team.
It was a fun game to cap off a week full of camp games before Sunday’s all-star games. Brown showed why he’s a consensus top-5 player in the 2015 class while Ingram continued a very strong week."
Once the fix was in, as you knew it would;d be and the Lakers got one of the first two and the Celtics didn't, this was going to be a disappointing draft. The dropoff was big after the 1st two. So it was going to be a B at best.
The one thing I see in the guys they took in the first round is toughness. All three are guys that compete. Zizic could be an above average starter. When looking at forwards and all the reports say. "Tough" "great motor" "physical" especially for a young guy. This group could be an attractive place for big FA. Stars like tough guys.
The one thing I see in the guys they took in the first round is toughness. All three are guys that compete. Zizic could be an above average starter. When looking at forwards and all the reports say. "Tough" "great motor" "physical" especially for a young guy. This group could be an attractive place for big FA. Stars like tough guys.
The case for Bender is that he can be much stronger defensively than Kukoc, because he's extremely quick laterally, and can guard multiple positions. With the increasing use of switches in the NBA, defensive versatility is increasingly important, so Bender profiles to potentially have plus defensive upside. Now, maybe you're right about his frame, but that's the upside case for Bender at least. Tony Kukoc as a plus defensive player at Center is a hall of famer.
They wouldn't have been happy at all. Celtics fans aren't mad they didn't trade up with their later firsts.
They're mad Jaylen Brown isn't Jimmy Butler.
I think Valentine could've helped right away. Would've preferred to package picks to move up -- but I suspect Detroit (??) preferred Teague to 16 and 23, and I don't know if anyone else in that 11-14 range was interested in moving down. Failing that, I would've grabbed Ellenson at #16.
I like the trade for the Clippers' future #1; second-round picks usually amount to nothing, the C's have roster constraints, and I don't think the Clips are super-likely to have back-to-back lottery seasons, even assuming CP3 is gone or over the hill by then.
I like the trade for the Clippers' future #1; second-round picks usually amount to nothing, the C's have roster constraints, and I don't think the Clips are super-likely to have back-to-back lottery seasons, even assuming CP3 is gone or over the hill by then.
I had no problem with the trade either. The Celts now potentially have three 2019 first rounders and are setting themselves up for the future when they don't need the picks in the present.
Paul (31) and Griffin (27) are potentially free agents after next year and Jordan (27) is potentially a free agent after 2017-18. The likelihood is that there will be a new core of players in place in LA for the 2018-19 season. Ballmer won't tank the team to get a high pick.
That seems a good take. If that trade turns into a 15-20 pick that is pretty good especially with a roster full of young guys.