64 replies to this topic

[dbn]

The Celtics are currently 8th in the East, 2.5 games ahead of Milwaukee and Cleveland. If the Celtics finish 8th, they would most likely have to face Miami or Chicago in the first round of the playoffs without home-court advantage.

There are currently 12 teams in the NBA with worse records than the Celtics. If they finish 9th in the East, 6 East teams would be worse, and most likely 4 or 5 West teams (maybe 6). Thus, they'd likely be the 11th or 12th team in the draft order.

Would you rather the see the Celtics make the playoffs as the 8th seed or miss the playoffs and have a ~3% chance to move into the top 3 spots in the draft? If they finish 9th but don't win a top-3 choice, they'd most likely have the 11th or 12th pick; if the finish 8th, they'd most likely pick 15th.

[dbn]

I vote 8th. Damn the torpedos. F*ck the lottery.

[Hendu's Gait]

Clearly 8th

Edited by Hendu's Gait, 29 February 2012 - 05:57 PM.

[Jed Zeppelin]

When they looked good for that stretch I was all for riding it out, but not anymore. No better time than the present to start maximizing assets.

edit: This team can't compete for the title anymore, so they need to start working on the next version of the Celtics that can.

Edited by Jed Zeppelin, 29 February 2012 - 06:02 PM.

[Kutcher Era Youth]

I'll basically repeat what I wrote in last night's gamethread. I'd rather miss the playoffs and get the slightly better pick than watch them get crushed by Miami or the Bulls. One of my earliest Celtics memories is Dennis Rodman beating up Brad Lohaus, and then running around like a jackass after DET knocked off my Celtics, when I was like 8. I'm still upset about it. I'm not even sure it's an accurate memory but I vote NO to getting our asses kicked in the playoffs.

[Caspir]

8th so that we can knock the Heat out and make Lebron shoot free throws underhanded /hopelessdreamer

I'd rather them make the playoffs than not. The difference between 8th and 9th is nothing, and they're not getting a top three pick. In fact, since it's the Celtics, the lottery would find some way to reverse fuck us, and we'd draft a meth addict who stabs Rondo to death after a misses free throw, and Stern have the smug grin when he tells Wyc he's not going to give us the cap exception. Give me playoff hoops, even if it's only one round. Plus, if you're in favor of a rebuild then as strange as it sounds, I feel like a first round embarrassment by Lebron would also drive home the rebuilding thing more than missing the playoffs.

[Jed Zeppelin]

Sometimes the difference between one or two spots in the draft is huge. In 2005 it was the difference between Danny Granger and Gerald Green.

[Brickowski]

If they could trade all of the big 4 for crappy players with expiring contracts and draft picks they could do better than ninth. Right now they're only 6 1/2 games out of having the 4th worst record in the league. Go for it!

[dbn]

8th.

... because in the last shortened season the 8th seed in the East made the finals.

... because it's only a 3% chance to move up.

... because I believe they'd have a much better than 3% chance to beat Miami.

... because I don't want the big-3 era to end with a non-playoff year.

... because, although a few spots in the draft order can make a big difference, a mid-1st round pick is often better than the one a few spots before it.

... because it's more Celtics basketball.

[Lose Remerswaal]

8th over 9th for sure.

8th over 11th? No thanks

[Brickowski]

I'm willing to trade a few more playoff games now for alot more playoff games later. I'm too old to go through a 20-year rebuilding, which is what happened after 1987.

[BucketOBalls]

12th

Ok, 9th. I'd rather take a year off the rebuilding than see 4 more losses this year.

[Nick Kaufman]

8th.

... because in the last shortened season the 8th seed in the East made the finals.

... because it's only a 3% chance to move up.

... because I believe they'd have a much better than 3% chance to beat Miami.

... because I don't want the big-3 era to end with a non-playoff year.

... because, although a few spots in the draft order can make a big difference, a mid-1st round pick is often better than the one a few spots before it.

... because it's more Celtics basketball.

Solid logic. Agreed.

[Beomoose]

8th.

... because in the last shortened season the 8th seed in the East made the finals.

... because it's only a 3% chance to move up.

... because I believe they'd have a much better than 3% chance to beat Miami.

... because I don't want the big-3 era to end with a non-playoff year.

... because, although a few spots in the draft order can make a big difference, a mid-1st round pick is often better than the one a few spots before it.

... because it's more Celtics basketball.

This, all the way.

[The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa]

Hypothetical: let's say the Celtics get into the playoffs as the 8th seed, and let's say they have some success and get to the Eastern Conference finals like the 2001-2 team. Will that burst of success delay or even hamper the eventual necessary rebuilding process by putting pressure on the team to keep most of its aging players next year?

[Three10toLeft]

Hypothetical: let's say the Celtics get into the playoffs as the 8th seed, and let's say they have some success and get to the Eastern Conference finals like the 2001-2 team. Will that burst of success delay or even hamper the eventual necessary rebuilding process by putting pressure on the team to keep most of its aging players next year?

I would think not.

Danny seems pretty antsy to begin the rebuilding process, as long as the moves he can make benefit the team down the road instead of making deals just to make them. Like what Bill Simmons has suggested Danny Ainge do.

[Koufax]

I voted 9th, but there is no way they finish that high. The road games will leave them as road kill. Their time has come and gone.

[gammoseditor]

I voted 9th, but there is no way they finish that high. The road games will leave them as road kill. Their time has come and gone.

They have a tough road ahead, but to fall below 9th they'd have to be passed by the Knicks, Milwaukee, and Cleveland. Milwaukee and Cleveland are both 5.5 games behind the Celtics right now. I think you're overestimating the quality of the teams behind us, or missing just how far behind they are and how good they'd have to be/how bad the C's would have to be to fall below 9th.

[Hendu's Gait]

I voted 9th, but there is no way they finish that high. The road games will leave them as road kill. Their time has come and gone.

If anything kills them, it won't be the road games, it'll be the 11 games in 15 days in April.

[radsoxfan]

8th... and it's not really that close.

Plus, the odds I see online for being the best lottery team (or is there a good reason we assuming 9th place in the East = the 11th/12th pick? ), have a .005 chance at #1, a .006 chance at #2, and a .007 chance at #3. That leaves them with a 98.2% chance at the 14th overall pick.

I certainly would have very little faith in them beating the Heat/Bulls, but the difference between the 15th pick versus the 14th pick (with a 1.8% chance at a top 3 pick) is honestly not enough that I would rather give up on the playoffs completely.

I reserve the right to consider myself an idiot if the Heat/Bulls win every game by 30 points and its just painful to watch. But theres a better than 1.8% chance at a Lebron/Rose injury, right? That alone makes the playoffs the better bet.

Edited by radsoxfan, 05 March 2012 - 08:08 PM.

[Jed Zeppelin]

If they became bad enough to miss out on the playoffs there's a good chance they'd be worse than at least a couple of non-playoff WC teams. Not that it would dramatically increase their odds but it would bring them a few spots closer to the top ten.

I don't think there's much chance of missing the playoffs unless Ainge makes it happen. The Cavs and Bucks play hard but are both very bad. DA would have to trade KG and another of the Big 4 to have any chance of becoming that bad. Even though I'm expecting a disastrous road trip, they're still good enough to beat the shitty teams with some regularity, which can't be said for the teams chasing them. You never know though; I expect they're about to start racking up some L's pretty quickly.

[Koufax]

I could easily see them skidding down far enough to qualify for the10th overall pick, forgetting the lottery. There are 20 teams with a good chance of finishing better than the Celtics given the demands of the schedule and the age of the key players on the team. They are one injury away (KG in particular, but Rondo will do) from being truly awful, and the chance of such an injury is at least 50%.

[Rudy Pemberton]

I could see them finishing 9th, 4th, or anything in between. Who the fuck knows, this year? This team has looked fantastic and awful, often times in the same game.

[dolomite133]

Finishing 9th gives us a punchers chance of landing a high draft pick. That's what we really need, considering there is a very, very low probability this team wins this year.

[Sheets]

If anything kills them, it won't be the road games, it'll be the 11 games in 15 days in April.

I think you nailed it. That schedule in April is brutal.

http://espn.go.com/n.../boston-celtics

[BucketOBalls]

Finishing 9th gives us a punchers chance of landing a high draft pick. That's what we really need, considering there is a very, very low probability this team wins this year.

I think of it this way.

Their chances of landing a high draft pick as 9th are better than their chances of winning it all as 8th(or even 7th or whereever they end up).

That said...I think there is very little chance they end up 9th. Or, to put it another way...I don't think the SOS difference is big enough to make them 5 games worse than Miwaukee over the rest of the season. They need a starter to miss significant time. (Rondo or only-real-big-KG being the best bets).

[fairlee76]

Given that I would expect the Celtics to finish no worse than 17th or 18th in the league, I say playoffs. Playoff basketball >>> than a 2 percent chance of getting a lottery pick. And I echo the sentiment above that missing the playoffs would be a depressing way for the new big three era to conclude. They need to win enough games to avoid the HEAT/Bulls in the first round and then hope like hell the Knicks (or another 7/8) can knock one of those teams off in the quarters.

[BucketOBalls]

Given that I would expect the Celtics to finish no worse than 17th or 18th in the league, I say playoffs. Playoff basketball >>> than a 2 percent chance of getting a lottery pick. And I echo the sentiment above that missing the playoffs would be a depressing way for the new big three era to conclude. They need to win enough games to avoid the HEAT/Bulls in the first round and then hope like hell the Knicks (or another 7/8) can knock one of those teams off in the quarters.

So they need the 6th seed and (another) miracle? It think your chances at the 2% are better.

[fairlee76]

So they need the 6th seed and (another) miracle? It think your chances at the 2% are better.

I never said I liked their chances of entering the lottery or making it to the ECF. Just that I would prefer additional games to hoping and praying they win the NBA's version of Mega Millions.

[BucketOBalls]

I never said I liked their chances of entering the lottery or making it to the ECF. Just that I would prefer additional games to hoping and praying they win the NBA's version of Mega Millions.

Fair enough. Although they have to go the Mega Millions route sometime. Depens on your point of view I suppose. I can remember what they were and just find this team depressing to watch.

I'd rather hit the bottom as soon as possible and start going back up rather than enjoy the view from what altitute they have left. YMMV.

[fairlee76]

Fair enough. Although they have to go the Mega Millions route sometime. Depens on your point of view I suppose. I can remember what they were and just find this team depressing to watch.

I'd rather hit the bottom as soon as possible and start going back up rather than enjoy the view from what altitute they have left. YMMV.

I guess I am not quite in the depressing to watch camp yet. In a weird way, I am enjoying watching KG, Ray, and PP confront their basketball mortality (I am 36).

I have high (low?) expectations for the Celtics being a lottery player at the end of the 2012-13 season. Assuming that Howard goes someplace else, next season is the year where I will unabashedly root for the Celtics to be terrible.

But I share your aversion to an extended period of relying on the Kevin Gambles and Dee Browns of the world to be impact players.

[dbn]

I think you nailed it. That schedule in April is brutal.

http://espn.go.com/n.../boston-celtics

Gosh, they're probably looking at something like a 5-10 April.

[Brickowski]

I was hoping for the lottery, but Milwaukee and Cleveland are so inept-- and so riddled with injuries to key players (Bogut, Varejao)-- that even with their brutal upcoming schedule the Celtics will probably make the playoffs.

Edited by Brickowski, 06 March 2012 - 05:05 PM.

[Jed Zeppelin]

Gosh, they're probably looking at something like a 5-10 April.

This might even be generous. I can easily imagine scenarios in which they struggle to win 10 games the rest of the way. The team could be completely dead by April, and pretty much all of their "easy games" the rest of the way aren't at all automatic.

3/25 vs. Washington - first game home after this really effing long road trip...first game back is always tough for some reason
3/26 @ Charlotte - right back on the road for a game the next night
4/13 @ Toronto - got smoked there last time, 5th game in 7 days
4/14 @ New Jersey - back to back
4/15 @ Charlotte - b2b2b

Those five are the only games left on the schedule that I would normally point to and say "yeah, they should definitely win those easily," but given the circumstances I wouldn't be shocked if they lost any of them.

Even so, they will be tough to catch for the 8th seed...10-20 isn't quite the worst case but it's pretty close. If the C's did that, Milwaukee would have to go 15-13 to pass them. Their schedule is a genuine cakewalk compared to the C's, with at least 15 "winnable" games...so it is possible, just very unlikely.

Edited by Jed Zeppelin, 06 March 2012 - 05:05 PM.

[mahky bellhorn]

8th... and it's not really that close.

Plus, the odds I see online for being the best lottery team (or is there a good reason we assuming 9th place in the East = the 11th/12th pick? ), have a .005 chance at #1, a .006 chance at #2, and a .007 chance at #3. That leaves them with a 98.2% chance at the 14th overall pick.

I certainly would have very little faith in them beating the Heat/Bulls, but the difference between the 15th pick versus the 14th pick (with a 1.8% chance at a top 3 pick) is honestly not enough that I would rather give up on the playoffs completely.

I reserve the right to consider myself an idiot if the Heat/Bulls win every game by 30 points and its just painful to watch. But theres a better than 1.8% chance at a Lebron/Rose injury, right? That alone makes the playoffs the better bet.

FWIW it's 8th and it's not really close and you laid out the reasons, but minor pet peeve of mine is when people assume that an injury needs to happen for an underdog to have a > 2% chance at winning a playoff series. If both teams are fully healthy we'll have like a 5% shot at beating the Heat and 10% shot at beating the Bulls, possibly higher. And if either of those happen I'll celebrate like we won the f'n championship.

FFS last lockout the 8 seed in the East went to the finals- it's ridiculous to act like a trip to the playoffs is worthless especially considering that this group has shocked the world in the playoffs before.

[dolomite133]

FFS last lockout the 8 seed in the East went to the finals- it's ridiculous to act like a trip to the playoffs is worthless especially considering that this group has shocked the world in the playoffs before.

That Knicks team was largely young. Houston, Johnson, Sprewell and Camby were all under 30. Ewing was solid but age and injuries caught up with him in the playoffs. Meanwhile another comp, the older Spurs team that won that year, were anchored by a young, healthy and insanely good Tim Duncan.

[Curtis Pride]

What if they win the Atlantic Division title? They're only a game behind Philly right now. Winning the division will give them the 4 seed. Will this hurt their draft position and ability to rebuild?

[TomRicardo]

What if they win the Atlantic Division title? They're only a game behind Philly right now. Winning the division will give them the 4 seed. Will this hurt their draft position and ability to rebuild?

Not really. The entire "Lets get 9th and pray for a lottery pick" is beyond stupid. Elgin Baylor would approve.

[collings94]

Not that hard of a situation. We can still trade Garnett and Allen for younger pieces, and be able to hold off Milwaukee and Cleveland with Rondo, Pierce and whoever we get for Garnett & Allen.

[fairlee76]

This is an off-the-top-of-my-head list, but below are the guys who either have been or currently are franchise cornerstones and their draft positions. Suffice to say, whether the Celtics are picking 14 or 24, the likelihood of their drafting the next "guy" at either of slots is pretty much nil. They can certainly acquire a rotation player, but the only semi-reliable way to draft a franchise player is to have a top 5 pick. Even then it is a crapshoot b/c for every Deron Williams and Chris Paul there is a Marvin Williams and Ray Felton.

Side note - the ban on high school kids entering the draft seems to really hurt teams drafting in the latter half of the first round. In the past, teams could take a flier on a high school kid with upside in one of those slots (hello Kobe, JO, and Al Jefferson) whereas now talent evaluators are able to use that one year of college to get a truer sense of a kid's talent level.

Dwight Howard 1 Derrick Rose 1 LeBron 1 Dwyane Wade 5 Kobe Bryant 13 Kevin Durant 2 Kevin Garnett 5 Chris Paul 4 Kevin Love 5 Dirk Nowitski 9 Tim Duncan 1 Deron Williams 3 Steve Nash 15

P.S. - Shit, sorry about the list formatting fail.

Edited by fairlee76, 07 March 2012 - 11:14 AM.

[dolomite133]

Not that hard of a situation. We can still trade Garnett and Allen for younger pieces, and be able to hold off Milwaukee and Cleveland with Rondo, Pierce and whoever we get for Garnett & Allen.

Have you read ANY of the posts on this board? Trading KG and Ray for value before the trade deadline will be difficult (especially KG due to the size of his contract). No team will give up a franchise player for a three month rental. And both come off the books after the season is over, meaning we lose leverage to turn them into anything, and will be at the mercy of the market to fill their roster spots.

[gammoseditor]

I originally voted 9th with the thought being that I didn't want to see them get swept by the Heat in the first round and I'd rather have a higher draft pick. After more thought, I'd enjoy a series with the Heat. We'd be underdogs, but if we won that would be our championship, and I'd enjoy it as much as any NBA playoff victory that didn't result in a championship.

[nighthob]

They have a 5% chance of beating the Heat, once in a series. There's no chance outside of a terrorist attack that kills LeBron, Wade, and Bosh that Boston wins four games against Miami.

[Brickowski]

A 2012 playoff series between the Celtics and the Heat would resemble Thomas Hobbes' description of the human condition: "poor, nasty, brutish and short." I'm not looking forward to LeBron bowling people over and then pounding his chest as he marches to the free throw line. Do folks here really want to watch that?

[nighthob]

8th... and it's not really that close.

Plus, the odds I see online for being the best lottery team (or is there a good reason we assuming 9th place in the East = the 11th/12th pick? ), have a .005 chance at #1, a .006 chance at #2, and a .007 chance at #3. That leaves them with a 98.2% chance at the 14th overall pick.

Just a note, there's a zero percent chance that the 9th seed team in the East beats out any of the western conference teams for the 14th pick as the west looks like it will have 11 teams at .500 or above and the East will be fortunate to finish with eight teams at .500 or over. Put another way missing the playoffs in the East is a pretty sure top 10 pick.

[ifmanis5]

A 2012 playoff series between the Celtics and the Heat would resemble Thomas Hobbes' description of the human condition: "poor, nasty, brutish and short." I'm not looking forward to LeBron bowling people over and then pounding his chest as he marches to the free throw line. Do folks here really want to watch that?

FYI, I'm giving Norris Cole LeBron's mom's phone number just before that series starts. We got his.

[Toe Nash]

FWIW it's 8th and it's not really close and you laid out the reasons, but minor pet peeve of mine is when people assume that an injury needs to happen for an underdog to have a > 2% chance at winning a playoff series. If both teams are fully healthy we'll have like a 5% shot at beating the Heat and 10% shot at beating the Bulls, possibly higher. And if either of those happen I'll celebrate like we won the f'n championship.

Since 2000 only 3 #7 or 8 seeds have won in the first round. That's 3/48 = 6.25%. Memphis over SA last year, SA over Dallas the year before, and Golden State over Dallas in 07.

So it may be around 5%, but not higher than that without injury.

[nighthob]

Since 2000 only 3 #7 or 8 seeds have won in the first round. That's 3/48 = 6.25%. Memphis over SA last year, SA over Dallas the year before, and Golden State over Dallas in 07.

So it may be around 5%, but not higher than that without injury.

And given that Memphis was throwing games at the end of last year to get a San Antonio match-up in the first round (as they were actually either the best or second best team in the entire league after Christmas) and that that Spurs team was cruising into eighth to reach the playoffs healthy it's more like 1/48. Which exaggerates Boston's chances against Miami or Chicago (absent a massive wave of injuries).

(Again, to forestall the chuckleheads, two out of those three examples are not analogous to the present Boston situation.)

[ifmanis5]

(Again, to forestall the chuckleheads, two out of those three examples are not analogous to the present Boston situation.)

To be even more precise, no past season, aside from perhaps 1999, correlates to this year. Throw it all out.

[dbn]

Just a note, there's a zero percent chance that the 9th seed team in the East beats out any of the western conference teams for the 14th pick as the west looks like it will have 11 teams at .500 or above and the East will be fortunate to finish with eight teams at .500 or over. Put another way missing the playoffs in the East is a pretty sure top 10 pick.

Wow, you are correct. Right now the 9th place team in the East would be 9th in ping-pong balls, giving them an 8.3% chance at a top-three pick (1.7%, 2.0% and 2.4%, respectively), 81.3% chance at 9th, 12.2% chance at 10th, and <1% chance at >10th.