What SA does is largely secondary.
The pick swap only has any value if the Celtics stink 5 years from now.
If the Celtics are OK or good, it’s not that valuable regardless of what SA is doing.
Celtics trade Josh Richardson, Romeo Langford and a 1st round pick to Spurs for Derrick White
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The pick swap only has any value if the Celtics stink 5 years from now.
If the Celtics are OK or good, it’s not that valuable regardless of what SA is doing.
Again, it depends on what you value - some people just really love seeing the kids play. As you note, if you prefer competitive basketball and keeping your stars happy, you likely are ok with trading far forward draft capital for a talent upgrade today. If you don't buy what I am selling, just look at NBA rosters & draft pick holdings from six or even four years ago. The amount of roster turnover and draft capital movement since them (with teams spending and replenishing in very short order) is staggering.
One other consideration - if Stevens is truly messing things up here, he likely won't be here in 2028. It would be funny if he took Buford's job between now and then though. Maybe just to me.
Yeah, six years was the exact same timeline Isiah Thomas was facing when he threw in the 2010 first round pick that became Gordon Hayward to acquire Stephon Marbury way back in 2004. Thomas knew he wasn't going to be around when that bill came due.
You're absolutely correct here. 2022-23 is the most important season for the purposes of maintaining and building around the Jaylen/Jayson core. If we get to the summer of 2023 and Jaylen doesn't sign an extension, it's a disaster, and the Celtics probably need to trade him and rework the roster around a single star. The Celtics had to optimize their chances in '23 without harming '22 and they did a pretty good job at threading that needle. Shroeder, Langford, and the first round pick were not going to contribute to the Celtics 2023 playoff run and were traded for players who should be able to.
Yes. And in today's NBA that counts for a lot. White is a guy who, like Smart and Rob, can complement the stars. Especially if his shot comes around.
I'd also add that being willing to trade marginal young players and swaps that only matter if your star leaves are how you go from "we were close, there were a lot of deals, didn't work out" Ainge to actually solving roster fit around your stars.
Someone posted a video above of White's most recent game against the Celtics. White showed more "flashes" in that single game than I recall seeing from Romeo his entire time here.
But it will be interesting to see how/if Romeo develops in SA, assuming he gets a lot more playing time.
View: https://twitter.com/StoolGreenie/status/1491899800261853187?s=20&t=SttRimjhWQoWU7yksJW9og
(it's not fair, but it's rhetorically correct and funny)
(it's not fair, but it's rhetorically correct and funny)
I'd guess Romeo becomes a decent D&kinda3 guy with minutes, who re-ups for $7-12M a year depending on the 3 part. The Celtics, given that their stars play the same position, can afford to give that kind of guy up.
I know I was on the Romeo train, but he's a role player, and having him treated somewhat as value in a deal was always going to be a defent outcome.
Standing reach for the top 6:
Horford 8'11"
Williams 9'4"
Tatum 8'10.5"
Brown 8'8.5"
Smart 8'3"
White. 8'5.5"
This is a team that is going to disrupt a lot of shots/passes.
As an aside:
Horford 8'11"
Williams 9'4"
Tatum 8'10.5"
Brown 8'8.5"
Smart 8'3"
White. 8'5.5"
This is a team that is going to disrupt a lot of shots/passes.
As an aside:
Bingo. You don’t need to win every trade, you need to win on the court.
Let’s hope they do considering all they gave up. Actually, I’m good with it except for the pick swap in 28’. I mean, that is a long time from now. Definitely the most risky part of the trade..
It’s pretty damning to think that Ainge made zero meaningful in-season trades between acquiring IT in 2015 and Evan Fournier in 2021.
Creating tons of young guy minutes crunches and pick logjams in the process.
White is pretty much a young Schroder. Erratic/poor outside shooter, good passer, can create and can defend when he wants to but doesn’t always want to. The latter can be from losing the past couple years.
I don’t agree with this. When you’re a new GM you want to put your stamp on the team and your tenure with your players. If ownership wanted you to stand pat with the prior GM’s players they wouldn’t need you in that role.
Jaylen is on a sub-max deal, he won't be signing an extension and it won't be a disaster. Because he'd be sacrificing a lot of cash to leave. If he wants to leave, I guarantee it's after he signs the sweet max deal he can get from Boston.
Agree, the defense and rim protection got better
The team needed to consolidate, get under the cap, retain future cap space, and buy low. Brad did that to the nth degree
The rotation is better, more balanced.
The addition of White immediately made Schroder an expiring contract. Sounds like they quickly made the Theis deal. My only small quibble is at that point, I wish they had lined up a 3 team trade and shipped DS to a contender in the West so he doesn't end up with the Bulls, Cavs or Bucks.
Per cleaning the glass, when White has played PG this year, his assist rate is 35.6%.
Spurs defensive eFG is 4.1% lower when he’s in the game this season, as well.
Spurs defensive eFG is 4.1% lower when he’s in the game this season, as well.
for those that are fans, White is a +/- darling
6 straight seasons of being a + on-court, + on/off, +BPM, +VORP
Spurs fans really liked him, "good guy" "Celtics will love him" gets mentioned often
https://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299449
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/whitede01.html
It's proof Stevens hated every move he made this offseason, if anything.
Surprised Al is still here.
I would love this trade without the 2028 pick swap in there.
I love White as a role player, they sold high on Richardson, and a likely mid first round pick and Romeo feel like a fair price to pay.
If that pick swap is truly just top 1 protected, that's way too risky. You just can't trade a pick that lightly protected for a player the level of Derrick White. Even if the chances of it hitting near the top of the lottery are low, it's just too much. Even if they're still a good team at that point, everyone is one injury away from being in the play in or worse. Then you're just a ping pong ball bounce away from a disaster.
Celtics are really going to have to hit on the buyouts here too. The current rotation is wildly unbalanced having 4 bigs in their best 8 guys.
Might help them get a wing/guard since that guy will step right into the rotation.
I love White as a role player, they sold high on Richardson, and a likely mid first round pick and Romeo feel like a fair price to pay.
If that pick swap is truly just top 1 protected, that's way too risky. You just can't trade a pick that lightly protected for a player the level of Derrick White. Even if the chances of it hitting near the top of the lottery are low, it's just too much. Even if they're still a good team at that point, everyone is one injury away from being in the play in or worse. Then you're just a ping pong ball bounce away from a disaster.
Celtics are really going to have to hit on the buyouts here too. The current rotation is wildly unbalanced having 4 bigs in their best 8 guys.
Might help them get a wing/guard since that guy will step right into the rotation.
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Biggest surprise of that video was learning that Zach Collins is actually playing again
Late to the party, but if someone had told us at the end of last season that POBOBS was going to be able to add Derrick White and The Is for Romeo, a pick in the 20s and a pick swap, we'd all be laughing out loud.
Plus, POBOBS sold high on JRich and bought somewhat low on White. If White can pop playing with the Jays, they have another super interesting trade chip. And while I liked JRich, it seemed like his shooting was a bit of a mirage plus from the random game defensive stats that I looked at, it seemed that while his defense looked good, people scored on him much more easily than the rest of the starters.
I'm one of the bigger RL supporters on this board I think but RL wasn't going to pop this year. And if he did pop next year, the Cs weren't going to be able to afford to keep him around. Probably better that the Cs locked in White on a reasonable multi-year contract.
As for The Is, much to BenHogan's chagrin, it looks like the 2-big lineup is here to stay and they needed a 3rd big to soak up some non-Horford minutes. I think the 1-8 is better today than it was yesterday.
Finally, too bad the Cs couldn't get Myles Turner - they could put the entire FIBA team back together!
Plus, POBOBS sold high on JRich and bought somewhat low on White. If White can pop playing with the Jays, they have another super interesting trade chip. And while I liked JRich, it seemed like his shooting was a bit of a mirage plus from the random game defensive stats that I looked at, it seemed that while his defense looked good, people scored on him much more easily than the rest of the starters.
I'm one of the bigger RL supporters on this board I think but RL wasn't going to pop this year. And if he did pop next year, the Cs weren't going to be able to afford to keep him around. Probably better that the Cs locked in White on a reasonable multi-year contract.
As for The Is, much to BenHogan's chagrin, it looks like the 2-big lineup is here to stay and they needed a 3rd big to soak up some non-Horford minutes. I think the 1-8 is better today than it was yesterday.
Finally, too bad the Cs couldn't get Myles Turner - they could put the entire FIBA team back together!
Disagree. That's how you build NBA teams. You take a simple asset - like a young player or a TPE - and use it to get a better asset, and then you turn that asset into an even better asset. As I mentioned above, POBOBS basically turned RL, a late 1st rounder, the MLE, and a TPE into Derrick White and Daniel Theis.
I had the misfortune of listening to Felger and Mazz this afternoon and they did not understand this at all. One of them (I don't listen to them enough to know which voice is who) was like, "We got the PG that Pop didn't like. How is that good for the Cs?"
I don't think that's the case, I think it's a case of making the best moves you can to set up future moves, and not being tied to guys because you moved for them.
Richardson was a great move, he was brought in for free into a TPE that was expiring, played solid basketball and helped you get a better player AND roll over a TPE for longer.
Schroeder was a guy they added because he was cheap relative to talent, then they used him to get a player they liked more, but couldn't get, added to that was a dice roll vet minimum guy and a guy they took back because he helped them move a contract, get a TPE and get a 2nd.
This is good trading, you buy guys cheap and use them to get better guys you couldn't have gotten before.
A lot of things have to go wrong for the Celtics to regret this swap. Teams like they're likely to be miss the playoffs really rarely, and then you have to have lottery luck, etc.
The really bad scenario is that Tatum/Brown stay, get hurt (maybe at the same time), you end up somewhere around 10th to 13th, and then jump to the top-4, but not top-1, while SA picks in the 20s because they're good. That's bad, but the odds of all that happening are pretty low, probably in the low single digits %.
Yeah, it's not optimal to play 50-chamber Russian Roulette to get Derrick White, but you're not getting a top-25 guy for a package remotely like this, even with the pick swap lottery ticket included.
The odds of this swap mattering aren't that much different from "can't find a ball handler who plays D, roster is awkward again next year despite having talent, and team can't compete", at which point Jaylen may well ask out.
Every team-building path has risk, and I just don't see this particular risk as that much worse than ones teams take all the time in acquiring high-end role players.
I like the trade. That said, I think some folks are understating the risk of the pick swap. 6 years out in the NBA we know nothing, so under the assumption we have no way to predict which teams are good or bad we can then assume the distribution of picks per team is uniform.
With that (IMO very justified) assumption, it's a very simple calculation what are the odds of a pick swap leading to the Spurs getting a top K pick. Here is a horrifying thought: There is a 15% chance the swap results in the Spurs getting a top 5 pick.
Check my math for me: 32 * 31 total possible Celtics / Spurs pick combinations, and of those 31 combinations result in the Spurs getting the #1 pick, 30 result in them getting the #2 pick, etc. so you get (31 + 30 + 29 + 28 + 27) / (32 * 31) = 14.6%. I believe, but haven't thought about it enough, that the lottery has zero influence on this calculation under the assumption that we have no way to predict a team's record 6 years out.
Yikes!
With that (IMO very justified) assumption, it's a very simple calculation what are the odds of a pick swap leading to the Spurs getting a top K pick. Here is a horrifying thought: There is a 15% chance the swap results in the Spurs getting a top 5 pick.
Check my math for me: 32 * 31 total possible Celtics / Spurs pick combinations, and of those 31 combinations result in the Spurs getting the #1 pick, 30 result in them getting the #2 pick, etc. so you get (31 + 30 + 29 + 28 + 27) / (32 * 31) = 14.6%. I believe, but haven't thought about it enough, that the lottery has zero influence on this calculation under the assumption that we have no way to predict a team's record 6 years out.
Yikes!
Responding to my own reasoning having thought about it a bit more, the top of the lottery odds are generally filled with teams that are trying to lose. The incentive to do that goes away if you know the pick swap is looming. So the lottery does matter quite a bit for the heuristic I was proposing. Looking at the lottery odds, it seems half of the top-5 probability is concentrated in the 5 worst teams. It seems like in any given year there are about that many teams that know they can't win and aren't really trying.
I think the upshot is the odds of a top 5 swap for example are quite a bit lower than 15%.
I think the upshot is the odds of a top 5 swap for example are quite a bit lower than 15%.
The starting premise (no way to know what will happen in 6 years) is flawed imo. When teams have top 10-ish 23 year-old players, they tend to have them 6 years later and still be good. It's not absolute, and there's a ton of player movement, but I doubt the knowledge is that close to zero.
Then you also have to factor in the odds that the Spurs pick the right guy, the Celtics pick a worse guy, etc. We had Wiseman and Fultz end up as the haul for very good teams who lucked into the top of the draft.
Edit: and yes, to your point, that's even before you get into teams trying to lose. We saw 2 years in a row with the Celtics what happens when the team conveying to you tries their asses off.
I'd guess the odds this comes back to seriously bite the Celtics are something like 1-4%, and it's only for one year, not a compounding string of owed-to-other-team drafts.
I am too lazy to actually compute this but it would be extremely straightforward to compute the correlation between the average team's record in year N and year N + 6. I would actually be quite surprised if its that strong but I agree it isn't zero. I was just trying out a simple model to reason about this swap which is close enough to true.
You don't want the correlation between the average team's record though; you want it for a team with a < 25 year old star. The league is set up such that teams retain those guys into a 3rd contract frequently, and they contribute inordinately to staying out of the lottery and deep lottery.
Of course the pick swap has some risk, but the Cs just got a guy who obviously never made an All-Star team but seems safely in the level below that for (i) a guy who any team with cap space could have had for free six months ago, (ii) a guy who has a year and a half left on a rookie deal and hasn't shown that he can be a starter in the NBA, and (iii) a late-1st found draft pick that will unlikely to be anything more than a rotation player. I mean you got to give something to get something, right?
Don't tell me what I want!
I agree with the reasoning, but getting that granular makes actually computing it with enough data to get signal quite manually intensive. Totally different field, but in my work it always surprises me how much the population level statistical phenomenon is not that different from the case you think is special before doing the analysis.
Let me look at some totally random guys who pop into my head.
Lakers: Kobe@23 -> Kobe@29, Finals team to finals team. OK.
Cavs: Lebron@23 -> Lebron@29, Cavs were 33-49 (without Lebron).
Pacers: Paul George@23 -> 29, Pacers were 45-28 (without George).
N of 3 holds up pretty well.
Essentially, value-wise, they got a different version of Lonzo Ball didn't they? At a better contract number. We were all excited about him in theory, and now we have him, or a close approximation. It cost something like Ball would have, really---that would have been a sign and trade (and maybe also the tampering penalty to actually get him) so that's at least Langford and the pick or pick swap. I think they paid a little premium here, but they also know the player and save a bit on the contract.
I agree with WBCD - the top 8 is improved, which matters a lot. They cleared some room to see if they get lucky in the buyout/2 way market---which is worthwhile relative to playing Freedom etc. And they have a very clear identity, which is malleable, flexible defensive monster with two plus creators and a bunch of solid role players on offense.
I'm overall happy with it and excited to watch this team
I agree with WBCD - the top 8 is improved, which matters a lot. They cleared some room to see if they get lucky in the buyout/2 way market---which is worthwhile relative to playing Freedom etc. And they have a very clear identity, which is malleable, flexible defensive monster with two plus creators and a bunch of solid role players on offense.
I'm overall happy with it and excited to watch this team
I'm in the camp the pick swap, while moderately annoying to include, is not that big of a deal. I've seen some Twitter meltdowns that Brad is out of his mind, but it doesn't fit with reality.
Appreciate the math and I think its safe to say the odds the Celtics pick 2-5 (lets call that the "disaster outcome") in 2028 while having no reason to tank and having this current roster are pretty low. I'd put it maybe 5-10% range as discussed above.
The far more likely situation is that the Spurs don't want to swap at all. If somehow the Spurs become good, the most likely situation is a swap of mild to moderate importance.
Sure it could backfire and we could miss out on a can't miss prospect at #2 in 2028, but I dont think this is such a valuable trade chip it should only be used for a superstar or something.
Derrick White is good, I'm excited to see what he can do with this roster. The East is going to be intense.
Appreciate the math and I think its safe to say the odds the Celtics pick 2-5 (lets call that the "disaster outcome") in 2028 while having no reason to tank and having this current roster are pretty low. I'd put it maybe 5-10% range as discussed above.
The far more likely situation is that the Spurs don't want to swap at all. If somehow the Spurs become good, the most likely situation is a swap of mild to moderate importance.
Sure it could backfire and we could miss out on a can't miss prospect at #2 in 2028, but I dont think this is such a valuable trade chip it should only be used for a superstar or something.
Derrick White is good, I'm excited to see what he can do with this roster. The East is going to be intense.
POBOBS should have made the deal that whichever team had the lower pick could swap up to the take the higher pick. That would have been interesting.
It's one pick 6 years from now. This isn't the Brooklyn bonanza. If we suck that bad that losing our own #2 pick is a thing, then POBS?? has to tank one extra year.
I agree that you need to give something to get something, but I’d prefer they save those type of long term gambles for something a bit more impactful. I don’t want to be sweating over a Jeff Green to the Grizzlies type deal in six years. Not the end of the world though.
The one pick swap the Celtics got in the Brooklyn trade is what ended up making that a bonanza.
Since that pick was ultimately Aaron Nesmith, it is also still unclear who won the trade!
I actually agree wtih you philosophically here---pick swaps and gambles like that are worth it for stars, but not role players. I also think they likely did the math here and decided that the risk is pretty low and the need (in terms of winning, and in terms of retaining Jays) easily merited the risk.
Sure but every reasonable projection was that this pick had a very high probability of being the bonanza. Our pick with Tatum/Jaylen (or a Jaylen swap) in their prime years project to be low barring catastrophic injury.
If it's that high six years from now, it's one slice of an enormous shit pie.
Hell, any reference to how much Danny screwed Brooklyn 4eva should probably include a note that the latter team went farther than we did last year and probably will again. We have the same number of finals appearances since that deal that they do.
How can you be sure Tatum/Jaylen are here then?
Six years is a long time.
Six years ago Cleveland won the championship with Lebron James and Kyrie Irving locked up for 2 and 3 more years respectively, same as Jaylen/Tatum now. If they traded for Robert Covington then and threw in a pick swap 5 years later, figuring what are the odds the process 76ers are going to be better than us, Evan Mobley would be playing for Philly right now.
Seriously you would have killed the White deal because maybe we get the next Mobley in 6 years?
Seriously, I would've demanded more protections on that swap.
Couldn't I say the reverse?
Seriously, San Antonio would've killed the White deal because maybe they wouldn't get the next Mobley in 6 years?
I don't think you should ever have any possibility of handing over a top 5 pick for a non-star player. Especially if that pick is far enough down the line that you have no clue how good your team will be then.
I always hate this when you push back on a deal and it's oh you gotta give something up stuff. Why negotiate at all then? Just say yes to whatever San Antonio wanted. Why not two pick swaps? Why not a pick swap every year? Boston is gonna be good, right? There probably won't be any good picks in there, have em all.
This is exactly what the detractors are saying. White is ok for Richardson (baka's son aside), Langford makes it worse, the 2022 pick moreso but that largely unprotected 2028 swap is a bridge too far. They would have passed on White because of the 2028 pick swap is just too much. I assume that the Celtics would have preferred more protection and the Spurs wouldn't bite but maybe Stevens is a pushover.
Then we would have spent weeks complaining that nothing got done at the deadline, like the last few years with Danny.
Man, I cannot wait to see Smart on White on defense together.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmNP9n-CLXs&t=285s
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmNP9n-CLXs&t=285s