Celtics trade Josh Richardson, Romeo Langford and a 1st round pick to Spurs for Derrick White

Cellar-Door

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I will say, I do think there is some minor increase in the chances of Tatum/Brown being on the team in 2027 (it's a 2028 pick, so you care about the 2027 season) in adding White. Because the team is better, and the only thing you can control in terms of players is putting the best team around them.
 

Auger34

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I’ve posted here that I am uncomfortable with the amount of risk and uncertainty involved in trading a pick only top 1 protected that far in the future.
However, FWIW, Kevin Pelton gave the Celtics a B+ on this trade. For anyone that doesnt read him, Pelton’s grades are HEAVILY influenced by contracts and picks (present and future).
seeing that, I have to concede that maybe I have overstated the risk a bit
 

benhogan

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TBF he is an NBA2K GMing savant....so his opinion shouldn't be dismissed.

I am slowly coming around on White. Hoping the Floor Chemistry makes it even more obvious what a good deal this was.

Should we be worried that mins will pile up for the 8 man rotation?

If you take Schroders mins (say 20 now that he isnt starting) + 24 for Josh and 16 for Romeo and you subtract 5 from Al (for Rest) and 5 from Rob (to keep him fresh).

Thats 70 mins.
Add in Theis for 22 and White for 30. That means we need to find somewhere between 15-20 mins a night. Maybe Nesmith....maybe some of PP.......maybe a few of Hauser.....and maybe some from a Buyout candidate (though arent they usually Front court players?)

That seems like alot of mins for some guys who take things off the table alot of the time.
more Granite!

Theis will add minutes every game

DS leaving opens up time for PP, since a PP/DS combo was unplayable. So that helps with the 3pt shooting that we lose w/JRich

AN? Frankly I'd rather see Hauser launch 3s at this point
 

4 6 3 DP

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I tend to think PBS and Ime actually seek input from the Jays on some of these moves, I doubt they'd have turned over the roster for guys they weren't comfortable playing with. Maybe that's a little naive but reading Tatum's comments I feel more comfortable saying that.

Danny I think it's clear operated more in a vacuum in terms of player input.
 

Auger34

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I tend to think PBS and Ime actually seek input from the Jays on some of these moves, I doubt they'd have turned over the roster for guys they weren't comfortable playing with. Maybe that's a little naive but reading Tatum's comments I feel more comfortable saying that.

Danny I think it's clear operated more in a vacuum in terms of player input.
According to Tatum himself, they didn’t seek his input on this trade and from reading his comments it doesn’t seem like that’s something he wants to be a part of
 

4 6 3 DP

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I guess I was reading into it slightly less directly, but perhaps thats right and Im overanalyzing it.
 

4 6 3 DP

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I’m sure there is some information sharing, but not direct and not “do you want this guy?”
Appreciate you cleaning up sloppy wording on my part - I think PBS' comments that White was someone they'd thought would compliment the Jays well suggested he was a player that had been discussed over time even if not specifically to this transaction deadline.
 

Cesar Crespo

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regarding the swap, if Brad is still around for the swap, it was probably a good trade.

If he isn't, well the pick swap won't matter to him anyway. What does he really have to lose by adding a swap? There's no way he'd be around in 2028 if the team is lottery bound.

It could potentially suck for us though.
 

Eagle3

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I dont like the swap, but, if Tatum and Brown (or equivalent other talents if either gets traded) are healthy in 2028 and Brad (or whoever) remains competent with regards to the rest of the roster this team should NOT miss the playoffs. So it shouldn't be a lottery pick unless things really go south.

The Spurs could get better, but with Pop likely to retire soon odds are the new coach isn't as good, so they could easily end up being worse than us in which case the swap is not in play anyway.

Worst case scenario White is a bust, the Jay's go away for whatever reasons without equivalent replacements, and we have to give a top 5 pick to the Spurs. In that case the trade turns into Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson. I think the odds of that are really low.
 

leetinsley38

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Karalis on BSJ has a good breakdown of how pushing this pick out to 2028 sets up a big trade this summer. We can still trade 2023, 2025, and 2027 picks with 2024, and 2026 pick swaps. Probably had to loosen the protections in exchange for pushing the pick so far out. But, if Brad does pull off a big move for a 3rd star(and there are now more mid-tier contracts for matching) that would hopefully increase the chances of keeping JT/JB and being actual contenders.
 

BigSoxFan

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Karalis on BSJ has a good breakdown of how pushing this pick out to 2028 sets up a big trade this summer. We can still trade 2023, 2025, and 2027 picks with 2024, and 2026 pick swaps. Probably had to loosen the protections in exchange for pushing the pick so far out. But, if Brad does pull off a big move for a 3rd star(and there are now more mid-tier contracts for matching) that would hopefully increase the chances of keeping JT/JB and being actual contenders.
They definitely still have the ability to make a big splash although not sure who it would be for at this point. It’s good that they upgraded Romeo by a big amount and kept the flexibility.
 

DJnVa

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Oof


First response:

According to @The_BBall_Index …

Josh Richardson spent 34.9% of his time guarding SF/PFs

Derrick white spends 31.2% of his time guarding SFs/PFs.

Odd considering you said it was a “fact” that Richardson regularly guards wings and white was never asked to.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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Yeah the thing about CelticsBlog is it's just a blog about the Celtics.

edit: Apparently that was written as a semi-satirical take on the trade from the perspective of a blowhard writer, which, I'm not sure why anyone would bother but whatever works for you.
 

bakahump

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more Granite!

Theis will add minutes every game

DS leaving opens up time for PP, since a PP/DS combo was unplayable. So that helps with the 3pt shooting that we lose w/JRich

AN? Frankly I'd rather see Hauser launch 3s at this point
Knew I forgot someone obvious. But Its not like they can get a whole lot more out of Grant. 5 more mins and he basically playing "Starter Mins". ( Putting him @28 Mins).

So if the math is right we are still +/- 10 mins of our DEEP bench guys (Hauser,PP,AN) which based on the past seems......worrisome. But I am all for some growing pains if we can develop some players. (Game threads will be fun though).

Hopefully as some have pointed out.....White makes them more comfortable and playable in new/different roles.
 

dhellers

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If anyone is interested in knowing more about White and his background, this video popped up as recommended after one of the highlights linked earlier. I like his story, and it seems like he has the mentality to continue growing. If he can improve the 3P shot, his contact will be a massive bargain.

View: https://youtu.be/1X1XHbcdIq4
Guy seems like the opposite of DShroeder. I am starting to like this deal.

As for a 2028 pick. The odds of that being meaningful are .... 5%?
 

joe dokes

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Guy seems like the opposite of DShroeder. I am starting to like this deal.

As for a 2028 pick. The odds of that being meaningful are .... 5%?
I suppose for this year he stands a fair chance of helping guys like PP, Nesmith and maybe Hauser to get looks. Im not breaking any new ground pointing out that anticipation/ making the pass a half-second sooner can be the difference for the shooter.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Yeah the thing about CelticsBlog is it's just a blog about the Celtics.

edit: Apparently that was written as a semi-satirical take on the trade from the perspective of a blowhard writer, which, I'm not sure why anyone would bother but whatever works for you.
The problem with that blog imo is that its almost impossible to tell that its semi-satirical (if it is at all) because most of their other stuff is of similar quality.
 

Cellar-Door

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The problem with that blog imo is that its almost impossible to tell that its semi-satirical (if it is at all) because most of their other stuff is of similar quality.
The thing about Celticsblog is they have some really good writers (Keith Smith and Kevin O'Connor both got national gigs off of it, with Smith still writing for them some), and they have some really terrible writers.

Also... "it was satire" is what really bad hot take artists say when they get roasted.
 

Auger34

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The thing about Celticsblog is they have some really good writers (Keith Smith and Kevin O'Connor both got national gigs off of it, with Smith still writing for them some), and they have some really terrible writers.

Also... "it was satire" is what really bad hot take artists say when they get roasted.
To be fair to the guy, he does put at the beginning of the article that his article is completely devoid of any nuance and that he was just writing like a Shaughnessy would have back in the day.

However, his main premise is that this type of writing really doesn’t exist today with less columnists and I completely disagree with that. There are hot take artists everywhere, that’s not a void that needs to be filled
 

ZMart100

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Guy seems like the opposite of DShroeder. I am starting to like this deal.

As for a 2028 pick. The odds of that being meaningful are .... 5%?
Higher, I'd think, though I'm not sure what you mean by 'meaningful'. That far out I'd treat the pick as essentially random. So the chance it is 2-5 and conveys is roughly 12%. The chance that it is 2-10 and conveys is 25%.
 
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osori

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Regarding the pick swap, even if everything turns out to be a disaster and we are only left with fringe players, Brad can just step in as a coach and keep the team above the lottery.

There is a very slim chance our team in 2028 has less talent than the 2014 Celtics.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Higher, I'd think, though I'm not sure what you mean by 'meaningful'. That far out I'd treat the pick as essentially random. So the chance it is 2-5 and conveys is roughly 12%. The chance that it is 2-10 and conveys is 25%.
Ok since we are deep into the weeds on this, I will go even further. Even if it conveys 2-5, the C's also get a pick in that draft. So its not like they get nothing - its not a total "disaster" but it could be very bad for sure.

That said, if I were asked to value that pick swap in isolation, I might take the probability of it conveying at two, then multiply it by the production. Using the 13% @ZMart100 posted above, the C's expected worse case outcome is forgoing 13%*11.3 (four year WAR) = ~1.47 wins. But that doesn't account for the pick incoming to the Celtics which will also have some expected production. But even at zero the loss of 1.47 expected four-year WAR, six years forward, seems kind of silly to worry about.

Caveat - this is me just throwing things against the wall and I could be completely missing things. I will take my peer review like an adult.

This is from The Ringer around last year's draft:


Edit: Used the wrong four year WAR initially - its even lower because of the protection.

49308
 
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Jimbodandy

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To be fair to the guy, he does put at the beginning of the article that his article is completely devoid of any nuance and that he was just writing like a Shaughnessy would have back in the day.

However, his main premise is that this type of writing really doesn’t exist today with less columnists and I completely disagree with that. There are hot take artists everywhere, that’s not a void that needs to be filled
Holy shit is this true.

We need that type of column like I need more knee pain in February's cold wind.

That type of column is available on two Boston radio stations eveey day.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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White is really interesting to me not only because he’s a good player but because it’s kind of unusual for guys on mid-range contracts for 3+ years to be moved. As salaries go up across the league, these are deals that become more valuable as time passes as long as the player stays good (Marcus’s last contract was an example of this).

Contracts like this usually aren’t moved until the last year or two of the deal if their current team knows they aren’t going to re-sign them. There’s good value in locking in a contributor that’s unlikely to become an albatross. Especially if you don’t have a wink-wink agreement with a given impending FA star and know it’s not worth clearing the deck.
 

Imbricus

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One thing that concerns me a bit: I've been scrolling through the San Antonio fan message board that someone linked to earlier, and a number of posters refer to White being injury prone. Hmm.

Edit: Like this:

welp white was a good dude -

but boston will soon find out he is a fragile china doll when he goes out for the season again with a foot injury
Edit 2: But to be fair, the next poster says, "This China doll trope is both tired and inaccurate."
 
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Eddie Jurak

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One thing that concerns me a bit: I've been scrolling through the San Antonio fan message board that someone linked to earlier, and a number of posters refer to White being injury prone. Hmm.

Edit: Like this:

Edit 2: But to be fair, the next poster says, "This China doll trope is both tired and inaccurate."
Now we know why Pop wanted Romeo for him.
 

Cellar-Door

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One thing that concerns me a bit: I've been scrolling through the San Antonio fan message board that someone linked to earlier, and a number of posters refer to White being injury prone. Hmm.

Edit: Like this:



Edit 2: But to be fair, the next poster says, "This China doll trope is both tired and inaccurate."
so excluding his rookie year when he was buried deep on the bench of a vet team....
year 2- played 67/82. Missed games 1-9 with a heel injury, missed 55-59 with a heel injury again, game 61 he got a game off for rest. Played all 7 playoff games
Year 3- played 68/71 (most on the team): missed 2 straight with a foot injury, got the last game of the season off
year 4- played 36/72: missed 18 of the first 19 games with a toe injury, got game 25 off, missed 28-32 in COVID protocol, missed the last 12 games with an ankle injury
This year... 49/55: 5 games in COVID protocols and 1 game of rest.


So.. yeah he's been pretty durable, outside year 4.
 

NomarsFool

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Very good opening game. He seemed to add a lot of energy on the floor when he was out there. There was a stretch when the Celtics had White, Smart, and Pritchard on the floor. I didn't think stretch was great - nor was almost any part when Pritchard was on the floor tonight (although that was a huge 3 pointer he made).
 

KnoxvilleSoxFan

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I would much rather have Stevens focus on the current team than worry about a hypothetical Tatum-less team in 2028. If the hypothetical happens, which I really don't think is likely, it means that the Tlicts have bigger problems that a #4 pick in 2028 is unlikely to solve. I think you're overstating the probability of Tatum leaving.
 

lovegtm

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Ok since we are deep into the weeds on this, I will go even further. Even if it conveys 2-5, the C's also get a pick in that draft. So its not like they get nothing - its not a total "disaster" but it could be very bad for sure.

That said, if I were asked to value that pick swap in isolation, I might take the probability of it conveying at two, then multiply it by the production. Using the 13% @ZMart100 posted above, the C's expected worse case outcome is forgoing 13%*11.5 (four year WAR) = ~1.47 wins. But that doesn't account for the pick incoming to the Celtics which will also have some expected production. But even at zero the loss of 1.47 expected four-year WAR, six years forward, seems kind of silly to worry about.

Caveat - this is me just throwing things against the wall and I could be completely missing things. I will take my peer review like an adult.

This is from The Ringer around last year's draft:


Edit: Used the wrong four year WAR initially - its even lower because of the protection.

View attachment 49308
Great chart. In particular, look how sharply the expected value drops after...the #1 pick.

My guess is that the Celtics think that, with #1 protection and ability to control your lottery destiny somewhat, that swap simply isn't a ton to give up, hyperventilating here aside.
 

lovegtm

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Watching last night's game now: White's vision and BBIQ are very impressive. Think he's going to be one of those guys who gets a better rep after being on a good team.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Great chart. In particular, look how sharply the expected value drops after...the #1 pick.

My guess is that the Celtics think that, with #1 protection and ability to control your lottery destiny somewhat, that swap simply isn't a ton to give up, hyperventilating here aside.
Yeah that curve flattens quite a bit. The median WAR comps should speak volumes. Our nightmares tell us the Cs are risking the opportunity to draft the next franchise player. Its definitely possible but its more likely that you get Marvin Williams level production over that slot's rookie deal. I have room for Marvin in my heart but I'm just saying that you could do better than to worry about missing on a young version of him six years from now.

Also, all the hoop people worth reading/listening nationally seem to agree with you. He was pretty plug and play already which is promising.
 

lovegtm

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Yeah that curve flattens quite a bit. The median WAR comps should speak volumes. Our nightmares tell us the Cs are risking the opportunity to draft the next franchise player. Its definitely possible but its more likely that you get Marvin Williams level production over that slot's rookie deal. I have room for Marvin in my heart but I'm just saying that you could do better than to worry about missing on a young version of him six years from now.

Also, all the hoop people worth reading/listening nationally seem to agree with you. He was pretty plug and play already which is promising.
Right, the 2-10% odds that you give the Spurs a 2-4 pick isn't much worse than the chance an 18 pick you give them becomes a star.

Plus, it's a swap, not a pick you're transferring, so you still get your own lottery ticket in the draft that year too.

The more I think about it, that swap seems like a slightly overpriced option.
 

ZMart100

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So continuing the quick and dirty theme... Using drafts from 2006-2015, I estimated the probability of drafting an all-star (I was too lazy to restrict it to ASG in first 7 years) for with a logit regression. First for the full 60 picks, then for the first round only. Then I simulated the swap and protection. As before, I am assuming this far out picks are essentially random.

For the full draft:
Pick 1 was 30% (seems low), pick 30 was 5%, the mean was 15% and in expectation 4.5 all stars in the first round. With the swap and protection, BOS has an 11% chance of getting an all star.

Limited to the first round:
Pick 1 was 39% (still low?), pick 30 was 2%, the mean was 14% and in expectation 4.3 all stars in the first round. With the swap and protection, BOS has a 9% chance of getting an all star.

So a 4 or 5 percentage point reduction in our chances of getting an all-star. Honestly, that is not as bad as I was expecting, though a mountain of salt is warranted (small sample, imposed functional form is probably wrong, a one time all-star is different than a perennial all-star etc. etc.). In conclusion, the Spurs' thievery of Tim Duncan still haunts me.\

Edit: Another way to look at it is it reduces our chances of getting an all-star by somewhere around 25-40%. That sounds bad.
 
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slamminsammya

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So continuing the quick and dirty theme... Using drafts from 2006-2015, I estimated the probability of drafting an all-star (I was too lazy to restrict it to ASG in first 7 years) for with a logit regression. First for the full 60 picks, then for the first round only. Then I simulated the swap and protection. As before, I am assuming this far out picks are essentially random.

For the full draft:
Pick 1 was 30% (seems low), pick 30 was 5%, the mean was 15% and in expectation 4.5 all stars in the first round. With the swap and protection, BOS has an 11% chance of getting an all star.

Limited to the first round:
Pick 1 was 39% (still low?), pick 30 was 2%, the mean was 14% and in expectation 4.3 all stars in the first round. With the swap and protection, BOS has a 9% chance of getting an all star.

So a 4 or 5 percentage point reduction in our chances of getting an all-star. Honestly, that is not as bad as I was expecting, though a mountain of salt is warranted (small sample, imposed functional form is probably wrong, a one time all-star is different than a perennial all-star etc. etc.). In conclusion, the Spurs' thievery of Tim Duncan still haunts me.\

Edit: Another way to look at it is it reduces our chances of getting an all-star by somewhere around 25-40%. That sounds bad.
Out of curiosity, how good was the fit of the regression?
 

ZMart100

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Out of curiosity, how good was the fit of the regression?
Not great, but not shocking given the low number of years/success observations.

Psuedo R^2:
by sum of squares - 0.51 (full data) / 0.54 (1st round only)
by log-likelihood - 0.43 / 0.46

Area under receiver-operator curve: (looks mediocre here - 70 to 80 is considered fine)
78 / 75

Pearsons' chi-sq tests are decent: pvalue - 0.09 by group. Deviance test is high at 0.36.

Edit: Hosmer - Lemeshow and Osius - Rojek are pretty esoteric, replaced with pseudo R^2 and others.
 
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snowmanny

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Imbricus

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Yeah that curve flattens quite a bit. The median WAR comps should speak volumes. Our nightmares tell us the Cs are risking the opportunity to draft the next franchise player. Its definitely possible but its more likely that you get Marvin Williams level production over that slot's rookie deal. I have room for Marvin in my heart but I'm just saying that you could do better than to worry about missing on a young version of him six years from now.
I am a little puzzled that Kris Dunn is the median at #5, with about 8.3 WAR, and DeRozan is the median at #9, with only about 6.4. Seems odd to see Dunn at about 2 WAR above DeRozan, whose WAR seems rather low ... or am I missing something? Late bloomer?
 

JohnnyTheBone

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DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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I am a little puzzled that Kris Dunn is the median at #5, with about 8.3 WAR, and DeRozan is the median at #9, with only about 6.4. Seems odd to see Dunn at about 2 WAR above DeRozan, whose WAR seems rather low ... or am I missing something? Late bloomer?
I think you are spot on. Its just a function of expected WAR over a rookie contract. It would make sense if you used longer career samples that the medians would look more like you might expect.

I like the methodology though. It really illustrates why the anxiety over the pick swap is more emotional than logical. I like Otto Porter well and good but not getting his young equivalent in half a dozen years isn't enough to forgo better basketball this season, at least for me.
 

HomeRunBaker

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All good stuff. The one nitpick I have is the emphasis that White is NOT a point guard when the only time in his life he hasn’t played the 1 is when Dejounte Murray was in the lineup…….and he’s going to be playing a lot of 1 for us. He’s a versatile combo-1 who is very switchable defensively but implying that he isn’t a 1 is misleading. Unlike the Schroder deal it’s nice to have this skillset under contract moving forward. Real real good get on Brad’s part to close this deal.
 
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