They already did this against Embiid, so probably they'll do it against Giannis.
Agree with most of your commentary.
I'm feeling more and more that they aren't going to rush things with JB.
I think the tricky thing will be making him available but not having rumors flying all over the media that Brown is then reacting to. He hasn't been thrilled in the past about being part of trade talks. I know, it's part of the business, but relationships can sour and then you can have a highly paid player demanding a trade, pushing his value down.
It's a risk for sure. However, if he does demand a trade, the recent returns for disgruntled players have been quite good.
I think they're pretty aware of this, and are particularly trying to make JB+KP be a thing, so that they can get a lot of minutes playing specifically together and generate complementary points/assists/touches.
Agreed. Brad/Zarren (BZ) will be opportunistic.
To be fair, the profile is overall very flattering, e.g., "Very long, near 7-foot wingspan with fantastic strength, and explosiveness that help his readiness for the league greatly" and "Has some definite dexterity and potential as a defender, really strong body control and agility that is rare given his size."
I know that you explained BZ. But when I see it, I see "Bradzilla". And that's what I'll be calling him going forward.
It's totally fine, this year! (When Jaylen costs $31M).
There are two wild cards here. One is where ownership is willing to go with luxury tax payments. You may need to pick between Jaylen and Jrue + trade return for Jaylen. The other is how this season ends.
I think the issue is what, if anything, does JB's cap hit hold the team back from doing? Holiday is going FA after this season if not re-signed. Tatum is approaching another max extension. They are deep into the tax, which even more than before limits them from certain moves.
which is the clever stance since many of us (I'm guilty as charged
) have been speculating on Jaylen Brown fake trades for years.
I continue to think they are going to play Jaylen + bench more than we might like because they are trying to figure out if the above can be true - and they want to have that as more of an option come playoff time. I don't know if it'll work or not---his passing is a bit better this season, and there were stretches last season his scoring was up to the task...but we've really never seen him be able to do it with any consistency.
I think you're right, that they want to evaluate that. They also want to see whether JB+KP can be a thing, to stagger and play them together always.
The pairing of White with KP/JB will help with ball security. Joe has been bringing Sam/Horford off the bench first with those 3 (SSS aside).
I think Horford is at the point in his career where he should just be the backup C, and they should end this double big nonsense. Particularly with Jrue doing great guarding up, and Tatum rebounding well.
In the games I've watched, that's been my takeaway too. Al just looks rough all around. I'm only somewhat worried because of his age but it is something to monitor
I think his passing has actually improved a decent amount but his handle....his handle is still rough. It's disappointing that it hasn't improved more but this is probably who he is at this point (with respect to handling the ball)
His offense has been brutal, but by pretty much any early metric, he’s still been on of the best defensive bigs in the league, and elite on switches.
Honestly, I think the most important thing (and I can't believe I am saying this) is picking one of KP or Horford to play with Jaylen. The two of them out there together just doesn't look good...and since Horford's shot has completely abandoned him at this point, it's tough to do much on offense.
That seemed to be the case yesterday and JT was out there for most of Al’s minutes.
His defense looks good though which speaks to how fresh they’ve been keeping him. I was specifically watching him on D yesterday and he blew up a lot of what the Knicks were trying to do.
I've been talking about this in the game threads a bit lately.
I agree, Horford's D remains very solid and combined with his passing is a lot of his contribution overall. His shot, hopefully, will come back to 36% or so on threes and that's enough (more is just gravy). He's also had a couple post-ups when he has a favorable matchup, which is good to see and helpful against switches
The real issue is that you'd rather have him not play much with KP, which only leaves 15-20 mins/game, and you'd ideally like Hauser's minutes expanded too.
Do you really want Hauser’s minutes expanded. I feel like I spent the offseason defending Hauser as a quality rotation player, but 20mpg for his role feels right, and he’s at 19.5 mpg so far this season. He’s a pure 3-point specialist and would likely get exposed in an expanded role. The current 8+ man rotation seems like exactly the right minutes distribution.
What will the cap look like in 3 years though? Does the $8-10B of expansion fees count toward league revenue numbers that affect the cap? We may have two expansion teams by then as well as further global growth. I'm not saying Jaylens contract will ever be a bargain but it may not hamper us as much as we think. I've been torn on him remaining here for a few years now but a Title will surely keep him around through the '24-'25 season at the very least.
Aren't max contracts for a percentage - 35% in JB's case - so the cap going up doesn't provide any relative savings?
He gets 8% raises each year, and the cap can only rise a maximum of 10%. If the cap starts spiking, his contract can get down somewhere close to 30% towards the end, iirc.
The problem is that the cap can only go up 10% at a time, and his contract goes up 8% each year. His contract can get a bit more palatable, but can never be that much of a bargain.
What is the evidence that Hauser would get exposed in a standard role? His defense is fine, and you can fit a shooting wing into any non-starting lineup. If you take Horford down to 17-20 mins (the non-KP minutes), you can get Hauser up to 25 or so, which means keeping a real shooter on the floor instead of Horford at the 4, where he just isn't stretching the D with his shot anymore.
I hope Joe pushes the so-called envelope with Hauser minutes to ~24mpg. We spent all last season begging Joe to bump Whites' minutes/role, Brad took away that option
Horford is playing 6 mpg less than he did the last 2 years and has lost his starting role. His minutes aren’t going to get cut to sub-20 territory to expand the role of a 3rd year player that Horford remains meaningfully better than. Horford is off to a poor state shooting, but he’s still an excellent defender and his shot will come around. Hauser is off to a scorching start shooting and he deserves the first wing off the bench role Brad cleared for him this offseason by letting Grant Williams go. If Horford continues to shoot at Mendoza-line levels, we can revisit this conversation once we’re a meaningful distance into the season (maybe another 15-20 games), but even then player management reasons almost certainly keep him as the clear top minutes guy on the bench.
My interest in Horford being shrink-wrapped during the regular season dates back to the start of last season. I have zero qualms with his play so far this year and want him well-rested (but still playing ~20mpg) by the playoffs this year.
I personally think, barring an unexpected turnaround in the way he approaches the game, Jaylen is probably gone no matter what. IMO Brad and Wyc will prefer having a more multi-faceted player or two and some strong draft capital to risking having Jaylen on your roster at 60 mil per year, even if it's just a matter of spreading out your injury risk.
Balanced out by the fact that his total minutes (1922) were the fewest he's played (outside of the year off with OKC) since 2014. He didn't miss time with any major injuries that I remember (he did miss 5 straight in December so I might just be forgetting), but I think more days off (and no back to backs) are more restful than playing 1-2 fewer minutes per game. I suspect the Celtics will do both for him this year (fewer minutes and plenty of games off) as everyone realizes he's only got so many big games left.
I'm a huge proponent over full days off as opposed to reduced workload of several minutes per game for older players. The reason for Horford's reduced minutes this year however have nothing to do with shrink wrapping him and all to do with not being worthy of starters minutes when we are at full strength as that wouldn't be his role. His only two games of 30+ min were when he WAS in the starting lineup replacing White when the latter was out.
I'm not sure about that, because the other part of this minutes thing is that the C's are going to be blowing out a lot of teams this year. I don't think we see Joe running Tatum or anyone else out there with a 16 point lead and 2-3 minutes left like he did last night for the entire season, and this team really should put about 25% of their games to bed by the end of the third quarter.
Right. My point is that when we are at full strength his role is that of a 18-22 mpg guy. He isn't playing 22 to save him from anything....he's playing 22 bc our starting unit is freakin awesome and his job is to spell them during their blows. In games when he's starting his role that night will be to play longer rotations and have Kornet, etc spell him.
