I suspect this all happened in concert with Horford's "injury". OKC management decided they wanted to pivot, gave Brown an ultimatum, they didn't like what they saw, and dumped the whole project to the C's who were willing buyers.
Kemba Walker + 2021 First Round Pick to OKC for Al Horford, Moses Brown
- Thread starter Dr. Gonzo
- Start date
Technically, the Celtics get hard-capped once they acquire a player via sign-and-trade. Just that the trade exception doesn't count against their hard cap until they use it, so if they trade contracts back they would simply have more room under the hard cap to work with. But, as @nighthob pointed out, this is strictly an academic discussion when it comes to Lonzo.
He gives them a finisher. He does the things TL does, but not as well. maybe he runs the floor as well since TL runs out of gas quickly. But, while he may not change the game blocking shots like Williams, he is a presence. While he may not be the best catch and dunk/alley oop guy ever (yeah I thinbk when healthy TL is, maybe the best ever)he will flush the open catches he gets on drives. TT, at this stage often went into pump fake hell on those plays.
Except for passing. Williams is a sneaky good passer, with an assist rate of 14.2% this season. Moses is...not. He had 10 assists the entire year, with a sparkling 1.7% assist rate.
Al looks bouncy in his highlights from this year (usual disclaimer about highlights). If they can stay disciplined in managing his minutes, he adds another element that fits way better than Kemba.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbfVJ4rNcNE
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbfVJ4rNcNE
Moses Brown signed his 4/$6.7m deal ($1.75 guaranteed) the day after he had the 20/20 game against the Celtics.
He might just be salary filler. According to Hoopshype, his contract is not guaranteed after the 2020/21 season. He has $923,369 guaranteed on his 2022/23 contract if not waived by December 1, 2022. Also has $998,859 guaranteed on his 2023/24 contract if not waived by December 1, 2023
If he does stick, he allows some scheme consistency in the offensive sets where the center sets a pick and then rim runs. He won’t initially do that that with high post passing, unfortunately (unless some Horford morphs into his game).
I have no idea if he can cover smaller players in switches, something TL is unbelievable at, and AL is good at.
MB will need to learn how to make a layup (57-136,
.419%), but he did show that he can improve his shooting by his FT jump from 35% in college to 62% this season.
My opinion is probably influenced by Moses Brown’s first half dominant showing against the Celtics, and his name’s Providence connection, but I think he will have upside here if he can move play p/r defense.
He might just be salary filler. According to Hoopshype, his contract is not guaranteed after the 2020/21 season. He has $923,369 guaranteed on his 2022/23 contract if not waived by December 1, 2022. Also has $998,859 guaranteed on his 2023/24 contract if not waived by December 1, 2023
If he does stick, he allows some scheme consistency in the offensive sets where the center sets a pick and then rim runs. He won’t initially do that that with high post passing, unfortunately (unless some Horford morphs into his game).
I have no idea if he can cover smaller players in switches, something TL is unbelievable at, and AL is good at.
MB will need to learn how to make a layup (57-136,
.419%), but he did show that he can improve his shooting by his FT jump from 35% in college to 62% this season.
My opinion is probably influenced by Moses Brown’s first half dominant showing against the Celtics, and his name’s Providence connection, but I think he will have upside here if he can move play p/r defense.
I think you meant to say that Al was good at it. We saw last year in the bubble that Al was having trouble guarding smaller guys and he's not getting quicker.
I agree, and I think another factor to consider is that Horford can teach him a lot. Playing alongside Al may unlock some of Brown's potential.
Curious as to how this deal reflects the new managerial structure of the Celtics. Could/would this deal have happened if Ainge was still in charge?
I think it would have. There were only so many landing spots for Kemba so Ainge probably would have landed in close to the same spot, IMO. We know Ainge has been trying to trade him for months so maybe he was holding out for a different type deal. The real difference could be what happens next.
The player/turtle pairings could also use refining. Jaylen should clearly be Donnie, though I'm ok with Jayson as Leo. Marcus could be Mikey but he seems more of a Raph.
He might have but in general in seems like new GMs are more likely to pay picks to dump a bad contract than the person that gave out that deal in the first place.
It needs to be said here and I remember saying it in the game thread at the time: Moses Brown racked up all those points against the Celtics not out of any skill on his part but because there was a sequence of like 8 plays in a row where
1) Perimeter defender gets blown by
2) Thompson comes over to help correctly
3) Missed attempt falls right to Brown who has no one around him since Thompson had to leave his man
It was the most unimpressive 20 points I have ever seen.
1) Perimeter defender gets blown by
2) Thompson comes over to help correctly
3) Missed attempt falls right to Brown who has no one around him since Thompson had to leave his man
It was the most unimpressive 20 points I have ever seen.
LOL yeah I'm like... one of these things is not like the others. And I wasn't thinking Horford.
Mo's offensive game consists of dunks and more dunks. He's still young though so hopefully he can improve a little in that area.
He clearly has the drive to work on his game. In college he went 45/128, .352 from the line. In the NBA, he is 81/134, .605.
I think he sticks around awhile if for no other reason than he's on a really cheap contract and TL is oft injured.
He has 150 FGs in his career, 79 were dunks. 31.7% of all his FGA are dunks.
II like him a lot more than Wagner, Kornet and Fall anyway.
yeah the guy who did it posted that he forgot TL was the 5th guy who overlapped
This could be true.
I haven’t been a fan of Ainge’s past few years but unless he has completely checked out (possible)......he had began looking to love Kemba and of course OKC was one of the few realistic landing spots. Otoh, Brad is supposedly friends with Presti dating back to his Butler days so this may not have been done without Brad and Sams relationship. Who knows.
Agreed on the Wagner/Fall comp
The contract and NBA experience make Moses Brown more attractive than a mid/late 2021 1st round pick IMO
Sharpe/Queta have been mocked to be Centers selected in the mid/later 1st round. That's his competition if you want to do a 2021 draft comp. I'd take Brown over those two (but would defer to @nighthob or @DannyDarwinism who do the most/best draft work around here).
Selecting Butler, Williams, Bouknight at 16 doesn't excite me as much as giving minutes to Langford or Nesmith after a full Summer under their belts. The C's still have a 2nd rounder that they can use for 15/G-league development to dream on (Quentin Grimes please)
Even with TT sent elsewhere for PG depth, Moses Brown would be somewhere between the 3rd, 4th or 5th option at Center (TL, Horford, Kornet, Grant) depending on the matchup.
http://www.tankathon.com/mock_draft
Should've used Rozier. The first picture would be better, and the second picture would (hopefully) be just as accurate.
Celtics should draft David Duke from PC at 45 as a project PG. Great size, good athlete, hits the threeball, good FT shooter, solid work habits, not a lot of natural PG experience, but the Jays’ halfcourt proficiency make that less of an issue.
Maybe he can be the next Terance Mann out of this area.
Maybe he can be the next Terance Mann out of this area.
The national "Boston is racist" media will surely have a field day with this one.
Late to this thread, but I'm somewhere between: I like this very much and I love this. Don't see how anyone sees this as a loss, regardless of further moves this off season. This strikes me as a win without qualification. Separately, I'm kind of puzzled what Presti is planning for that humongous pile of draft picks, but whatever:
(1) If you look at it as Kemba for Horford, and the #16 for Brown, we won on both it seems, though #16 for Brown might be a slight loss. People always like to prospect-hump on the draft, but most of those guys outside the top 10 don't pan out. I'd say #16 for Brown is a win for the Celtics, because they've already got too many young bodies fighting for time; they don't really need another rookie. Last year, if I recall the stat correctly, they were the least experienced team in the NBA (though not the youngest), at least early in the season.
(2) What'll we do at the #1, as others have noted, isn't as big a question mark as some people make it out to be, because Kemba was never a pure point guard. He was often hunting his own shot. His style was more that of an undersized #2. Smart can be a #1. I think Pritch is a really solid back-up point guard/occasional starter. I'm not as optimistic about Romeo turning into a #1, but they can experiment anyway. And they can run the offense through Horford sometimes.
(3) The team needed to get bigger, and this takes a large step in that direction. Horford gives them flexibility. Plus, this opens up the possibility of running out lineups pairing Time Lord at center and Al as power forward ... man, would love to see that. That may be a better role for Al, and would help preserve him from getting too banged up. Plus, if people remember well, Horford had some amazing games in his last year here when he started after about four days of rest. It was like night and day. With the glut of centers, that becomes more possible now.
(1) If you look at it as Kemba for Horford, and the #16 for Brown, we won on both it seems, though #16 for Brown might be a slight loss. People always like to prospect-hump on the draft, but most of those guys outside the top 10 don't pan out. I'd say #16 for Brown is a win for the Celtics, because they've already got too many young bodies fighting for time; they don't really need another rookie. Last year, if I recall the stat correctly, they were the least experienced team in the NBA (though not the youngest), at least early in the season.
(2) What'll we do at the #1, as others have noted, isn't as big a question mark as some people make it out to be, because Kemba was never a pure point guard. He was often hunting his own shot. His style was more that of an undersized #2. Smart can be a #1. I think Pritch is a really solid back-up point guard/occasional starter. I'm not as optimistic about Romeo turning into a #1, but they can experiment anyway. And they can run the offense through Horford sometimes.
(3) The team needed to get bigger, and this takes a large step in that direction. Horford gives them flexibility. Plus, this opens up the possibility of running out lineups pairing Time Lord at center and Al as power forward ... man, would love to see that. That may be a better role for Al, and would help preserve him from getting too banged up. Plus, if people remember well, Horford had some amazing games in his last year here when he started after about four days of rest. It was like night and day. With the glut of centers, that becomes more possible now.
I think we all would have gone crazy if we had traded No. 16 for Brown. The 16th pick has more value than Moses Brown even if the player selected at that spot is probably not going to do more than Brown will in his career.
That said, the trade improves the product on the floor in the short term (IMO) for the reasons you've outlined. And long term, cleaning up cap space and having more tradeable contracts is a huge step in facilitating finding the third leg of the Brown-Tatum stool.
That said, the trade improves the product on the floor in the short term (IMO) for the reasons you've outlined. And long term, cleaning up cap space and having more tradeable contracts is a huge step in facilitating finding the third leg of the Brown-Tatum stool.
Brown is unlikely to make the team as he is pretty awful. He was there to make the salaries work. If we’re breaking down this trade your way #16 for a classic fourth string C is gawdawful use of a mid first, especially a mid first in a pretty good draft. But luckily it was just the price of turning Kemba’s $73 million into Al’s $41 million.
Horford can’t chase guys around on the perimeter anymore. That was literally why the Sixers unloaded the deal after year one. He’s strictly a C these days.
Yeah…I really like this trade but the idea that Brown for 16 is anything close to a win is absolutely insane.
It’s probably a small to medium loss but it’s definitely outweighed by getting Horford back and the salary flexibility
Spot on. It is a lazy, reflexive ignorant take, and therefore it would be predominant were this to happen.
I like the player and think he might be a pretty good second-round pick.
I was assuming that Thompson got traded. Horford/Williams/The Green Kornet are all probably ahead of him. Although I suspect that TimeLord’a available in the right deal as he’s about to enter his expensive years.
I suspect that TL and TT are available in the right deal but that Brad's not looking to jettison either necessarily. Reworking the roster requires some flexibility. If someone wants to give value for either, the other likely stays.
Cs and DEN were youngest playoff contending team last year. I think somethink like 8 Cs were on rookie contracts, which is unheard of for a team with championship aspirations.
Yeah, I think from Stevens’ point of view he has limited positive assets, TimeLord’s one of them, and he’s about to get Capela money (and I’m not sure he’s worth it), so I could totally see them moving him as part of a deal for a guy that fits with the JayCrew. I also don’t think that they’d hesitate to jettison both and bring back Theis to eat C minutes.
Eh, is he really that bad? Guy improved his foul shooting at OKC; he's only 21. It takes centers a while to develop. I haven't seen much tape on him. He looks a bit awkward, but a lot of young seven-footers do.
I'd give him a few years. Sure, trading the #16 pick for him wasn't optimal, but it doesn't strike me as a big loss, in the context of the Celtics' situation (apart from their having to unload Kemba). Nesmith and Langford need playing time to develop. Celtics were too rookie/youngster heavy last year. Pre-draft, everyone tends to overrate the value of picks.
He has one thing he can do at an NBA level. He's fine as Portland's starting C, which is where he's destined to spend his time barring injuries on the big club.
No one's saying that it's a bad deal. Brown wasn't traded for the pick and if that were the deal we'd be laughing at it as a royal fleecing by Presti. Boston sold the 16th pick for roughly $30 million, which is around the going rate. Brown was just there to make the salaries work.
I don’t think Moses Brown is worth a 1st round pick…but he’s also pretty clearly better than Luke Kornet.
Brown has one skill, Kornet's got a couple. So you can forget "pretty clearly" because he isn't. Now 25 years ago Mo Brown's a backup NBA center, but the game's changed radically in that time and his skill (camp in the paint and grab rebounds) got less valuable.
EDIT: I should clarify, I know that Kornet looks like a big, gawky, honky disaster zone, and Brown looks tougher, so everyone assumes that he's good defensively. He's not. He's not even as good a shot blocker as Kornet. Kornet is a better defensive player that can shoot from range and is a decent passer for a big. But, Kornet is a mediocre/poor offensive player that's an OKish defensive one (in a reserve role). Brown is a net negative on both ends of the floor.
EDIT: I should clarify, I know that Kornet looks like a big, gawky, honky disaster zone, and Brown looks tougher, so everyone assumes that he's good defensively. He's not. He's not even as good a shot blocker as Kornet. Kornet is a better defensive player that can shoot from range and is a decent passer for a big. But, Kornet is a mediocre/poor offensive player that's an OKish defensive one (in a reserve role). Brown is a net negative on both ends of the floor.
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I think Brown is intriguing enough and young enough to replace Tacko for that 15th roster spot. It isn’t like anyone out there would likely be a much better prospect big.
Yeah, I don't think anyone's arguing that he can't replace Tacko as the fourth string C. It's unoptimal that he has to be on the 15 man roster, but Portland needs centers too. I was just laughing at the people trying to justify it on the grounds that Brown for #16 is a good deal.
I think the only thing that we can take from this is that Walker's knee has to be in even worse shape than we thought. Look at the price that Philly payed to dump three years of Horford and what they got in return in the deal and compare it to Boston getting a starting G League center.
This is where I am. I realize he is not good now, but the question is does he have potential and can that potential be developed? If there is a possibility, carrying him at the bottom of the roster doesn't seem like such a bad idea. At worst he's got length and speed, and of course six hard fouls to give.
He has to be on the 15 man roster, which is a problem (if he were on a two way deal and didn't count no one would care). He might survive 2022, but only as a salary to be traded. He won't be on the roster in '23.
Just got out of an appendectomy this morning to see this deal. Am happy with it. I'd say in addition to the rebounding, Brown's steal and block rates are pretty good for a 21 year-old giant. They're not Nerlens Noel or TL territory, and there's a lot more to defense than getting deflections, but it's also not a bad sign for his defensive potential.
Interested to see what he does, and given TL's injury history, and Horford's age, I wouldn't be surprised to see him get quite a bit of run this season if he shows he can pick up on the schemes. Wouldn't be surprised to see him get 70 DNP-CDs, either, if he's terrible.
Love this move for how it reshapes our roster, anyway. Horford and TL are bigs you can run your offense through, whereas TT is a rebounding machine who can switch pretty well and miss a lot of putbacks. I like TT but I prefer the former on this team. Takes a load off Tatum, Fournier, and Smart as playmakers. Average Al is more average than ever, but I think in limited minutes he'll offer them a hell of a lot more than TT.
Excited to see what else Brad does.
Interested to see what he does, and given TL's injury history, and Horford's age, I wouldn't be surprised to see him get quite a bit of run this season if he shows he can pick up on the schemes. Wouldn't be surprised to see him get 70 DNP-CDs, either, if he's terrible.
Love this move for how it reshapes our roster, anyway. Horford and TL are bigs you can run your offense through, whereas TT is a rebounding machine who can switch pretty well and miss a lot of putbacks. I like TT but I prefer the former on this team. Takes a load off Tatum, Fournier, and Smart as playmakers. Average Al is more average than ever, but I think in limited minutes he'll offer them a hell of a lot more than TT.
Excited to see what else Brad does.
To me the Brown part of this seems like a prelude (or at least insurance policy) to a trade of Thompson, as they do very similar things and put up very similar stats. Having Brown allows Brad to trade TT while retaining someone who can do the same things TT does (more or less).