The Plan For the #1, er, #3 Overall Pick?

HomeRunBaker

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Grin&MartyBarret said:
Meanwhile the team that currently has Bender, Chriss, Warren, Booker and #4 to build around is the most active team in trade talks and has been linked to everybody from Kevin Love to LaMarcus Aldridge to Porzingis.

Is there anybody out there who is super bullish on Phoenix's future right now?
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Not me. Warren is fungible, Chriss is raw, Bender I am not a fan of at all. Like most rebuilding teams they have a few nice young pieces.....it takes a lot more than that to get from 24-wins to 40 and then it takes another leak to get into the 50's. Nothing special here at least not yet.
 
E5 Yaz

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3. Boston Celtics: Jonathan Isaac, Florida State
The second the Celtics finished the Fultz trade, the whole league began wondering what kind of trade Danny Ainge was planning. For his part, Ainge has claimed that the player they liked at No. 1 should be available at three, and maybe it's that simple. Most have assumed he's talking about Josh Jackson or Jayson Tatum. But if the Celtics are actually planning on keeping the player they draft Thursday, I bet it will be Isaac. Tatum's ball-stopping game would be a clunky fit next to potential superstar imports like Gordon Hayward or Jimmy Butler, while Jackson's high motor and sketchy shooting makes him such an Ainge pick, he may actually be too much of an Ainge pick. Isaac has as high a ceiling as either one if his offense evolves. As a baseline, his defensive skills and floor-stretching ability should make him a nightmare of a secondary star. So with the Celtics controlling the rest of the lottery, this is a gut feeling. If there's a trade, Josh Jackson goes three. If the Celtics stand pat, Isaac is the choice.

https://www.si.com/nba/2017/06/22/nba-mock-draft-trade-rumors-final-picks-updated-celtics-knicks
 
cardiacs

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Brian Windhorst just said on ESPN that the Clippers offered DeAndre Jordan for the 3rd pick to select Josh Jackson, and Boston didn't do it.
 
joe dokes

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To the extent I ever take predictions seriously, I can't take seriously a mock draft story that says this:

Tatum's ball-stopping game would be a clunky fit next to potential superstar imports like Gordon Hayward or Jimmy Butler, while Jackson's high motor and sketchy shooting makes him such an Ainge pick, he may actually be too much of an Ainge pick.
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That's the writing equivalent of wearing a monocle to look smart.
 
E5 Yaz

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Boston Celtics | Grade: C+
Pick: Jayson Tatum, Semi Ojeleye, Kadeem Allen, Jabari Bird
Trade: TBD?

I'm a little tired of trying to decode Danny Ainge's master plan for all these assets. When they traded the No. 1 pick, I think a lot of people around the league assumed that it was a prelude to a bigger move. But they didn't get Jimmy Butler on Thursday night, they didn't get Kristaps Porzingis on Thursday afternoon, Paul George rumors came and went, and ... Maybe they just really like Tatum? I'm not a huge fan of his game, but others are. And if anyone can find a way to take what he does well—iso scoring—and make it work at an elite level, it's probably Brad Stevens. Semi Ojeleye is a prospect I really liked, but with Ante Zizic and Guerschon "Dancing Bear" Yabusele coming over, I wonder whether they even have minutes have for him.

The Celtics are probably not as brilliant as the true Ainge believers think, and they're probably not as dumb and gun shy as some critics make them sound. That's my only coherent Celtics thought after (another) 96-hour window of endless Celtics rumors. We'll see what happens in free agency.

https://www.si.com/nba/2017/06/23/nba-draft-grades-teams-wolves-bulls-sixers-lakers-knicks
 
bsj

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I just dont think that one year of George (which would likely block Hayward), or Jimmy Butler (who Im not as high on) is worth as much as it would have cost. Pryzingis I may have stretched for, but not as far as the Knicks were asking.

Just because you have assets doesnt mean you use them for whatever comes along. Sign Hayward, bring in Zizic, keep building. Do it right and you have a team that can beat GSW in 3 years, and can be good for a long time.
 
Koufax

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That's pretty outrageous. It makes Jackson's statement that the timing just didn't work out look ridiculous.
 
JCizzle

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bsj said:
I just dont think that one year of George (which would likely block Hayward), or Jimmy Butler (who Im not as high on) is worth as much as it would have cost. Pryzingis I may have stretched for, but not as far as the Knicks were asking.

Just because you have assets doesnt mean you use them for whatever comes along. Sign Hayward, bring in Zizic, keep building. Do it right and you have a team that can beat GSW in 3 years, and can be good for a long time.
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Yes yes yes. Don't make a move just for the sake of making a move.
 
Koufax

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I'm not sure what thread this belongs in, but here's my puzzlement: Why on earth did the Celtics use all of their second round picks when they have a roster crunch to begin with? Why not trade up (in a 1-for-2 deal) or out (to 2018 2d round)? There was plenty of swapping going on in the second round, and I'm surprised that the Celtics weren't part of it.
 
smastroyin

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HomeRunBaker

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HowBoutDemSox said:
Apparently Jackson had the Ainge, Stevens and Zarren fly to Sacramento for a workout and cancelled while they were in flight. Ainge was predictably not happy.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19713510/danny-ainge-boston-celtics-vents-josh-jackson-canceled-workout
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Sounds like BJ Armstrong had a personal vendetta with Ainge and wanted to fuck with him. BJ learned from someone how the agents power play against GM's. I wonder if this began two years ago when BJ was trying to get Ainge to sign JaVale McGee in mid-season with a guarantee for following year......I always felt that was a situation where Ainge brought McGee in to sign him but for some reason the deal never got done.
 
BigSoxFan

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Talked to my source who would know last night that the Sixers were the ones who initiated the trade talks and Ainge's first ask was 3/Lakers unprotected/Kings unprotected. Given where they finished, the teams more or less met in the middle. Also FWIW, Tatum was Philly's guy had they stayed at 3.
 
pjheff

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Koufax said:
I'm not sure what thread this belongs in, but here's my puzzlement: Why on earth did the Celtics use all of their second round picks when they have a roster crunch to begin with? Why not trade up (in a 1-for-2 deal) or out (to 2018 2d round)? There was plenty of swapping going on in the second round, and I'm surprised that the Celtics weren't part of it.
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Ainge may well need bodies after he clears house to create the cap space with which to pursue a max FA. In particular, Allen and Bird might be candidates for two-way contracts.
 
finnVT

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By my count, renouncing Zeller, Olynyk, and Young right now would put the C's at 25.5m cap space (based on the 99m cap number). That includes Zizic, Yabu, and Tatum's cap holds. That leaves them 4.2m short of a max offer. Assuming the tweet above is the plan, they'd need to first free up that space, then have a salary matching trade for George. You probably need to save AB+Crowder for the trade part so that salaries can match, so how do you free up 4.2m without moving either of them? Dumping Mickey, DJackson, and stashing Yabu gets you to 28.1, which is still 1.8m short. I don't see an easy path to freeing up the salary space for a max offer, that still leaves tradeable salaries to get PG, unless one of Smart/Brown/Tatum is getting moved.

What this tells me is that Brown or Tatum almost certainly would have to be one of the pieces going to IND, just to make the salaries work. That way, you could move Crowder now for a future pick, then have a deal based around AB+Brown+(say, Mickey, for salary matching). That would put you just over cap, ~101m, with a 10-man roster of:

Smart/DJackson
IT/Rozier
Hayward/Tatum
George/Yabu
Horford/Zizic

That's a WAY shorter bench than they've seemed to preferred, and they'd be over cap, making it very hard to add any other meaningful pieces. But it is a nice starting 5.
 
snowmanny

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BigSoxFan said:
Talked to my source who would know last night that the Sixers were the ones who initiated the trade talks and Ainge's first ask was 3/Lakers unprotected/Kings unprotected. Given where they finished, the teams more or less met in the middle. Also FWIW, Tatum was Philly's guy had they stayed at 3.
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The middle? What was Philly's initial offer? #3 for #1?
 
BigSoxFan

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snowmanny said:
The middle? What was Philly's initial offer? #3 for #1?
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Middle is probably a wrong word choice. I think Philly probably "won" the trade from a negotiating standpoint. But they were trying to put stronger protections (he said top 7 on both) on both LA and Sac picks and were offering up their own in 2019 if those didn't materialize.

Danny was able to get a shot at the 2018 pick while removing all but #1 protection on the Sac pick.
 
Big John

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BigSoxFan said:
Middle is probably a wrong word choice. I think Philly probably "won" the trade from a negotiating standpoint. But they were trying to put stronger protections (he said top 7 on both) on both LA and Sac picks and were offering up their own in 2019 if those didn't materialize.

Danny was able to get a shot at the 2018 pick while removing all but #1 protection on the Sac pick.
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After watching the video of Fultz' workout in Philadelphia I'm surprised that Ainge did as well as he did. Now if he can keep Paul George away from the Lakers for the next 12 months.....
 
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