2-3 % title odds, why even bother?  If you don't have a realistic shot at the title and aren't a young team working your way up, you should be rebuilding.  Hanging around as a good but not great team doesn't lead to titles and just prolongs the opportunity to be a realistic title contender. 

Because 2-3% odds >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> OJ Mayo or the 28th pick in the draft.

Hope that helps.

And the Celtics have 2 first rounders and a boatload of cap room next offseason, it's not like they're in a poor disposition to rebuild from.  Adding a 3rd worse pick or OJ Mayo doesn't enhance anything.  It would actually be a waste of cap room to sign OJ Mayo for the $7.4M QO next offseason, so there's just no point in pursuing that.  If Ainge really wants him, he can sign him next offseason.

Posted by moranis on 1/4/2012 11:20:00 AM (view original):
2-3 % title odds, why even bother?  If you don't have a realistic shot at the title and aren't a young team working your way up, you should be rebuilding.  Hanging around as a good but not great team doesn't lead to titles and just prolongs the opportunity to be a realistic title contender. 

You're making it sound like the Celts are giving up their future to go for a championship that they have little chance of winning.

If I concede your 2-3% title odds, please tell me how they hurt their future title chances by going for it anyway.  Should they be building around Mayo, the 30th pick, or one of the other pieces of crap they can supposedly get?

And if you do Ray for Mayo + KG for Thompson, then overpay for like Hibbert on the FA market, you're left with a lineup of Rondo/Mayo/Pierce/Thompson/Hibbert.  That's like a 30 win team w/ no upside that's going to be garbage as soon as Pierce becomes washed up.

This is because Mayo + Thompson are bench players, and their Bird Rights have no value to a team that's way under the cap.  Not really sure exactly how Ainge intends to allocate his cap room, but using chunks of it on 8th/9th quality men is a waste and only sets us back.  So trading Ray for Mayo basically sets us back this year just to set us back more next year when we overpay for a bench player while still not even having a starting lineup in tact.

Ray and KG will not be traded this season.

If all goes well, they both will sign cap friendly contracts next year.

I would hope that they could sign cap friendly contracts (i.e. say they both accept 2/10 to leave room for another big signing or 2), but it sounds like they're serious about this being their last run.  Wonder if KG has plans to retire.

Posted by jvford on 1/4/2012 11:33:00 AM (view original):

Posted by moranis on 1/4/2012 11:20:00 AM (view original):
2-3 % title odds, why even bother?  If you don't have a realistic shot at the title and aren't a young team working your way up, you should be rebuilding.  Hanging around as a good but not great team doesn't lead to titles and just prolongs the opportunity to be a realistic title contender. 

You're making it sound like the Celts are giving up their future to go for a championship that they have little chance of winning.

If I concede your 2-3% title odds, please tell me how they hurt their future title chances by going for it anyway.  Should they be building around Mayo, the 30th pick, or one of the other pieces of crap they can supposedly get?

The Celtics are wasting valuable expiring contracts for a title they have virtually no shot of winning.  A late first round pick is better than nothing.

And no the Celtics shouldn't be building a title team around those type of players, but those type of players will help the team by giving it assets (to trade) and/or usable players when they get that top tier talent in free agency or through the draft (as long as they don't mess up the draft, which unfortunately Ainge has been doing of late). 

They also might get a David Lee, Deandre Jordan, Monta Ellis, Marcus Thornton, etc. at the end of the first round, you know players that could be solid 3rd/4th option type players on a title team (and that actually went 30th or later in recent drafts).

Posted by deanod on 1/4/2012 12:39:00 PM (view original):
I would hope that they could sign cap friendly contracts (i.e. say they both accept 2/10 to leave room for another big signing or 2), but it sounds like they're serious about this being their last run.  Wonder if KG has plans to retire.

If you sign them both for 5 million a year, the Celtics won't have cap room for 1 max level signing (let alone 2) as Pierce and Rondo alone account for 28 million or so, add in another 10 with KG and Ray, plus the rookies (and bass if he doesn't opt out) and cap holds and a max deal isn't on the horizon, though they would certainly have room for a decent size contract.  That would also mean the Celtics would have to give their rights to Green, Bass (if he opts out), etc. and that seems a bit silly. 

I think KG retires and the Celtics wait to see what happens in free agency before making a decision on Allen.  If they don't get any top tier talent, then they let Ray walk, if they do get a top tier talent, I think they bring him back at something like what you are suggesting.

Posted by moranis on 1/4/2012 12:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jvford on 1/4/2012 11:33:00 AM (view original):

Posted by moranis on 1/4/2012 11:20:00 AM (view original):
2-3 % title odds, why even bother?  If you don't have a realistic shot at the title and aren't a young team working your way up, you should be rebuilding.  Hanging around as a good but not great team doesn't lead to titles and just prolongs the opportunity to be a realistic title contender. 

You're making it sound like the Celts are giving up their future to go for a championship that they have little chance of winning.

If I concede your 2-3% title odds, please tell me how they hurt their future title chances by going for it anyway.  Should they be building around Mayo, the 30th pick, or one of the other pieces of crap they can supposedly get?

The Celtics are wasting valuable expiring contracts for a title they have virtually no shot of winning.  A late first round pick is better than nothing.

And no the Celtics shouldn't be building a title team around those type of players, but those type of players will help the team by giving it assets (to trade) and/or usable players when they get that top tier talent in free agency or through the draft (as long as they don't mess up the draft, which unfortunately Ainge has been doing of late). 

They also might get a David Lee, Deandre Jordan, Monta Ellis, Marcus Thornton, etc. at the end of the first round, you know players that could be solid 3rd/4th option type players on a title team (and that actually went 30th or later in recent drafts).

But the alternative to a late first round pick is not nothing.  You've valued it at a 2-3% chance of winning a title.

So basically, you would have the Celts give up their chance (whether it's 2-3%, 20-30%, or somewhere inbetween) of winning a title for the outside chance of picking up a future #3/#4 guy.  Sounds like a path to irrelevance.

So...it helps to have OJ Mayo so we can trade him for Josh McRoberts later?  How does that help unless we have a very good 1st unit (which Mayo would obviously not be a part of) and need a big man off the bench?  Those are the types that fill out your roster as opposed to items of value, our ************* cap space has more value than Mayo, Thompson, et al.

And motherfuck your logic is terrible.  2-3% chance at the title is NOT worth nothing.  Going to the 2nd round of the playoffs is NOT worth the same as losing in rd 1 or missing the playoffs.  You can't seem to grasp this.  The assets that you suggest targeting are worth WAY closer to nothing than our team as assembled.

Posted by jvford on 1/4/2012 12:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by moranis on 1/4/2012 12:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jvford on 1/4/2012 11:33:00 AM (view original):

Posted by moranis on 1/4/2012 11:20:00 AM (view original):
2-3 % title odds, why even bother?  If you don't have a realistic shot at the title and aren't a young team working your way up, you should be rebuilding.  Hanging around as a good but not great team doesn't lead to titles and just prolongs the opportunity to be a realistic title contender. 

You're making it sound like the Celts are giving up their future to go for a championship that they have little chance of winning.

If I concede your 2-3% title odds, please tell me how they hurt their future title chances by going for it anyway.  Should they be building around Mayo, the 30th pick, or one of the other pieces of crap they can supposedly get?

The Celtics are wasting valuable expiring contracts for a title they have virtually no shot of winning.  A late first round pick is better than nothing.

And no the Celtics shouldn't be building a title team around those type of players, but those type of players will help the team by giving it assets (to trade) and/or usable players when they get that top tier talent in free agency or through the draft (as long as they don't mess up the draft, which unfortunately Ainge has been doing of late). 

They also might get a David Lee, Deandre Jordan, Monta Ellis, Marcus Thornton, etc. at the end of the first round, you know players that could be solid 3rd/4th option type players on a title team (and that actually went 30th or later in recent drafts).

But the alternative to a late first round pick is not nothing.  You've valued it at a 2-3% chance of winning a title.

So basically, you would have the Celts give up their chance (whether it's 2-3%, 20-30%, or somewhere inbetween) of winning a title for the outside chance of picking up a future #3/#4 guy.  Sounds like a path to irrelevance.

Yeah, even if Ainge adds a 3rd pick and knocks all 3 of them out of the park by drafting the next Jordan + Ellis + Lee, that means that we are basically the Warriors minus Steph Curry.  Whoop dee ******* doo!

Also there are diminishing returns on too many late picks in the same range, since Ainge would basically be sniping his targets from himself.

I look at it this way:  The Celts have no freakin idea what their future title contender could look like, how to go about building it, how long it will take, or if they even have any of the pieces on their roster right now.  So, if there's a chance (however remote) of competing for the title this season, they should be all in.  No matter what that means for their future rebuilding.

I see it similarly.

Talk about how slim their odds are this year all you want, right now is probably their best shot at a title over the next 5 or so seasons.  Trading a couple of picks for AV would set back the rebuilding process by like one year, which isn't really the hugest deal in the world because it's still pretty likely that the picks won't be good enough to advance us.  After this year we have:

3 years of Rondo
aging Pierce
2 1st rounders
buttload of cap space

I'd be interested to see if Ainge could whip all of that into a 45-50 win team going forward, but that would be hard.  If not we probably go into "trade Rondo for a quality prospect, start to accumulate assets for next rebuild" mode where we could more than regain any assets lost from an AV deal.  Hell, we could probably deal AV himself and get like 85% of our investment back.

But for now, our 4 best players form a pretty special core and I really don't think it should be taken for granted.  I'd rather see it maximized just to see if we have one last big run.

Posted by deanod on 1/4/2012 12:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jvford on 1/4/2012 12:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by moranis on 1/4/2012 12:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jvford on 1/4/2012 11:33:00 AM (view original):

Posted by moranis on 1/4/2012 11:20:00 AM (view original):
2-3 % title odds, why even bother?  If you don't have a realistic shot at the title and aren't a young team working your way up, you should be rebuilding.  Hanging around as a good but not great team doesn't lead to titles and just prolongs the opportunity to be a realistic title contender. 

You're making it sound like the Celts are giving up their future to go for a championship that they have little chance of winning.

If I concede your 2-3% title odds, please tell me how they hurt their future title chances by going for it anyway.  Should they be building around Mayo, the 30th pick, or one of the other pieces of crap they can supposedly get?

The Celtics are wasting valuable expiring contracts for a title they have virtually no shot of winning.  A late first round pick is better than nothing.

And no the Celtics shouldn't be building a title team around those type of players, but those type of players will help the team by giving it assets (to trade) and/or usable players when they get that top tier talent in free agency or through the draft (as long as they don't mess up the draft, which unfortunately Ainge has been doing of late). 

They also might get a David Lee, Deandre Jordan, Monta Ellis, Marcus Thornton, etc. at the end of the first round, you know players that could be solid 3rd/4th option type players on a title team (and that actually went 30th or later in recent drafts).

But the alternative to a late first round pick is not nothing.  You've valued it at a 2-3% chance of winning a title.

So basically, you would have the Celts give up their chance (whether it's 2-3%, 20-30%, or somewhere inbetween) of winning a title for the outside chance of picking up a future #3/#4 guy.  Sounds like a path to irrelevance.

Yeah, even if Ainge adds a 3rd pick and knocks all 3 of them out of the park by drafting the next Jordan + Ellis + Lee, that means that we are basically the Warriors minus Steph Curry.  Whoop dee ******* doo!

Also there are diminishing returns on too many late picks in the same range, since Ainge would basically be sniping his targets from himself.

Sure but the Bulls pick is like 28, the Clippers pick looks like it will be around 20, the Celtics pick probably in the 15 range depending on when the trade is made.  It isn't like the 3 picks are going to be 28, 29, and 30.  There is enough gap that the available players will be vastly different.  It also would be much more likely to be able to move up with that extra pick or trade the pick and use cap space for a player on draft night.  You could also just take a future pick from the Bulls rather than a pick this year.