I wouldn’t. Jaylen is younger and signed for longer. Was surprised to see that Beal has shot 35% from 3 last 3 years. Some of that may be volume related but not all of it. He’s a good player and always seems to kill us but I’m not breaking the Jay union over him.
PHI has always tried to surround JE and BS with shooting. I'm not sure swapping out Richardson + Alec Burks (who shot better than 41%) last year for Curry and Green meant as much as getting rid of Horford and having Embiid and Harris improve.
I know this board loves looking for excuses but c’mon. Didn’t rest much? What were Jaylen and Jayson doing from the middle of March to August? They played 24 games over a 9.5 month period from 3/11 to 12/23.
Hmmm. If you consider where Jaylen was after two years in the NBA, and you consider where Hunter was here in his Year 2 before he got injured this season, I think you'd be hard-pressed to say that Hunter doesn't have as much if not more potential to be the better player than Jaylen over time.
The problem with that reasoning is that Jaylen has improved to a crazy degree after those 2 years, so it's cherry-picking a best-case scenario for Hunter.
Sure, and I'm not pretending to be as familiar about Jaylen's career trajectory as you guys obviously are. But Hunter showed enough this year that a trade centered around Hunter and Jaylen wouldn't necessarily be ridiculous - Hunter is cheaper and cost-controlled, in addition to flashing massive potential.
Hunter was also injured all year and hasn't been the same since returning. Some of that could be rust, but I'd rather see him do it for a full year before moving anyone the caliber of JB.
Working hard to stay in game shape because they didn’t know when the season was restarting? I’m not arguing that March to July was as strenuous as the normal regular season grind, but not giving themselves sufficient time to recover from a long season (including the mental grind of 2 months in the bubble) may have contributed to health and performance issues.
I don’t view Hunter as the type of high volume impact guy that Jaylen already has shown to be. He has better complementary skills than Jaylen but that isn’t enough to provide greater value than one of the leagues best scorers and difficult defends off the dribble as he creates more problems for the opponent. I like Hunter a lot but he simply isn’t at that skill level.
That’s really a stretch. The Celtics played 25 games in 9.5 months. It is the longest stretch that these players will ever have off barring injury or another pandemic.
A deal around Smart and Hunter would be great for the Celtics, I think. But I can't figure out a way to make it worth it for Atlanta. They're not giving up Hunter for 1 year of Smart and adding a Romeo/Nesmith type likely doesn't change the calculus much. Hunter's knee injury is definitely a little troublesome and god knows we love rolling the dice on those...
Nope---it is in fact ridiculous. I like Hunter, but Jaylen today is about the 5% or higher possibility for Hunter and there's a ton of projection risk there. You'd need to do Hunter plus a significant asset for it to make sense value-wise. I get why Hawks might want to bet on their own guys development (which is of course what Celtics have done for years) but saying "let's assume our guy develops and then call them equal value" is not a realistic view of trades.
I've been a big Collins fan for years but it feels like he's off this season. I don't watch him as closely as you, what's going on there? Is it a matter of minutes, role, other guys stepping up (CC, Hunter, Gallinari, Bog).
I wasn't for a minute suggesting Jaylen for Hunter straight up. I'm wondering if there's a package involving Jaylen for Hunter + other assets that could work for both teams. (Or even a mega-deal involving Jaylen + Smart from the Celtics.)
Travis Schlenk has very artfully constructed a roster that has many potential trade pieces with different contract sizes. I don't know if he'll think Jaylen/Smart is an attractive enough combination to massively retool the roster, but if he does, I imagine that would be possible - e.g., thrown in someone like Huerter? (Collins' new contract in a sign-and-trade makes it difficult to calculate the specifics, of course; it's hard to tell exactly what Collins will be able to get this summer.)
Jaylen is a UFA 3 years from now. They cannot afford to tread water. His clock will start ticking in 2 years, maybe even in 1.5 at the deadline if the team is "treading water."
I was going to say the same thing. Tatum will be asking out too if this team doesn't improve over that timeframe.
Yeah, we can't just assume that the Jay's will be here their whole careers. You have to appease your stars or they leave. That's just how the NBA works. At some point, Danny may be forced into a Jrue Holiday type deal just to keep Tatum happy.
The challenge---which is one Celtics faced a couple years ago--is that the only guys over $15 mil are Gallo (debateable if that contract is under water now); Capela (unlikely to be dealt, imo) and Bogdanovich (useful, and limited). So the asset value is in the young guys and you have to construct a deal that combines salary + youth to get to Brown, much less Brown + Smart. The NBA cap is much more complicated than other sports and it is not always the case you can just assume it away. Both Schlenk and Ainge are creative and so there's lots of possibilities but it really requires looking hard at cap and specific salaries---it's hard to get to the $36 plus million for Jaylen and Smart from Atlanta's side. Not impossible, but I think it requires Celtics believing in Gallo or Bogdanovich as real assets plus Atlanta giving up a bunch of the younger assets.
Everything about the Celtics should be built around the Jays timeline, so I agree with your age note. I believe Danny went with a young/inexperienced bench to create optionality this past season. But treading water (keeping Kemba on this roster for the next 2 seasons IMO) isn't really a great idea. Danny needs to be bold around the Jays. They are still ascending and getting better, so the C's get that benefit but they need to surround them with better complimentary talent.
I agree. Whether or not going young this year was the right call at the time, I do think we've seen that they need to blend youth and experience/role players better next year to expect progress. I think the two big missions for Ainge are accomplishing that (which is a mix of possibilities from re-signing Fournier; retaining TT; signing a vet; getting Kemba return which is a role player) and exploring Kemba options.
3 years is a long time. 2 years, even, is a long time. If you can make a deal that turns you into a legit contender then by all means do it. But realistically, it's going to take a lot to get past Brooklyn and Milwaukee. If the right deal isn't there, don't force it just to put together a team that is slightly more competitive next year but in no position to get KAT when he asks out in summer 2022.
Well, that's precisely the thing. Within those three years, Tatum could absolutely be a MVP type player, and he's already made it past the Bucks as a part of another team. Durant and Harden are both on the wrong side of 30,and Durant is coming off one of the most debilitating injuries a player can suffer.
I don't get the leap here....
Exactly, and there are many stars the same age as Brown and Tatum. The reality of Today's nba is guys 22-24 are stars and 25+ is time to take a run at things.
I think it's fairly clear that my message is not "don't try to upgrade". If you can upgrade with forfeiting your ability to make bigger moves in the future, go for it. But if you go 80's Yankees and start making deals for big names who are on the decline, you still won't win now and you'll be in even less of a position to keep Tatum in a few years.
Yeah, I'm not sure I see the path here. Everyone knows that talent wins in the NBA. While KW's injury/availability/contract aren't a good combination, I'm having a hard time seeing who else we can get that is more talented than KW - either with his salary slot or any alleged salary savings the Cs might be able to get by including an asset.
trades, draft, free agency, roster development
My issue with the KW for AH trade idea is that it creates another hole in the area of greatest need, while not fixing any, and it doesn't set you up any better to fix them. At best it just saves Wyc some cash.
Danny gains cap flexibility by moving KW for AH for the next 2 seasons. AH is a meaningful upgrade over TT IMO.
more like cheap, not mistake-prone, and defends but doesn't shoot like Smart
Ok, see this is where we differ I think.
Oh yeah, onboard with that completely.
I like Delon Wright as a bench combo guard, but he's not actually that good of a passer, and doesn't create offense. Kemba is a better distributor for example, honestly Smart might be too. Delon is nice 7th man if you're a contender, if you're starting him, you better have All-Stars at the other 4 spots
I love Kemba as a person and am willing to admit that I was 100% behind the signing.
Nah, the C's have the All-Stars. I envision plenty more ascension for Tatum and Brown (I'm absurdly bullish on them, Tatum esp).
Sure... and considerably ahead of Delon Wright as he has been every year of their careers.
Even if Tatum becomes a top 10 guy and Brown improves... you still need more talent around them than the backup PG for the Detroit Pistons to be a real contender.
Instead of a point guard who can distribute on the offensive end of the court, is anyone else concerned by the lack of a defensive one who can keep smalls in front of him? I think that Marcus is generally overrated in this capacity, as his strength is matching up with bigs in switches, and Kemba is perhaps underrated in this regard, as he actually gets exposed on those types of switches. Perhaps Romeo can grow into this role, but if we’re talking about overhauling the roster with limited assets, a small perimeter defender should be an affordable upgrade.
