Rebuilding is never a sure thing. Some teams spend many years just trying to climb back to being relevant. Others get lucky and have a young core that can blossom into a contender within a few years. It's a crap shoot, even with great management and luck. Still, rebuilding is the reality that faces the Celtics going into next season. With that in mind, here are some principles that the Celtics should adhere to with the upcoming rebuild process:
#1. Know your goal: Secure the franchise star.
The primary objective of a rebuild should always be to get that #1 guy, the top 5-10 player who can be the focal point of your team on both ends of the floor. Once you have this player, the rest becomes much simpler because you just need to find the right role players and supporting stars to fit the game plan that best suits your main star.
This player can be acquired through the draft or by trading a number of young pieces. Free agency should never be relied upon to secure the franchise star. It almost never works out unless you're a "destination" city, and even then you normally need another star already in place.
Everything else is secondary to this objective; nobody on the roster should be untouchable until this main guy has been secured.
I know that some people will disagree with me, but I do not believe Rondo is this player. He is an All-Star caliber point guard, and he has big game potential, but he's already 27 and I do not think you can build a team around him and expect to be a contender.
2. Always aim to pick in the top 10 of the draft.
You can never be sure to win the lottery. Just ask the Celtics in 2007. Even the worst teams in the league sometimes end up picking 4th or 5th.
Going into the absolute tailspin that is required to tank for the #1 pick isn't something you should do intentionally. Rather, the goal should be to compete and improve over the season, but not to spend enough money on established players for your team to be good enough to be out of the top 10.
Staying within the top 10 is wise because even in weak drafts, there are usually good players available in that range. Just ask the Warriors, who got Stephen Curry at #7 in 2009 -- supposedly a very weak draft. Ask the Pacers, who got Paul George at #10, or the Pistons, who got Andre Drummond at #10.
Once you get out of that top 10 range, though, the odds of picking up a potential star get much longer. Even the best drafting teams in the league struggle to find a lot of value picking at the end of the lottery. Look at what the Houston Rockets were able to acquire drafting at 14 again and again.
Top 5 picks are probably where most of the "sure thing" talents are in any given draft. However, you can always package assets and picks in order to move up a few spots in a draft if there's somebody you really like that maybe some other team doesn't value as highly.
3. Maintain a "try to win" environment
This may seem contradictory with #2. However, it's my belief that one of the major pitfalls of many rebuilding teams is that they get so bogged down in tanking and losing that the organization has no culture of competitiveness or accountability.
In my mind, when you are rebuilding you should keep your roster competitive. By that I mean that there's healthy competition for every spot in the rotation, and there's a good mix of veterans with the young players so that guys just coming into the league have an example of what a professional in this league looks like.
When I say veterans, I mean players like Keyon Dooling and Mickael Pietrus. Guys who have been around in this league and have a good attitude whether the team is winning or losing. Obviously selfish, immature, or unstable players like Jermaine O'Neal or Delonte West should be avoided.
The ideal is that your team fights hard, keeps most games relatively close, and improves over the course of the season, but ultimately loses a lot of games because they just don't have the established star talent yet.
This requires a coach who can keep a team motivated and focused on learning and improving fundamental skills throughout the season regardless of how much success the team has.
4. Buy low, sell high
Rebuilding is kind of like flipping a house.
You want to strip away the older parts that don't have much future value and get down to the bare, essential materials that you have to work with. Then you start investing into that foundation to improve it and hopefully sell it for a profit. Or, maybe you keep it and you have a great house to live in.
Either way, the point is that rebuilding a team requires you to get the maximum return on your investment. You want to get out more than you put in. Badly managed teams squander draft picks, trade away prospects before they've fully developed, and overpay to keep young role players.
The Celtics should look to acquire players through trade or free agency who are held in low regard, for whatever reason, and then develop them. As a rebuilding team you have the luxury of not needing to win games, so you can focus instead of player development. This allows you to invest money and playing time in these sorts of players.
These don't always have to be young players. It could be older players who have talent and ability but didn't do so great at their last destination. Give them a chance to play a big role on a team lacking veteran leaders and they could prove themselves enough to attract the attention of a contender. Then you can trade them trade them for some future value.
5. Protect financial flexibility at all costs
Until that franchise star is secured, the team should not be giving out contracts longer than 2-3 years. The roster should be comprised of young players on rookie deals or bargain basement "make-good" deals, and then veterans on 1 year deals, possibly with second years guaranteed. That ensures that there's no deadweight on the roster, nobody who can't be moved or used to sweeten a deal or make salaries work as necessary.
Contracts like those given to Courtney Lee, Brandon Bass, and Jason Terry last summer are luxuries that only a team expecting to win 50+ games and go deep in the playoffs can afford to make.
This is what I've come up with so far. I'd be interested to hear what other people think are the most important rules and guiding principles for the Celtics heading into the rebuild.
Topic: The Principles of Rebuilding (Read 2559 times)