Sports Illustrated rank Celtics 3rd worst team in East. Nets won't make playoffs

[D.o.s.]

If we lose him next year because he feels the team isn't improving, than what do we hang our hat on?

I say this in all sincerity, but I believe it goes something like: *cough* 17 championships *cough* with a healthy dash of "at least we're better than the Lakers."

[gpap]

If we lose him next year because he feels the team isn't improving, than what do we hang our hat on?

I say this in all sincerity, but I believe it goes something like: *cough* 17 championships *cough* with a healthy dash of "at least we're better than the Lakers."

I don't think anybody in today's NBA cares about our legacy, I really don't.

They should, but they don't.

Otherwise, free agents would be more willing to come to Boston than they would be going to Miami, Chicago, LA, New York, Cleveland or whatever the flavor of the week is in the NBA.

[hwangjini_1]

Yeah as for this year, sadly enough I do see the Celts being one of the worse 3 teams in the league after Philly and maybe Utah.

Not sure I see any reason to believe otherwise.

What keeps tripping me up is, why would we be expected to do worse than last year?  We've lost no key players, and our rotation guys are either likely to improve on last year (Rondo, Sully, Olynyk, etc) or at least not drop off (Green, Bradley, etc).  And we've added some rotation caliber guys (Smart, Zeller, Turner, in theory Thornton).

Unless Wallace is considered a significant part of the team, all of our main guys should be as good or better than last year.  And they've had more time to adjust to Stevens, and Stevens to the league.  That's still not enough to be a playoff team or anything, but barring injury I'd expect the team to improve as a whole.

But the roster is horribly unbalanced.

It is unbalanced -- definitely far too many SG-types -- but compared to last year?

I agree with foulweatherfan that, relative to last year, I don't really buy the argument that the team is worse than last year.

Last year, we started the season we exactly zero true centers on the team and exactly zero true, veteran, starter-caliber point-guards.   So, whatever you think of Zeller or Rondo -- both are immediately huge upgrades over what we started the season with at those two positions.

The only real 'downgrade' from last year is that, well, Humphries did play pretty solid defensively at PF and offensively at both PF & C.  But I fully expect that the natural progression of Sully and/or Humphries should surpass what we got out of him in his minutes at PF.   And defensively, he was not very effective against opposing centers.  Zeller is young and not at defensive 'stopper', but his defensive numbers against opposing centers was far better than any of our bigs last season.

At wing, I don't expect downgrade from Green (especially given it is a contract year) and and while Bradley struggled with efficiency during his tryout at PG and with taking too many mid-range 2s early in the season, by the end of the season he was a legitimate 3PT threat who should be able to really provide much better spacing of the offense this coming year.

So, yes, we are still unbalanced overall when you look at the total roster -- but most of that problem is with depth.

As far as our starters and top rotation bigs go:

Zeller/Olynyk/Sully
Sully/Olynyk
Green
Bradley
Rondo

is, on paper (and if healthy), far superior to what we put on the floor last year.

Our top 5-man units last year were seriously awful by comparison.   Seriously, here are the two 5-man units that we played the MOST last year:

Bradley-Crawford-Green-Bass-Sullinger (372.5 minutes)
Rondo-Bayless-Green-Bass-Humphries (124.2 minutes)

Yick!   In the first lineup, Green is literally the ONLY player with a physical matchup advantage over his typical opponent at his position.  In the second, just Green and Rondo.  And the second features the ultimate defensive sieve that is Bayless at SG.

The other problem aspect to last year is indicated in the minutes for each of those units.  For the 'top 2' units, those are very small minutes for any team.  Only one other 5-man combination last year got over 100 minutes.  All the rest were below 90.   And there were a LOT of different combinations.  That is indicative of the constant, churning roster and rotation chaos that we endured last year.  That is NOT a recipe for good basketball.

If the above 6 players (Rondo, Bradley, Green, Sully, Olynyk & Zeller) get the major chunks of minutes -- and in regular rotations with each other -- that will be significant upgrade over what we put on the floor the majority of the time last year.

I'm not going to claim that's a title-contending top-6.   We probably still will struggle to get out of the lottery.   But it should be a lot more competitive than last year's team.

Barring injury and assuming Danny and Brad prioritize 'winning', of course.

just curious, but do we know which of these two teams produced more wins last year after evening out the playing time?

[freshinthehouse]

I think the rope for Brad, Danny AND Wyc (at least in my eyes) will extend through this upcoming season and THAT'S IT.

If this time next year, we are still talking about rebuilding and not talking about a competitive basketball team, then I think there's going to be some people on the hot seat over at Causeway Street and I can promise I will not wait around yet another year.

The rebuild stuff might be fun for some people, but in this city, taking a 5-10 year rebuild approach just isn't going to fly.

Oh, Puh-lease.  I don't know if you followed pro sports in the 20th century, but if you did, you should know that besides the Celtics, Boston teams were pretty much a pile of hot garbage.  And even then, fans still turned out.  And the Celtics have won one champhionship since Ronald Reagan was president.  And yet, somehow, the fans show up.  At least not all of them are inpatient, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately? types.

If Celtics fans want to cut bait on Danny, Wyc, and Co after two losing seasons, then they don't deserve a GM and owner as awesome as those two.  Danny inherited a pupu platter of a roster and within 5 years had built a champion, all without getting lucky in the draft or without luring a big time free agent.  Do you know how rare that is?  Do people not remember what it was like when this franchise was owned by Gaston Jr and ran by Chris Wallace?

I don't know if it is a sign of today's society or what, but the demand for instant gratification today just baffles me.

[D.o.s.]

Much as you'd like to, I'm not sure you can blame the 'Titletown' mentality on those darn kids today with their instant gratification and their hootenannies and hotdangits. Boston had a really good run of sports over the last decade and change, and it's only natural that people come to expect it after a while.

[Tr1boy]

celtics will make SI eat it.

We will make the playoffs

[Eddie20]

I may be wrong, we have the clippers pick this year and the next Brooklyn pick is next year.

Yes you are correct. Brooklyn 2016 and the right to swap in 2017 I think?

I guess it's still good news for us this season. Chaos and turmoil don't breed winning.

Yeah.

1st rounders
LAC 2015
Brooklyn 2016
Cleveland 2016
Brooklyn (right to swap) 2017
Brooklyn 2018

2nd rounders
Philly 2015
Philly 2016
Miami 2016

[Eddie20]

Don't think the actual info on the C's was posted...

13. Boston Celtics – Brad Stevens did a fine job in his first season at the helm of an ill-equipped Celtics team, but he'll be asked again to make the most of relatively little. Rajon Rondo's better health doesn't hurt, but the probability of his being traded by the deadline looms over yet another of Boston's seasons. Regardless, these Celtics primarily trade in youth. Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart, Kelly Olynyk, Tyler Zeller, James Young and Jared Sullinger give Boston a hefty complement of rotation pieces 23 or younger. Among them Smart, in particular, looks to be a star in the making.

[Eddie20]

celtics will make SI eat it.

We will make the playoffs

Do we really want to? Sneak into the playoffs and get trounced by either Cleveland or Chicago and get a pick in the late teens or finish with a bottom 5 record and land a top 7 lottery pick, in this a draft with some very solid bigs. Give me the latter and let's build this thing right.

[Tr1boy]

celtics will make SI eat it.

We will make the playoffs

Do we really want to? Sneak into the playoffs and get trounced by either Cleveland or Chicago and get a pick in the late teens or finish with a bottom 5 record and land a top 7 lottery pick, in this a draft with some very solid bigs. Give me the latter and let's build this thing right.

If you want to rebuild right , you trade rondo and green. But danny is not going to do that (until maybe the deadline). These guys are fighting for their contract lives. You add turner, thornton, zeller plus a high pick like smart and this is better team vs last seasons. 10 plus wins better and close to playoff bound

[Eddie20]

celtics will make SI eat it.

We will make the playoffs

Do we really want to? Sneak into the playoffs and get trounced by either Cleveland or Chicago and get a pick in the late teens or finish with a bottom 5 record and land a top 7 lottery pick, in this a draft with some very solid bigs. Give me the latter and let's build this thing right.

If you want to rebuild right , you trade rondo and green. But danny is not going to do that (until maybe the deadline). These guys are fighting for their contract lives. You add turner, thornton, zeller plus a high pick like smart and this is better team vs last seasons. 10 plus wins better and close to playoff bound

Who are we really sneaking ahead of? That's the problem.

The only team SI has in front of us, that I feel we're better than, is Orlando.

[Rondo9]

celtics will make SI eat it.

We will make the playoffs

Do we really want to? Sneak into the playoffs and get trounced by either Cleveland or Chicago and get a pick in the late teens or finish with a bottom 5 record and land a top 7 lottery pick, in this a draft with some very solid bigs. Give me the latter and let's build this thing right.

There's no "right" way to rebuild. You can be rooting for losses like the Sixer fans if you want, meanwhile I want the team to win as many games as they can.

[Eddie20]

celtics will make SI eat it.

We will make the playoffs

Do we really want to? Sneak into the playoffs and get trounced by either Cleveland or Chicago and get a pick in the late teens or finish with a bottom 5 record and land a top 7 lottery pick, in this a draft with some very solid bigs. Give me the latter and let's build this thing right.

There's no "right" way to rebuild. You can be rooting for losses like the Sixer fans if you want, meanwhile I want the team to win as many games as they can.

Sure there is. You can trade away picks and try to win now. We have a young team that has 4 of it's better players (Rondo/Smart & Olynyk/Sullinger) best suited at PG and PF. It's going to take at least 1 more season for us to fix our roster makeup and start competing for a late playoff spot. So I'd much rather get another Smart type prospect, than a Young type, and build this thing right.

[Rondo9]

celtics will make SI eat it.

We will make the playoffs

Do we really want to? Sneak into the playoffs and get trounced by either Cleveland or Chicago and get a pick in the late teens or finish with a bottom 5 record and land a top 7 lottery pick, in this a draft with some very solid bigs. Give me the latter and let's build this thing right.

There's no "right" way to rebuild. You can be rooting for losses like the Sixer fans if you want, meanwhile I want the team to win as many games as they can.

Sure there is. You can trade away picks and try to win now. We have a young team that has 4 of it's better players (Rondo/Smart & Olynyk/Sullinger) best suited at PG and PF. It's going to take at least 1 more season for us to start competing for a late playoff spot. So I'd much rather get another Smart type prospect, than a Young type, and build this thing right.

Again there are multiple paths to a rebuild, bottoming out isn't necessary if you have plethora of picks and young players. I think the Celtics are good enough to sneak into the playoffs or they'll miss it by a few wins.

[Eddie20]

celtics will make SI eat it.

We will make the playoffs

Do we really want to? Sneak into the playoffs and get trounced by either Cleveland or Chicago and get a pick in the late teens or finish with a bottom 5 record and land a top 7 lottery pick, in this a draft with some very solid bigs. Give me the latter and let's build this thing right.

There's no "right" way to rebuild. You can be rooting for losses like the Sixer fans if you want, meanwhile I want the team to win as many games as they can.

Sure there is. You can trade away picks and try to win now. We have a young team that has 4 of it's better players (Rondo/Smart & Olynyk/Sullinger) best suited at PG and PF. It's going to take at least 1 more season for us to start competing for a late playoff spot. So I'd much rather get another Smart type prospect, than a Young type, and build this thing right.

Again there are multiple paths to a rebuild, bottoming out isn't necessary if you have plethora of picks and young players. I think the Celtics are good enough to sneak into the playoffs or they'll miss it by a few wins.

Again, what's the point? Would our team be better going forward with a top 5 pick or one in the low teens during next year's draft?

Sneaking into the playoffs or missing it by a few wins will mean the difference of quite a few draft spots. I would love to make the playoffs, but not at the expense of drafting out of the lottery and missing out on another potential franchise cornerstone. Patience is vital.

Who are they better than?

Cavs
Bulls
Wizards
Raptors
Hawks
Hornets
Heat
Knicks
Pistons
Pacers
Nets