Why are people impressed by Philadelphia

[Tr1boy]

i'm not impressed with them at all.

They are a joke

[Smokeeye123]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC. Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year. This is boston, and it's championship or bust. If you arent a legit contender get out.

[Birdman]

Philly future all depends on Noel and Embiid health..if they can stay healthy, they should be good. Bu that's a big IF...

[Beat LA]

I agree with you, but there are people who believe that the best way to become good in the NBA as quickly as possible is to be as bad as possible first. If that was your opinion, wouldn't you be impressed by how quickly Philly dismantled a team that was one win away from the ECF?


(Obviously that team has a huge asterisk next to it because of the Derrick Rose injury)

anyone who thinks being in the lottery for 3 straight yrs. is getting good as quick as possible they're mistaken. that's the long way, if they plan on growing with those players. if a team can trade those picks for great players ready to win now? then that's a way of "getting good quick".

I wouldn't classify myself as a "pro-tanker". I do however believe in being bad at the right time like the Spurs.

Yeah, obviously the Spurs are the special case of, "fake bad".   They were a consistent 55-60+ win team for most of the prior seasons before that fateful year when Robinson got injured.   They still maintained most of the key parts of the strong roster going into the following year.  So once they were all healthy, Duncan was basically joining an already pretty buff roster.

That's pretty much the only proven formula for taking a top draft pick and then running to the title.  The other case where a top 5 pick won a title with his drafting team was DWade - where in that case Riley bought/traded for a ton of talented and experienced veterans to surround his star rookie with (Shaq, The Glove, Mourning, Antoine, etc.).

What Philly is doing is different.  They ostensibly are following the OKC model which has (after several years of sucking and high draft picks) resulted in several deep playoff runs, one finals appearance and as yet no title.

My preferred model is what Red would do (and Danny seems to be trying to do):  Acquire other team's picks and hope one of them ends up sucking their way to a top pick FOR you.   Man, if Bias had only NOT gone to celebrate that fateful night... digress.  The point is, ideally, you focus your own team on just winning.  Let other teams suck their way into good picks that you own.  Heck, it helps if your team beats them in those situations.

I don't think that Ainge is following that path for sustained excellence at all.  His mo seems to be to suck for a while, be great for a time, and then burn everything down and start again, while Red would try to add young talent to his teams while they were great.  Personally, I think that it would be better to do away with protected picks, because teams shouldn't be able to trade their selection(s) away, suck, but then retain their draft position due to their horrible record because they fell into some group where they wouldn't have to surrender it.  That negates the whole purpose of a deal, imo.  Where is the compensation for the other team?  It just seems stupid to me.  If you give up your draft pick, you give up your draft pick.  You can't suddenly get a do-over because that pick ended up being far better for your trading partner than for you, but whatever.  I just think that Ainge doesn't know how to supplement an already excellent core with young talent, and that's why we are where we are.

[Smokeeye123]

Philly future all depends on Noel and Embiid health..if they can stay healthy, they should be good. Bu that's a big IF...

And if they aren't healthy they are the worst team in the league and they get another shot at an allstar

[Beat LA]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC. Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year. This is boston, and it's championship or bust. If you arent a legit contender get out.

Yeah, you beat me to it.  Who wouldn't want a core of MCW, Embiid, and Noel moving forward, in addition to having Tony Wroten, KJ McDaniels (a personal favorite of mine), and even Henry Sims, who's proven to be more than capable?  They also aren't saddled with any horrible contracts like we are, so, what's not to like? 

[MBunge]

Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year.

I don't know how to argue with this.  It's a kind of magical thinking that has proven to be wrong faaaaaar more often than it is right.  There are now, and have been in the past, plenty of teams that stink for years and never get close to a title.

Mike

[celticsclay]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC. Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year. This is boston, and it's championship or bust. If you arent a legit contender get out.

Yeah, you beat me to it.  Who wouldn't want a core of MCW, Embiid, and Noel moving forward, in addition to having Tony Wroten, KJ McDaniels (a personal favorite of mine), and even Henry Sims, who's proven to be more than capable?  They also aren't saddled with any horrible contracts like we are, so, what's not to like?

You are in the minority if you think MCW has a lot of trade value. It is also really hard to tell Tony Wroten and Sims value as players because they are playing in glorified pickup games most of the time where the other teams are emptying their bench in the third and 4th quarter.

[BballTim]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC. Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year. This is boston, and it's championship or bust. If you arent a legit contender get out.

  Yeah, it's much more exciting to see a team suck for the long term, so people can fawn over young players with "unlimited potential" who rarely turn into decent players. You'd have been a huge fan of the 80s Clippers teams if you were around back then. They had the same motto you do.

[Vermont Green]

If you are in for tanking, you better plan on tanking for at least 3 or 4 years.  Because draft position involves an element of chance (the lottery) and draft picks involve another high level of chance (busts abound every year), you generally need 3 cracks at it to get payoff.  CLE had their 3 #1 picks and that finally got them Kevin Love but where would they be without LeBron?  They would be mediocre.

There is no sure fire way to build a great team but tanking and drafting may be the riskiest way of them all.  I think Ainge is going about it about the best you can expect.  He blew it up trading Pierce and KG but isn't relying solely on drafting to rebuild.  He is hedging the draft process by having so many picks.  With that many picks, we can hope to get one or two surprises in the draft or have enough extra pick to make a good trade.

[fairweatherfan]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC.

Remind me which one of Philly's players are as good as Durant?  Or Westbrook?  Or Harden?  I suppose you could say Noel's ceiling is a more injury-prone Ibaka.  Yeah, they're well on their way.

Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year.

I don't know how to argue with this.  It's a kind of magical thinking that has proven to be wrong faaaaaar more often than it is right.  There are now, and have been in the past, plenty of teams that stink for years and never get close to a title.

Mike

But if you pretend the best possible scenario is the most likely one instead of the least likely one, it's a slam dunk!

[Eddie20]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC. Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year. This is boston, and it's championship or bust. If you arent a legit contender get out.

Yeah, you beat me to it.  Who wouldn't want a core of MCW, Embiid, and Noel moving forward, in addition to having Tony Wroten, KJ McDaniels (a personal favorite of mine), and even Henry Sims, who's proven to be more than capable?  They also aren't saddled with any horrible contracts like we are, so, what's not to like?

We'll see about all that. Embiid and Noel have been plagued by injuries, MCW is old considering that he's only in his 2nd season and they were trying to trade him for a top 10 pick (according to reports) with no takers, Wroten and Sims look like career journeymen, and McDaniels signed a 1 year deal.

What "horrible" contracts are we saddled with? The salary cap is rising, so theoretically we could stretch Wallace out during the off-season with very little consequence, percentage wise, to our cap. Other than that one, which again isn't horrible as I've explained, which other one are you referring to?

[BballTim]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC.

Remind me which one of Philly's players are as good as Durant?  Or Westbrook?  Or Harden?  I suppose you could say Noel's ceiling is a more injury-prone Ibaka.  Yeah, they're well on their way.

  Not to mention their chances of loading up quick (if they wanted to) are very slim.

[Beat LA]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC. Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year. This is boston, and it's championship or bust. If you arent a legit contender get out.

Yeah, you beat me to it.  Who wouldn't want a core of MCW, Embiid, and Noel moving forward, in addition to having Tony Wroten, KJ McDaniels (a personal favorite of mine), and even Henry Sims, who's proven to be more than capable?  They also aren't saddled with any horrible contracts like we are, so, what's not to like?

We'll see about all that. Embiid and Noel have been plagued by injuries, MCW is old considering that he's only in his 2nd season and they were trying to trade him for a top 10 pick (according to reports) with no takers, Wroten and Sims look like career journeymen, and McDaniels signed a 1 year deal.

What "horrible" contracts are we saddled with? The salary cap is rising, so theoretically we could stretch Wallace out during the off-season with very little consequence, percentage wise, to our cap. Other than that one, which again isn't horrible as I've explained, which other one are you referring to?

Sorry, I was only referring to Wallace's contract, but what do you mean by stretching out his deal in the offseason?  At least the 76ers have a general direction, while we seem to be torn between blowing it up and packaging guys for proven players.  Plus, if Embiid can play, he could be amazing, and Noel is no slouch, either.  That's 2/3 of an awesome front line down the road already, and getting big guys like them is extremely difficult because of how rare such players like Embiid are. 

[mgent]

Anyone who wouldnt trade the celtics roster for the sixers roster is on crack. Their players are more valuable and they have the ammo to load up quick or continue to stockpile talent and become the next OKC. Idk I guess you guys are all cool with mediocrity and trying to be the atlanta hawks this year. This is boston, and it's championship or bust. If you arent a legit contender get out.

Or maybe it's not mediocrity to us because we are Celtics' fans and we enjoy watching the TEAM, as opposed to "you other guys" who only enjoy watching victory.