16 - Portis
28 - Hunter/Rozier/or Montrezl
33 - Mickey
46 - Thorton i have no issue with
as far as FAs i wouldn't have even bothered with the top guys. they were never coming here. After discovering Sacto is serious in keeping DMC, and finding that the Knicks and Bulls prefer to hang on to Melo and Noah, my first inclination would have been to Tobias right out of the shoot and had him signed to a max offer sheet. However, after seeing the numbers the first signings were getting and the way the market shook out on/after day 1, i would not have bothered with that call either. why tie up the potential cap space with a guy that it's probably safe to assume Orlando would have matched the offer for.
while waiting on Harris make a call to see if i can trade Avery Bradley for a pick or at least a rim protector in the mold of Taj Gibson. again, i assume, i would get rebuffed.
my next call would have been to Sacto, and i make the exact trade Philly did with them. obviously, presumptively we would have been in a race with Philly to get that deal done so for arguments sake let's say we get only one possible pick swap and a top 10 protected 1st in say 2018, with dwindling protections as the years go by further. players added: Carl Landry, Jason Thompson, Nick Stauskus
doing the math after this move we would have about 7-8 million in cap space left to deal with. i would have turned my attention to Ed Davis (younger, athletic, more physical version of Amir Johnson. better inside game at the basket but no mid range game to speak of, which Johnson does have). seeing as Davis signed what reported to be a 20/3 year deal with Portland, i try to entice him with a $7M per deal, and ink him to a $21/3 deal. players added: Ed Davis
that does it for our cap space. i would do the deal we did with Crowder but not Jerebko. while i'm a big proponent of trying to bottom out or get infinitely better (while doing anything to avoid the middle ground) i realize the importance of having role players that can play off the bench on a championship contender, and that's exactly what i think Crowder and Davis are made to do. player added: Jae Crowder
before the season i would waive one of Landry or Thompson, whomever performs best in camp up to that point. personally, i think Thompson could still be a valuable big man in the league, while Landry to me seems like a guy better suited to play 7-15 mins a night on a contender player waived: Carl Landry
i sincerely believe the best bet to get to where we need to go is to not have midlevel contracts. unless you find ridiculous bargains that you would be crazy to pass up (which i think Davis is at $7per and Crowder could turn into at the same number as he gets older) there is no need to give out multi year deals to mid level talents, for that is how you get to, and stay in, nba purgatory. it is for this reason that i feel we would not match any offer made to Tyler Zeller. i imagine someone at some point will give this guy a fair deal and the playing time he deserves. And i love the big guy, but there's too much money out there and everyone is getting overpaid already. sadly, he will not be in green this upcoming year.
the lineup going into the season would resemble as such:
pg - Smart/Thomas/Bradley/Turner
sg - Bradley/Smart/Stauskus/Hunter/Young
sf - Turner/Crowder/Stauskus/portis
pf - Sully/Ed Davis/Kelly/Thompson/Portis/Mickey
C - Ed Davis/Kelly O/Thompson/Mickey
during the year i do my due diligence (something Danny is still good at, admittedly) and hope we can trade for a superstar at some point. if not, i would keep tearing it down, piece by piece, trying to get 1st round picks for anyone we have.
to me, a team like us should only have 4 types of contracts:
1 - big money deals for your core superstars (we have none, obviously)
2 - rookie contracts (Smart, Young, Portis, Hunter, Mickey, Sully, Kelly O, Stauskus)
3 - bargain/gamble FA deals too good to pass up (Davis, Crowder....arguably Isaiah but he would need to be dealt in any deal that we do pull off to bring in a superstar)
4 - one year deals to fill out the roster (Turner now; Thompson now)
anything else, is a waste of money (sadly this means Bradley, whom i personally love watching play but he doesn't fit what i'm trying to do. too good to be bad, too bad to be good is no man's land in terms of both team record and player talent).
i'm currently counting only 14 bodies (not including Thorton) so i'd roster at least one player who is on our summer league roster. and those are your Celtics for next year. in my opinion, probably a little worse than last year, and that is a step forward.
record as built: 35-47; 10th in the East