So I was just going through this article again, and there's quite a bit I disagree with in it. For one, this guy seems to be really drinking the Orlando juice here. He states: "The Magic suffer from the same problem as the Celtics in that you don't know who their best player is. The difference is that if Isaiah Thomas is the Celtics' best player in two years, they're in major trouble. If Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton, Aaron Gordon, Tobias Harris, Hezonja, or Nikola Vucevic is the Magic's best player in two years, it means they made the leap. The Celtics have guys who could make that jump (Smart in particular, but also Sullinger, Olynyk or Crowder), it's just not the same level. That's to be expected, those players weren't drafted as high as Orlando's were."
Sure, I agree that IT should NOT be our best player in two years, nor do I think he WILL be our best player in two years. But does anyone really think that Oladipo, Payton, Gordon, Harris, Hezonja, or Vucevic have higher ceilings than Smart does?
I think all of them are going to be nice, similarly skilled players. To me, they all have ceilings of an All-Star, maybe even multiple-time All-Stars. Hell, I'd put Sully's ceiling and potential in this same group, though I don't think KO or Crowder are in this conversation.
So I can understand the guy saying they have more chances at having a guy make the leap, which is understandable due to them having more guys capable of that from rebuilding longer. However, it's very short-sighted and wrong to say that the C's don't have a guy to "make that jump at that level" which is "to be expected,[since] those players weren't drafted as high as Orlando's were" when Smart was picked 6th before Harris (19), Vucevic (16), and Payton (10) and in a comparable position to Gordon (4), Hezonja (5), and Oladipo (2 in a horrible draft class).
And as redrobot said above, we're just now getting to our major haul of picks in our rebuilding process. IIRC, we've only used two of our gained picks from the rebuild so far (IT trade and James Young pick). From next summer on we will really start reaping the benefits of our rebuild, and in my opinion the Brooklyn picks (2016 one for sure) are very similar in value to the Lakers pick of the Sixers.