The Best Worst Case Scenario Off-Season

[PhoSita]

Here's what looks to me like worst-case scenario this off-season, in terms of things the Celts can't control:

DRAFT

1. No trades for the Celts in the first round on draft day.  All second rounders are used on draft-and-stash guys or traded for future considerations.

2. BRK pick falls to 5 or 6; Danny selects Jaylen Brown or Henry Ellenson -- a flawed prospect who is years away from contributing.

3. The #16 and #23 picks are used on more of the same ... guards and bigs with no obvious route to playing time (e.g. Tyler Ulis and Damion Jones)

TRADE

4. No other teams are willing to trade a top 20 player (e.g. Butler, Cousins, Love) for a package of draft picks and young role players.

FREE AGENCY

5. No free agents worthy of a max deal (e.g. Derozan, Horford, Dwight, Durant) wants to sign in Boston.


What that leaves us with as a "starting point" following the draft:

Guards - Thomas, Bradley, Smart, Rozier, [Ulis]
Wings - Crowder, Young, Hunter, [Brown]
Bigs - Amir, Jerebko, Olynyk, Mickey, [Jones]


Just to be clear, that's roughly seven guys you can actually count on to contribute in a regular rotation role (and seven spots taken up by guys who can't be counted on ... ugh).



If this happens, here are my priorities:


1. Don't re-sign Sullinger, Turner, or Zeller.  They will be overpaid relative to their value to the Celts this off-season, and other than Zeller, I don't trust them on a long term deal in any case.

2. Trade for an interior presence.

- Tyson Chandler
- Marcin Gortat
- Greg Monroe
- Robin Lopez
- Jonas Valanciunas
- Jahlil Okafor / Nerlens Noel

One or more of these guys will be available via trade for a reasonable package.  Try to get 'em without giving up Amir and we'd have the makings of a solid if unspectacular big rotation.


3. Sign one or two wings who provide shooting / scoring

- Luol Deng
- Jared Dudley
- Brandon Rush
- Mirza Teletovic
- Terrence Ross
- Harrison Barnes


Make those moves, and you wouldn't have a contender.  But you might have a team with the necessary weaponry to get past the 1st round, which is the next step for this team.


What would you want to do, given the "worst case" circumstances outlined above?

[Donoghus]

1. Don't re-sign Sullinger, Turner, or Zeller.  They will be overpaid relative to their value to the Celts this off-season, and other than Zeller, I don't trust them on a long term deal in any case.

Totally down with this.  Especially with Sullinger.  I don't want to see him in a Celtics jersey ever again.

Unless the Celtics whiff on wings, I'd rather not have Turner back.   They should be able to find an upgrade on him.  Especially given the potential cost it'll take to bring Turner back.

[PhoSita]

1. Don't re-sign Sullinger, Turner, or Zeller.  They will be overpaid relative to their value to the Celts this off-season, and other than Zeller, I don't trust them on a long term deal in any case.

Totally down with this.  Especially with Sullinger.  I don't want to see him in a Celtics jersey ever again.

Unless the Celtics whiff on wings, I'd rather not have Turner back.   They should be able to find an upgrade on him.  Especially given the potential cost it'll take to bring Turner back.

I should say with Turner, he has really won me over in a big way since he first got here.

I still think he's inefficient and basically necessitates that it's The Evan Turner Show whenever he has the ball, but he makes big plays and takes shots when nobody else wants to.  He's stepped up on defense and on the boards and has emerged as a leader for a decent team.

What he needed all along was for somebody to finally let him operate as a point guard on offense.  Stevens did, and it worked for the most part.

All of that said, I think keeping him will hinder the development of Smart, Rozier, and any other young on-ball guys we might bring in via the draft (Murray? Hield?). 

I also think he will make more money this off-season than it makes sense to give a sixth man scorer without a jumper outside 15 feet who will be 28 at the start of next season.  And I'm still just not sure what Evan Turner looks like when he's not playing for his first big contract.

[PhoSita]

Anybody have a different idea of what the worst case scenario looks like, perhaps?

[mef730]

Anybody have a different idea of what the worst case scenario looks like, perhaps?

The only thing I could think of that would be worse than no trade is a bad trade or signing (e.g. Dwight Howard for a ton of dough). It's Danny, so I think that worst case scenario is unlikely, but still...

Mike

[jbp126]

Yikes, that pretty much is the worst case scenario for this offseason. It's actually thoroughly depressing that this is probably more realistic than our dream scenarios of signing Durant/Horford, trading for Butler/Cousins/Love, etc. Overpaying Turner, Sullinger and Zeller could make it worse.

It reminds me of my disappointment in last offseason when we weren't able to make any fireworks happen and basically ran it back with an overcrowded roster of role players. It ended up working out fine and we made steady progress but I'm expecting a jump in talent this offseason because our assets have improved ('16 BK pick is a lotto pick; IT, Bradley, Smart, and Crowder have all increased their values on great deals) and we've established ourselves as a legitimate team on the rise. That said, it's probably a good idea to start to temper expectations for this offseason and recalibrate them for more realistic scenarios.

[PhoSita]

Yikes, that pretty much is the worst case scenario for this offseason. It's actually thoroughly depressing that this is probably more realistic than our dream scenarios of signing Durant/Horford, trading for Butler/Cousins/Love, etc. Overpaying Turner, Sullinger and Zeller could make it worse.

It reminds me of my disappointment in last offseason when we weren't able to make any fireworks happen and basically ran it back with an overcrowded roster of role players. It ended up working out fine and we made steady progress but I'm expecting a jump in talent this offseason because our assets have improved ('16 BK pick is a lotto pick; IT, Bradley, Smart, and Crowder have all increased their values on great deals) and we've established ourselves as a legitimate team on the rise. That said, it's probably a good idea to start to temper expectations for this offseason and recalibrate them for more realistic scenarios.

My goal is to start feeling good about how this off-season could go even if the stuff the Celts can't really control doesn't go their way.

[ConnerHenry]

Anybody have a different idea of what the worst case scenario looks like, perhaps?

The planet explodes into a fiery ball?

[greece66]

2. Trade for an interior presence.

- Tyson Chandler
- Marcin Gortat
- Greg Monroe
- Robin Lopez
- Jonas Valanciunas
- Jahlil Okafor / Nerlens Noel

First of all, it is IMO important to bear in mind this is not very likely to happen.
For instance, getting the 5th or 6th pick is 30.5%
The other variables are  much harder to quantify but all of them going wrong at the same time seems implausible, certainly below 10%.

Anyway, a plan B  is always good to have.
In that case, I would not want more than one 25+ yo big in the team, ie if we somehow managed to trade for a Robin Lopez or a Marcin Gortat, I would pass on Amir.
I see no reason to invest lots of mins on a player that is unlikely to be of part of the long term plans of the team. I'm quite worried of us becoming the new ATL or TOR so, I would postpone any win now plans, in favour of developing our younger bigs.

[jbp126]

The variety of assets (multitude of talented players on good deals, insane amount of draft picks, cap space) we have gives us a lot of flexibility in how we can continue improving. I'm imagining Ainge has some sort of decision tree with a lot of different options that include some combination of the following:

Explore trades for: Cousins, Butler, Griffin, Love, or other star player that might be on the market

Attempt to sign: Durant, Horford, Batum, Beal, Mahinmi, Noah, Fournier, or other FA

Draft: Simmons, Ingram, Bender, Murray, Hield, Brown, or another young prospect

Just off the top of my head, so this isn't an exhaustive list. I can elaborate on what combination of these moves would be best and most realistic in another post but my point is: leave none of these stones unturned and we can avoid worst case scenario.

[PhoSita]

2. Trade for an interior presence.

- Tyson Chandler
- Marcin Gortat
- Greg Monroe
- Robin Lopez
- Jonas Valanciunas
- Jahlil Okafor / Nerlens Noel

First of all, it is IMO important to bear in mind this is not very likely to happen.
For instance, getting the 5th or 6th pick is 30.5%
The other variables are  much harder to quantify but all of them going wrong at the same time seems implausible, certainly below 10%. 

Absolutely, and I'm not suggesting the scenario I've outlined is especially likely.  I just want to say, OK, even if nothing goes our way, how do we make the best of it?  I find that comforting.  Maybe I'm weird.

In that case, I would not want more than one 25+ yo big in the team, ie if we somehow managed to trade for a Robin Lopez or a Marcin Gortat, I would pass on Amir.

I see no reason to invest lots of mins on a player that is unlikely to be of part of the long term plans of the team.

Trust me, I understand the desire to develop players.  But if the "young bigs" we're talking about are guys like Bender / Ellenson / Mickey / Jones / Sabonis / etc, developing more than one of those guys at a time would likely mean shaving 5-10 wins off of the record from this past season.  This team is already weak up front as it is.

I agree that running with Amir, Jerebko, and another guy who's already 27 or older is not ideal up front.  Not many of the names listed above would be a long term solution.

But in the interest of maintaining a solid frontcourt and continuing to compete into the playoffs while other parts of the roster (hopefully) develop, I think pairing Amir with a guy like Gortat or Chandler could be a perfectly fine solution until a better long-term answer presents itself.

If you can't have an All-Star at center, I think you try to find two guys who can play at least 20-24 minutes a night at a high level.

[Ilikesports17]

2. Trade for an interior presence.

- Tyson Chandler
- Marcin Gortat
- Greg Monroe
- Robin Lopez
- Jonas Valanciunas
- Jahlil Okafor / Nerlens Noel

One or more of these guys will be available via trade for a reasonable package.  Try to get 'em without giving up Amir and we'd have the makings of a solid if unspectacular big rotation.


3. Sign one or two wings who provide shooting / scoring

- Luol Deng
- Jared Dudley
- Brandon Rush
- Mirza Teletovic
- Terrence Ross
- Harrison Barnes

I would add Biyombo to the big list (tho he is an FA) and Crabbe to the shooters list
other options could include Eric Gordon OJ Mayo and perhaps Nic Batum, but he will be expensive and I honestly dont like Mayo or Gordon.

Just thought Id add some more FA shooters.

[mef730]

Anybody have a different idea of what the worst case scenario looks like, perhaps?

The planet explodes into a fiery ball?

At least we'd finally get those summer fireworks that Wyc promised a couple of years ago.

Mike

[passesofftodj]

Yikes, that pretty much is the worst case scenario for this offseason. It's actually thoroughly depressing that this is probably more realistic than our dream scenarios of signing Durant/Horford, trading for Butler/Cousins/Love, etc. Overpaying Turner, Sullinger and Zeller could make it worse.

It reminds me of my disappointment in last offseason when we weren't able to make any fireworks happen and basically ran it back with an overcrowded roster of role players. It ended up working out fine and we made steady progress but I'm expecting a jump in talent this offseason because our assets have improved ('16 BK pick is a lotto pick; IT, Bradley, Smart, and Crowder have all increased their values on great deals) and we've established ourselves as a legitimate team on the rise. That said, it's probably a good idea to start to temper expectations for this offseason and recalibrate them for more realistic scenarios.

It is definitely far more likely for that worse case scenario than some combination of Durant/Simmons/ established big or even just lower tier star/decent big/decent rookie with BK pick. 

The assets we have aren't worth much without someone who wants them, and teams trading with us are going to want BK picks and young assets like Crowder, Smart, Rozier.  We couldn't even use them last year to move up (ie - I still would much rather have Winslow than all three of the rookies we have).  The crapton of draft picks don't amount to much as tradebait given the NBA is clearly about finding stars - which is harder to do in the draft now than in the days of 3-4 year college stars.  It really is a crapshoot and the developmental nature of today's NBA means it is harder to find the right ones than ever, and it seems there are fewer stars but higher quality role players than before.

[mctyson]

Anybody have a different idea of what the worst case scenario looks like, perhaps?

I would agree with your assessment of the draft, in terms of where the pick lands, who is drafted, and the lack of trades.

Worst case with Free Agency is not being left out of the party, but signing someone who could be a disaster (like Dwight Howard) to a longterm max contract.

I don't foresee all of this happening.  Danny & Co. have been rock-solid for the last three years and they will definitely make the team better without screwing us over.