Get Durant and Ingram.
I would put forth the proposition that they are redundant.
An overreaction would be wanting to be rid of Sullinger so badly that you don't offer him a qualifying offer and let him become an unrestricted free agent.
I don't have a problem with the qualifying offer, but he played horrible this season, he has never once got in game shape or maintained his weight. He also can't shoot. The qualifying offer would retain his services for another year cheap unless someone outbid us. Which may or not happen. I don't think he should be doing more than coming off the bench next year. But I think would be best for us to part ways, because he is not professional ( does not stay in shape, maintain playing weight, or gaining weight during the season), shoots poorly (a poor shooter in about every category, with bad shot selection and acts like he is the "hero", and his ceiling is low, as it always has been.
Getting rid of Sully isn't an overreaction though. Getting rid of him is based on his inability to stay in shape. We will live to regret the day we give Sully a 4 or 5 year contract in excess of $10MM per year.
I agree, Sully has done more to not earn our trust than earn it. You or I would be fired if we fell apart like this, or did not perform in certain areas. Nothing should be done on him, without a weight clause that has provisions for cutting him if he is above 260.
Ainge knew the odds were long, prior to the series folks. This was about lowering expectations.
“But in the playoffs,” he went on, “a lot of things have to go right. Sometimes you can go to Cleveland in the regular season and two people get injured. It’s a long season. So nothing’s guaranteed or anything like that. But when you get to the playoffs, I think matchups are huge. We might match up better with somebody else. We may match up great with a Golden State, and we may struggle with the Clippers. Matchups are huge. Different teams cause different problems.”
“There’s a big difference between regular-season basketball and playoff basketball,” he said. “I get worried that we can be taken out of our game too easily. Even (Wednesday) night against a depleted team, I feel like we’re taken out of our game too often.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/celtics/2016/04/bulpett_danny_ainge_honest_about_celtics_chancesPost series he said this:
“I think that was a weakness that we had going in, and we got taken out of our offense easier than we should,” he said. “Losing Avery (Bradley, hamstring) just magnified that.
“Listen, I’m not trying to disrespect the Hawks in any way. They are a good team, and we knew they were going to be a tough matchup for us. But, again, it’s not so much the result as much as we just … we had some great moments in the series, we just had a lot of droughts. I just thought we didn’t even play up to our capability, that’s all.”
That said, Ainge acknowledged the eight-game improvement from a season ago and the wins over Golden State and Cleveland.
“I really enjoyed this team,” he said. “I really enjoyed watching them play. I loved their fight. I loved their resolve and heart. It was a fun group of guys to be around.
“I just wish for them and for the coaches, they put in so much time and work that I wish it would have ended better. My expectations were not an NBA championship, but I did expect us to play better. I know everybody’s hurting tonight. It’s not what we expected.”
I think this means that some of the pieces are young guys.
“Yeah, I hope so,” said Ainge. “We’ll be working hard to try to improve the team, and we hope that we have some good choices. But we have a lot of guys that we really like and that we want to build around, and we hope that we have a lot of options.
“I hope that we make some changes, sure. Significant? I don’t know what that means, but I hope that we can make some changes to improve our team.”
One shouldn’t be concerned that having guys they “really like” will get in the way of a major move.
“You take everything into account, and you don’t get emotional about now,” Ainge said. “I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of who everybody is. I certainly don’t overreact to a bad couple of games in the playoffs or tough matchups or things like that. I’ve been around a long time in the NBA, and I’ve seen a lot of mistakes made doing that. We’ll evaluate the whole year and the whole two years with most everybody that we’ve had here, and we also have to evaluate the entire league at the same time.”
I think he is talking about Crowder not Sully, who has played poorly since 3/20/16. So this was not one series, it was a breakdown for the later part of the season.
http://espn.go.com/nba/player/splits/_/id/6624/jared-sullingerI have heard he wants to stay here. I bet he does, as we have put up with a lot. Promises every year would be different. Him acting like staying in shape was beneath him.
“For sure,” Sullinger said. “When you spend four seasons in the same area and then play for the greatest organization of all time, you see the likes of Bill Russell sitting courtside, Kevin McHale, Bill Walton, and all these people that cheer, it’s very hard to walk away from this situation.”
Sullinger averaged 10.3 points and 8.3 rebounds during the regular season, but he mostly struggled in these playoffs.
“I’ve got to do a lot of things better, but it was OK,” Sullinger said. “My window is getting smaller and smaller of constantly talking about I need to improve, I need to improve.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/celtics/2016/04/28/garden-crowd-has-pumped-celtics/bmscPKQURth36p4K4E0sCJ/story.htmlSo three years after blowing it up we are exactly where we were before blowing it up, except for a younger core.
Hopefully, we get a high pick because that gives us options. But I think we are better off than three years ago. The difference, is I have never though Sully was part of the big picture. I think we have Crowder and IT which are better than what we had three years ago. We also have Smart, I am not crazy about KO, but I think Amir and Jerebko are solid but we need to improve bigs the most.
Yeah, I don't think RJ is an NBA player. He didn't really show anything this year to suggest that he has a future. That's OK, most end-of-round guys are not NBA players.
Hunter has shown great basketball IQ, he is not a shooter though. He was a volume scorer. This is about what I expected out him. I do think he will get stronger and his shot will improve. He has some intangibles like being a great passer that can't be taught. He is not a light's out athlete but he is long for a SG and is often in the right place at the right time. It is bad when a guy lacks athletic ability and size, like Sully did and he had a high skill set. He really had no room to grow so his ceiling was low. Hunter can improve his shooting, He can improve his physique. But I think it may take him a few years, I think it says volumes about him that he was almost always the first guy off the bench of the rookies. That means CBS likes his game, or trusts him.