But these are my points exactly. We cannot have a team full of projects. The Spurs invested in a single project and focused on contending with their core. Celtics have Smart, Brown, Rozier, RJ, Mickey and any future picks. it is impossible to develop them all and contend.
This is a valid point. Ainge has put together a stable of young, mostly tradeable prospects and picks.
However, other teams have been happy to call Ainge's bluff and basically say, "Go ahead, use those picks." They know that the Celts can't possibly develop all of these guys and maintain, let alone improve, their trade value.
So yes, the team has made some moves to upgrade the talent on the team this summer. That is a very positive development. I'm excited about the Horford era.
On top of that, I'm in no rush to see the team dump young assets to go all-in for this year. There's a superteam in Oakland, and the team in Cleveland is no pushover, either. Even if the Celts go all-in, they might still get swept before they even reach the Finals.
With that said, what we have right now is a team with a 30 year old max player as its main guy, and a 5'9'' 27 year old who will turn 28 this year and probably won't do much past age 30-31 as the secondary piece. But at the same time, the team is relying on a handful of rookie contract guys plus a few marginal types to provide reliable production off the bench.
The guy the team just selected with a top 3 pick might not play more than 10-15 minutes per game this year. Meanwhile, veteran scorer the Celts have on the bench is ... Gerald Green.
In short, Ainge is still trying to walk the line between going all-in (and possibly falling short of contention) and going all-out for player development (with all of the necessary losing that goes with that).