What percentage of teams that build patiently with draft picks win titles?
What are the chances that any of our picks become all-stars, let alone HOF superstars (the type of draft picks that lift teams to titles).
The first team that comes to mind is the Thunder of recent years—lots of great draft picks, but only one trip to the Finals, and no titles. Lots of great talent, but it didn't work out.
Then I thought of the Spurs—the Robinson-Duncan and the Duncan-Parker-Ginobili iterations. But San Antonio was super fortunate—the Spurs already had a HOFer in Robinson, and he suffered a serious injury, missed a whole season, and the pingpong balls bounced SA's way instead of Boston's, and the Spurs landed a generational talent and HOFer in Duncan.
I think most teams follow neither of the above examples—they don't land multiple HOFers in the draft, and they don't even draft multiple all-stars.
Boston's in a unique, or at least rare, situation, having had a couple of high draft picks of its own, plus a couple of even higher ones from another team, all in successive years. That's quite a few cracks at getting top talent—either by using those picks, and/or trading them for established talent—in a short period of time, and I think the next couple of years will see Danny either cement a reputation as one of the game's all-time-great GMs or come "oh so close but oh so far away."
I suppose the safest route is to keep the picks and use them, making only minor trades and signings along the way to shore up the bench, and hope like heck Danny hits on a star (or two). Then again, Horford isn't getting any younger, and IT, Bradley, Crowder, and KO will be up for much bigger contracts before long. Should Danny take all of his swings in the draft, or some in the draft and some with trades for established stars? I admit that it was hard for me to see Cousins not traded here, but I have come to grips with the wisdom of that (non)decision, and I don't blame Ainge for seeing him as too big a risk.
Anyway, Danny has some tough decisions to make (in addition to whatever ones he's already made). I wish him well.