Ok , I get it he didn't want to give up potential top 2 picks for the 2017, 2018 drafts plus Brown for Butler or PG13 ... maybe these teams were not interested in trading these players anyways
BUT
you have too many other draft picks, plus Johnson , Zeller salaries (tailor made for trading purposes), James Young (uncertain future with the team) ....and you couldn't get one or two guys (bigs) to help the team finish off the season strong/for the playoffs??
Recently most of the games the Celts lost to, were against teams that have one or two big players that were the difference makers....
Just hoarding all of these non lotto picks/assets ........... can someone explain?
I'm also perplexed by this.
First off I think the Celtics are build to compete with one specific team. They match up extremely well with Golden State and could produce a competitive series against them.
But what does that matter if they can't get past the Cavs in the East? The Celtics have absolutely no answer for Tristan Thompson or Kevin Love... It SEEMS like the Celtics plan is to win a small ball series against the Cavs, BUT the Celtics don't hit the three well enough to win a small ball match against the Cavs (Cavs are second in the NBA in 3%).
They also don't rebound well enough to win a defensive series against the Cavs - the Cavs are better in Offensive rebound %, Defensive Rebound %, Team Rebounds, and Total Rebounds, but are just middle of the pack in these areas where the Celtics are in the bottom third of the league in every category. They've left this unaddressed for 3 years... This year they let both Nerlens Noel, and Jusif Nurkic get picked up by other teams for peanuts. Both of those guys could have helped a lot in a Cavs series that is going to come down to defensive stops, toughness, and rebounding. Meanwhile, Ainge literally traded 2 second rounders for 1 future second round last season AND drafted two players in the first round solely because they agreed to be stashed for a year. Simply put, the Celtics don't even have room to roster all their future picks.
I don't know if Ainge was lazy, but he definitely let an opportunity slip by this year by not trading SOME of his draft picks for players that could have either started or solidified the bench.