Had we traded one of the Brooklyn picks and a couple of non-key players, we could have potentially brought Ibaka and Carmelo to this team, and this playoff run would have been very, very different.
i've been saying it all season long.
1. We need another volume scorer who can take the pressure off Thomas - he's 28 years old and is a 5'10" PG who plays a very aggressive style of game - if we don't get some pressure off him, he's going to burn out and we will run the risk of him getting a serious injury.
2. We also need a starting PF who is healthy enough to play more than 20 MPG, and preferably one who can rebound.
Until we can get those two things, we're not getting past the first round.
Signing Horford was a horrible, horrible mistake. It was obvious the previous season that it would be a bad move, it was obvious at the time of the signing (the instant Durant signed with Golden State) and it's even more obvious now. It was a very poor decision driven by Ainge's pure blind hope that it would be enough to convince Durant to come here.
Horford's inconsistency and his tendency to get outplayed by sub-star players is concerning for a guy making $30M a year. He seems to only ever play consistently well if he's up against guys who are both smaller AND less talented then he is...and that is not the sign of a guy worthy of a max contract. A max contract guy should be somebody who is going to go out and make an impact every night, one way or other, and a guy who will dominate his match-up more often then not.
Now we're screwed. We only have enough talent for a first round exit, and Horford's contact is going to restrict us from signing a true max contract guy potentially for the next 2-3 years. We have nowhere to go unless we trade Horford, which I know Ainge will never do because doing so would be admitting hi made a mistake...and Ainge would never do that.