Its August 7, 2018. What's your Celtics roster look like and why?

[nickagneta]

Its the summer and boring so why not have some prognisticating fun. Its a year from now. The draft and free agency periods are over for the Cs. So what does the roster look like and why. Here is mine.

Celtics get picks 2 and 3 in the draft and draft Porter Jr., and Ayton.
They have given IT his 4 year max contract.
After another horrendous shooting year Celtics let Marcus Smart walk.
Celtics sign JJ Reddick to a two year MLE max contract
Baynes and Larkin are allowed to walk.
 Tatum and Brown become excellent rotational players as a rookie and 2nd year player respectively in 2017.
Celtics trade their 2018 pick for a future first round pick
Celtics give Kadeem Allen a min 2nd round contract
Celtics trade Crowder, Ojeleye, and Theis to Denver for Kenneth Faried.


IT/Rozier/Allen
Brown/Reddick/Nader
Hayward/Porter Jr/Morris
Tatum/Faried/Yabusele
Horford/Zizic/Ayton

Edited due to forgetting about Yabu and Morris

[saltlover]

Its the summer and boring so why not have some prognisticating fun. Its a year from now. The draft and free agency periods are over for the Cs. So what does the roster look like and why. Here is mine.

Celtics get picks 2 and 3 in the draft and draft Porter Jr., and Ayton.
They have given IT his 4 year max contract.
After another horrendous shooting year Celtics let Marcus Smart walk.
Celtics sign JJ Reddick to a two year MLE max contract
Baynes and Larkin are allowed to walk.
No trades for players as Ainge is going to let the youngsters grow after seeing Tatum and Brown become excellent rotational players as a rookie and 2nd year player respectively.
Celtics trade their 2018 pick for a future first round pick
Celtics give Kadeem Allen a min 2nd round contract

IT/Rozier/Allen
Brown/Reddick/Nader
Hayward/Crowder/Porter Jr
Tatum/Theis/Ojeleye
Horford/Zizic/Ayton

During the season I could see trades occurring

Based on the bolder and the lack of Yabusele on your roster, I'm going to conclude that you think Yab is getting cut or traded this pre-season?

[nickagneta]

Its the summer and boring so why not have some prognisticating fun. Its a year from now. The draft and free agency periods are over for the Cs. So what does the roster look like and why. Here is mine.

Celtics get picks 2 and 3 in the draft and draft Porter Jr., and Ayton.
They have given IT his 4 year max contract.
After another horrendous shooting year Celtics let Marcus Smart walk.
Celtics sign JJ Reddick to a two year MLE max contract
Baynes and Larkin are allowed to walk.
No trades for players as Ainge is going to let the youngsters grow after seeing Tatum and Brown become excellent rotational players as a rookie and 2nd year player respectively.
Celtics trade their 2018 pick for a future first round pick
Celtics give Kadeem Allen a min 2nd round contract

IT/Rozier/Allen
Brown/Reddick/Nader
Hayward/Crowder/Porter Jr
Tatum/Theis/Ojeleye
Horford/Zizic/Ayton

During the season I could see trades occurring

Based on the bolder and the lack of Yabusele on your roster, I'm going to conclude that you think Yab is getting cut or traded this pre-season?

Nope just forgot him...gotta update, let me see....

[CELTICSofBOSTON]

Isaiah Thomas
Jaylen Brown
Gordon Hayward
Marvin Bagley
Al Horford

Marcus Smart
Jae Crowder
Jayson Tatum
Marcus Morris
Deandre Ayton

Terry Rozier
Abdel Nader
Semi Ojeleye
Guerschon Yabusele
Ante Zizic

How we got here:
Celtics go 61-21 and win the East.  They beat the Cavs in 7 (buzzer beater by Jaylen Brown) and go on to the Finals, where they lose 4-1 to the Warriors.

The Nets finish with the 3rd worst record in the NBA (behind the Hawks and Bulls).   The Lakers finish 4th worst in the league.  A little bit of lottery luck bumps us up to the 1st and 3rd overall picks.  With the first pick we take Marvin Bagley over Michael Porter.  With the third pick, the front office decides to take Deandre Ayton over Luka Doncic.

After the season, Aron Baynes and Daniel Theis bounce because they weren't great in 2017-2018.  The C's upgrade by replacing them with Bagley and Ayton.

Now time to pay Marcus and IT (2 of our most valuable players).  We are able to sign Marcus Smart to a 4 yr 48 million dollar deal, and get IT to settle for 3 yr 100 million dollars.  Way over the cap and into the luxury, the team decides not to sign any free agents and just roll with the young guys they have on the bench.

After dominating summer league and impressing at camp,  Marvin Bagley wins the starting spot.

Easily one of the deepest and most talented basketball teams in recent memory. I would suspect that at this point, several players would demand trades.

[nickagneta]

Darn forgot Morris too. Gotta re-edit again.

[saltlover]

Darn forgot Morris too. Gotta re-edit again.

Before you get too far, your Faried trade doesn't match salaries properly.

(Also, I totally missed Morris too.  Oops!)

[saltlover]

Darn forgot Morris too. Gotta re-edit again.

Before you get too far, your Faried trade doesn't match salaries properly.

(Also, I totally missed Morris too.  Oops!)

Faried trade now works only if made on draft night (or before June 30th).

More importantly, that's a $150 million payroll, and thus a luxury tax of over $70 million.  I can't see that happening.

[Moranis]

If Boston ends up with 2 of Porter, Bagley, Ayton, Mamba, or Doncic, I just don't see the team bringing back Thomas.

That said, I'd like to think Boston trades those picks for Anthony Davis (something like both picks and Morris for salary) and you couple that with the trade later this summer of Thomas, Crowder, Rozier for Irving leaves you with a team of:

C - Horford, Zizic, Theis
PF - Davis, Tatum, Yabu
SF - Hayward, Vet Min, Ojeleye
SG - Brown, Vet Min, Vet Min
PG - Irving, Smart, Vet Min

So the basic 8 man playoff rotation of Horford, Davis, Hayward, Brown, Irving, Smart, Tatum, and Zizic.

[BitterJim]

If Boston ends up with 2 of Porter, Bagley, Ayton, Mamba, or Doncic, I just don't see the team bringing back Thomas.

That said, I'd like to think Boston trades those picks for Anthony Davis (something like both picks and Morris for salary) and you couple that with the trade later this summer of Thomas, Crowder, Rozier for Irving leaves you with a team of:

C - Horford, Zizic, Theis
PF - Davis, Tatum, Yabu
SF - Hayward, Vet Min, Ojeleye
SG - Brown, Vet Min, Vet Min
PG - Irving, Smart, Vet Min

So the basic 8 man playoff rotation of Horford, Davis, Hayward, Brown, Irving, Smart, Tatum, and Zizic.

On the other hand, if the team beats Cleveland this year I can't see us letting Thomas go

[gouki88]

IT / Doncic / Rozier
Jaylen / Vet Min (VC if he doesn't retire?) / Hamidou Diallo (per NBAdraft.net)
Hayward / Crowder / Ojeleye
Tatum / Bagley / Morris
Horford / Zizic / Yabu

Don't make any major moves, but keep plugging holes with free agency and developing our young guys.
Hopefully sign IT to a short (relatively) contract, just in case.
Let Smart walk.
Get two top picks in 2018 and get Bagley and Doncic, and then someone like Diallo lower in the draft.

However, if Danny gets trade-happy I can see us rolling out with something like Moranis proposed

[TheSundanceKid]

Firstly I'm assuming we get the #3 pick and no Lakers pick for simplicity, cap hold and salary of $6,569,040. We also have #28 at $1,646,400.

No mid season trades have happened, no star is available and we don't want to shake up the great chemistry of this group. Brown has improved enough to make Crowder an expendable piece and I want to keep Smart so on draft night I trade Crowder to Orlando for a 2020 lottery protected pick, protected 1-14 in 2020, 1-10 in 2021, 1-8 in 2022, two 2nds if not.

I draft Ayton at #3, although I show strong consideration for Doncic, Porter and Bagley have gone ahead of me. I'm not sure who I pick at #28 yet but they're on the Maine shuttle for the purposes of this, actually I try to find a stash to make it easier...

I'm capped out and I'm going deep into the tax so I'm only re-signing IT and Smart. IT accepts $28m, Smart $12m

IT/Smart/Rozier
Brown/(vet min)/J Bird
Hayward/Ojeleye/Nader
Horford/Tatum/Morris/Yab
Zizic/Ayton

If Tatum has improved enough he looks great in a small ball line up at PF with Horford at C, as we would expect. Smart would see a lot of minutes in the SG position, Rozier basically spells IT. Yab remains buried in the roster, further confusing why he came over so soon...
Salaries I believe add to $137,199,854, assuming the vet min guy is $2m. Luxury tax will be somewhere around $122m so we're quite deep.. Morris could be moved to trim further salary but then matching in a big trade becomes even harder.

I believe we'd be stronger than this year with our young wings all having an extra year under their belts. Year 3 is where you would expect Brown to really explode as well. I don't see Washington or Philly doing much against this team.