2018 Boston Celtics offseason

First, holy crap.

Second, how did the Pelicans not pay hi way more than that?

Thirdly, he’s not going to be back until way late in the season and may be a shell so I wouldn’t go into this thinking this is Boogie joining the Warriors.

Wouldn't that have been a hoot? DA always working.

Does the Avery Bradley 2/25 deal affect Smarts thinking at all about his value?

Bradley is a great defender with a 1st team all NBA under his belt and shoots a lot better. Smart is a different kind of defender but as we know can't shoot. Smart has the intangibles but IMO this can't help but to have some affect based on value in this years free agency.

I hope Smart is back too. It's really the last move they need to make this offseason.

James Nunnally???

www.celticsblog.com/2018/7/3/17531190/boston-celtics-show-interest-in-james-nunnally-nba-free-agent-2018

When you look at some of the stars in the NBA and when they really started being special they were not 20/21 like Brown was this past year. Butler is an example as he didn't start to look like a star until his 3rd yr and he was 24. Sure most of the elite players were great from the start but not all of them.

I think there is every reason to believe Brown will be just as good and maybe better than Butler.

That story about Kyrie scares me just a bit but I'm with you on the reasons for him to stay along with the fact the C's can pay him the most. But he is a different kind of guy so you never know.

Yea I just don't agree. The Jazz are a veteran team besides one player. The Pacers core is a lot younger. Its top player just had a breakout year. They also have Turner and Sabonis who are very young. The Pacer team took the Cavs to 7 games, you know the team that went to the finals. Acting like they aren't close is just your opinion, numbers don't back that up. Pacers were the 9th ranked defensive team last year and were a better offensive team than the Jazz. 

Walton is a bad coach, or at least a coach that is learning. I think we should take bets how long he lasts frankly. Define role player? Randle average 16 and 8 in under 27 minutes. Lead the team in PER and win shares. He's a starting level player, heck he was clearly the Lakers best player last year. He clearly didn't play more because they wanted cap space and didn't want to lock in money with him. Huge mistake on the Lakers part. It took the Pelicans like 63 seconds to sign Randle after the Lakers pulled his offer.

Bad market might have driven him to take a 4-5 year deal at around 10 million. If Exum gets 3 year 33 million, Smart isn't taking anywhere near that now. 

Read a report showing that trade idea, ran it through NBA trade machine and it works. 

I noticed that, when I went back and messed around with the trade after my post. SB Nation has two articles both saying that trade works. But they also say Butler is on a 16.5 million long-term deal, yet he makes over 20 million in actual salary. NBA deals go by real dollars or the AVV amount? Trade rules say that between 10 and 20 milion its 125% plus 5 million, over 20 its only 125% plus 100,000. So that's the kicker, if that 16 million number is right that trade works. If it's actual dollars it won't.

Texs would know the answer, but I'm not sure what happened to poor Texs. He was great at helping figuring out the fine print of the CBA of the NBA.

SRS has to be the worst stat to use when predicting future performances, heck its a fairly meaningless stat all around. For example it shows the Raptors as the 2nd best team in the league last year. It says the Cavs were a crappy team, way worse than the Nuggets who didn't make the playoffs. Oladipo had a great postseason 22.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2.4 steals per game, while having a 22 PER and a .160 winshare per 48. Sabonis and Turner both 21 were tied for second on the team in points during the postseason. It was a team that got better as the season went along. They have solid vets in Young, Collison, Bogdanovic, and Stephenson last year. They also added more talent in free agency getting Evans, easily the biggest upgrade to either team. I also think Holiday was a great pick in the draft for them, I really didn't like the Allen pick for the Jazz. Decent player, just lacks upside. Given Gobert, guys like Wagner and Spellman just made so much sense.

There both good teams that play a tough style. Kinda teams no team wants to face in the playoffs, yet neither is close to a true contender. On paper the Jazz might be better, but Gobert and Favors just don't fit in todays NBA. Tons of D and rebounding, just not enough scoring and shooting. Add in Rubio and I just don't like the fit. It's an old school type team. That's were the Pacers close the gap, that team has Turner, Sabonis, and Young as it's bigs. Even Leaf waiting in the wings. Its a much more athletic current NBA style team. It can matchup better in todays NBA. I love Turner as a rim protecting, rebounding, shooting big in todays NBA.

By reports Lakers didn't want to lock in long-term money with Randle, because they want a star next year. It was a massive mistake. Should have just given him Rondo's deal. It makes zero sense. There is outrage, articles saying the Lakers assembled the worst cast of players to play with LeBron. That Rondo for Randle being a huge reason why. Rondo needs the ball, just like Ball, yet Randle doesn't. I never said Randle was a star, but he's a high level starter, with upside. Thats not a role player in my book. He is a beast down low, he can dominate the paint in small ball lineups. The Pelicans took Randle over Cousins, pulling there 2 year 40 million offer. That's why he's on the Warriors now. The Lakers messed up this thing bad. They could have had Cousins, yet went with Rondo. They had three choices and they took the worse one. This has LeBron written all over it, he wanted Rondo, even though it makes no sense. They should have kept Randle and signed Cousins, which they could have easily done. I guess it all depends if the Pelicans still pull that offer and sign someone else if they couldn't get Randle. Lakers could have kept Randle and still offered Cousins a big one year offer. Which is what he wanted if he wasn't getting the max. Even with them being Stupid I'd still take the Lakers over the Jazz right now. LeBron is that good and they still have enough talent. Guys like Kuzma and Wagner are perfect matchups against the Jazz. I think you're making too much of Love frankly. LeBron and him didn't mix. Love needs the offense run through him to be effective, LeBron wouldn't allow that. Add in his bad D and I wanted Love playing in the playoffs. Thought Thompson and Nance gave us more problems than Love. Playing with LeBron I don't know if the drop off from Love to Kuzma is that big.

I wouldn't take Ingram over Brown either, but its close. Ingram really improved last year just like Brown. On a normal team yea Brown wouldn't be a great number two next year. Yet he's more than enough with LeBron leading the way to beat the Jazz. That was the question right? Can they beat the Jazz, not can they get to the finals or win a title.

By the way, relevant to the Randle Lakers discussion is the fact that Randle made it clear to the Lakers that he didn’t want to be back there. He feels, probably rightly so, that the Lakers screwed him by limiting his playing time so much other the last few years. So that along with the fact that the Lakers wouldn’t give him a multi-year deal because they wanted to keep cap space for next year makes the Rondo/Randle talk irrelevant.

Regarding Cousins, he’s an over-weight 300 pound guy who’s never really been in shape coming back from an Achilles injury. Anyone, expecting him to make a big impact next year at any point is asking a lot. He’s an amazingly talented guy and a freak athlete for his size when he’s healthy; but he doesn’t maximize his talent due to work ethic and he’s literally coming back from the worst injury possible for a basketball player. I don’t blame the Lakers for not being interested.