Worst Case Scenario

i think with out getting durant or oden, is the biggest indication that we shouldnt trade pierce. now its what we got or bust. trading the pick with g money, theo and company is our best shot to land another player.

Pierce is going to demand to be traded. Thats how I viewed this draft – in terms of Pierce’s legacy with the Celtics. Why should he wait around for another project? This is worse than missing Duncan. I’m inconsolable too Jeff.

I figure Atlanta or Memphis will want Conley, and may try to trade down for him. I don’t think either will take Yi. Memphis won’t because of Gasol, and ATL won’t because they are a pretty risk aversive organization (see Shelden Williams as Exhibit A). I think we will take Yi because he should complement Al and Perk inside. That is decent size and mobility upfront, with Perk focusing on D and rebounds, Al inside scoring and rebounds, and Yi exploiting mismatches at the 3. Pierce plays more 2, and Rondo the 1, with Delonte and Wally coming in off the bench. If Tony is healthy and close to pre-injury form, it raises the more likely prospect of Pierce being traded for a decent inside guy and a good draft pick.

yeah this is worse than 1997. fire doc, fire ainge, fire stern!!!.

I really need time to think about this….maybe the Celtics have a plan based on what if….if they don’t then they aren’t running there company right…

For right now I’d say let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and see what happens draft night….

But this hasn’t sunk in yet….and I’m wondering if owners will say bye bye Stern….thanks but it’s time to retire

What can we get for the 5th pick?
Not much, unless we give up a lot.

Should we trade Pierce?
For what? Won’t make us better.

Will Pierce demand to be traded?
Probably. And we shouldn’t unless he pulls a VC.

Can we trust Ainge to pick us a winner again?
I trust Danny will pick the best player available, although picking Conley would (in his twisted mind) make Ainge look like he screwed up by getting Rondo (which was a good move, but c’mon, passing on Conley?)

Should we just fire Ainge and Doc right now?
I wouldn’t argue with that move. Surely not right now…

Were the â€Å"tankers” (Câ€â"¢s, Griz, Bucks) punished in a conspiracy or just karma?
Why not both? We paid an understandable price regardless. Tanking is wrong, it’s bad karma, and it’s NOT Celtic basketball. We got what we deserve.

Can Gerald Green develop into a star? Will he do so here?
Maybe/not sure. He’s a talent I’d gladly trade in a package to make the team better.

its all about this summer. lets see how danny plays his chips.

well since they didnt tank, i doubt it was karma. plus, after len bias dying, reggie lewis dying, and tim duncan slipping away, aren’t we due for some GOOD karma at some point?

With the fifth pick in the 2007 NBA Draft The Boston Celtics select Roy Hibbert.

Why this might be a blessing in disguise:

1. He outplayed Greg Oden before he got into foul trouble in that semifinal game.
2. We have Clifford Ray and this kid has shown steady improvement in the past three years.
3. He’s played three years of tough Big East basketball.
4. Most NBA ready body by far in this draft.
5. Greg Oden (I never wanted Durant – he doesn’t fit on the Celts) has a certain intangible Manny Ramirez or Ricky Williams quality about him. He might be a big let down three years from now.

You never know what the future holds.

well now that the feeling is starting to my limbs, i had a realization:

would i really feel any better if we got #3?

no, maybe worse just because we would have been so close.

i think there is a strong possibilty that there is a trade of the pick, but if not i think these players might make me feel better:

Roy Hibbert
Mike Conley (maybe for trade)
Al Horford

Hibbert is 7-2. he is a great shot-blocker. he has a soft shot. and he is ALOT more mobile than he is given credit for. he is a legit NBA center.

Horford is about as classic a PF as you are going to see. he has a reported huge wingspan, he is an incredibly hard worker, he is bright and he knows how to win.

Conley is just an outstanding PG. i know we don’t need him with Rondo, but he still is fantastic.

don’t give up just yet. there are decent alternatives that won’t make us forget, but may soften the blow.

No, Monty, because you earn karma; it doesn’t just come to you. M.L. Carr was ordered to tank so we get Duncan; look what happens. Ainge orders Doc to tank; look what happens. Of COURSE tanked. The world and three blind men can see that!
Let’s say they didn’t tank. (Hah!) But you have to see how Doc played the last third of the season, coaching horribly, sitting softly injured players at key moments, etc. And Danny assembled a hilariously young lineup and injury-prone vets in Wally and Theo.
So tell me: HOW do the Celtics earn good karma? It’s like luck: You create it. It doesn’t come to you.
So now, once again in the draft, Danny has to create his luck. He’s been pretty good at that, and I wish him well. I think Conley’s the best choice. Anything less will basically be either a capable back-up big guy or the umpteenth small forward. Whoop de doo. I don’t see us packaging the pick for anything that will make us demonstrably better.

i’m trying like all heck here, but lets see what happens…a package of the pick, ratliff, and say gomes/green/allen/whatever might be enough to land pierce a good running mate…alongside jefferson, rondo, etc. in the east? we can be alright – right? please say yes…

07-08 Celtics wish list, started lottory night 07:

Jan 1st: Doc is fired

Feb ~24th: Danny is fired

June 1st: Wyc sells team in fear of life

Boy! this hit me in the guts. I am weqkened I have no positive thought except that we should do nothing for a few days. We need the best big man available at 5 That group prolly include Roy Hibbert Yi Jianlian Spencer Hawes and Joakim Noah we must go big for defensive reasons the same reason why we wanted Oden. Shot Blocking, Rebounding. I think al and Perk could use the help of a big man even Yi Jianlian- I wonder if he could play the three spot?

What can we get for the 5th pick?

Nothing that will make a difference next year. Keep it and hope Ainge exercises his one talent in maximizing his picks.

Should we trade Pierce?

No. You won’t get equal value.

Will Pierce demand to be traded?

Yes by January. As the team struggles to be .500 under Rivers.
 
Can we trust Ainge to pick us a winner again?

He will pick a good player. Unfortunately he’ll trade him for an expiring contract and a chemistry guy.

Should we just fire Ainge and Doc right now?

Doc should already be unemployed. Ainge should be fired before the word trad…can come out of his mouth.

Were the â€Å"tankers” (Câ€â"¢s, Griz, Bucks) punished in a conspiracy or just karma?

Yes. I don’t believe in coincidence. Kharma couldn’t have helped either.

Can Gerald Green develop into a star? Will he do so here?

No. He lacks the basketball IQ necessary to achieve true greatness. He can be a good player but not great.

Can we sell the Suns on a Marion trade (if they like Noah that much)?

Marion could be had simply because they want to rid themselves of his horrid salary. The question is why would we want his horrid salary. Steve Nash inflates his teammates statistics. Last time I checked we don’t have steve Nash.

Will Yi “drop” to us at 5?

Possible depending on what Memphis wants. Depends on workouts and the like. My guess is yes.

Wow. I don’t post much but this was a serious kick in the groin. I figured at least 3-4 would net us Horford or Wright. But 5?? I just don’t know enought about Yi to get excited. Being as that Phoenix didn’t get the Hawks pick would they trade Marion and one of their late 1st rounders for our 5th pick, Ratliff, Green and Telfair. Rumor has it that they want to save $$$ for the future and this would accomplish it. Plus they could get two young potential pieces. Thoughts??

The Celtics will be very okay. They will get a very good player on draft day to add to a blossoming core. They will probably get some surprising positive contributions after what they suffered through last season.

Eric Weiss, who seems to have some smarts and perspective tends to think that while Mike Conley will be a good player talking about him in the top five is overhyping him based on OSU trip to the NCAA finals. My guess is he’s probably right. Celts should probably go big in the first round and he is very high on Hawes.

Cheer up tanking fans, there is a lottery next year too in Celtic future. Time now to fire Doc and hire a real coach.

I think this team is back in the lottery next year with probably the 5th or 6th worst record….and I think ownership cleans house. It couldn’t have turned out much worse. I also think we’re looking at a decade or more before this team is relevant again….

This team lacks much real NBA talent, can’t defend anyone, is soft, has too many fragile players, and has lousy coaching.

Tonight they lost out on getting a franchise player who could eventually turn this mess around.

Just another awful event for this team…the latest in a what’s become a long line of them.

Larry Bird on Oden in Ryan’s column for tomorrow: “People make me laugh when they say they doubt his offense,” Bird said with a smirk. “They badly underestimate him.”

Ouch. Instead we get one more season of Doc ball and watching our donut hole of a center, Kendrick Perkins stink up the joint night in and night out. To think that Oden would have been there in place of that stiff just hurts.

A lot.

Now I see why Danny extended Doc, we need his coaching to get a chance at the number 1 pick next year… Doc being our coach makes the 2008 pick that much more valuable, that is for sure.

Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrghhh.

I expected fourth with Memphis higher, so I’m not that surprised. It does suck, but maybe Ak47, JO, Gasol, KG can be had.

-Brendan

ownership can fire everyone but if they are still in charge it wont matter. with this pick i would say the teams value droped 20$-30$ million, so they bought for $350 milion were worth $230 million now ~$200 million. and there doesnt seem to be a bright side in the imanint future, so the team will probably just stay at its current value, ownership is bad at building a winning team, and if its posable even worse at making money throught a pro sports team. if only i didnt already have season tickets, oh well.

While it is disappointing we did not get 1 or 2, the next best player for us (Yi) will probably be available at 5, so landing 5th rather than 3rd is not that bad. The truth is we have no idea how good some of these guys will become.

The NBA draft lottery is so fixed it makes me sick. Atlanta gets to keep their pick. Sonics get Durant and have a much better chance of staying in Seattle. Blazers get Oden and now have a much better chance of renegotiating the teams crappy lease; and since Seattle is staying put, Mr. Paul Allen won’t be able to move his team to his town of Seattle.

Every year, if you look at the lottery as a business tool, it becomes easy to predict the outcomes. This year, Atlanta was a no-brainer; I thought they would get Oden (and later Conley). Seattle was assured a top 2 pick. The accountant in me wanted to believe in the good folks at Ernst and Young who audited this mess, as I thought Memphis would get the 3rd pick (and the Celtics 4). However, Stern has a pair, and went for the obvious fixing. Well done Commish!

pmark984
Former NBA Fan

So many of you are all too predictably negative doomsayers. This team is on the rise and all the talking about missing the playoffs, next year’s lottery and Doc being fired is simple-minded linear thinking. The kind of thinkers that say whoever won last year will win next year and whoever lost last year loses next year.

Oden will be terrific as will Durant, but the sun will rise tomorrow and the Celtics have a good future and a caring ownership.

Alright… all you fools blaming Stern need to shut up.
It’s not Stern’s fault that the Celtics are coached by the worst coach in the league.
It’s not Stern’s fault that the Celtics are managed by the worst GM in the league.
It’s not Stern’s fault that the Celtics are owned by the least knowledgeable owner in the league.
It’s not Stern’s fault that the Celtics’ entire future rested on a strategy with a 62% chance of failure.

Fire Doc. And,for the love of GOD, fire Danny. Then, chase Wyc around with torches and pitchforks until he relents and sells this team. It’s their faults, not David Stern’s.

no no no no. I agree that it may partially be the organizations own fault yet it is obvious that the league does fix the draft. I mean going back to the 85 lottery with the Knicks getting the #1 pick, and even take Cleveland getting the number 1 pick when Lebron came out when it just so happened that Cleveland was Lebron’s preferred destination and now we have two teams in the same region where it just so happens interest in the nba is floundering wind up with the top two picks and what do u know the Western conference is going to get even stronger because of this b.s. now. We may get a good player in the draft yet they will not be able to make us a top tier team like adding Oden or Durant would have. Our only option now is for Celtics nation to show its disgust with the league and the commissioner over this incident. I think ownership needs to either find a way to get Portland or Seattle to trade their pick at any cost except for Big Al or bring in Jermaine O’neal or Garnett and a pg in Bibby or Andre Miller and if they can’t do any if this they then we as fans should boycott all home games next season until we force ownership to sell the team and the entire staff to resign. besides this we would have to blow it all up and suffer for 5 more years.

*Get with top 5 pick?- Brandan Wright, Conley, Yi- one of those in that order, hunch says Yi is the one left at #5

*Trade Pierce?- yes, like the old spinister woman, the bioligical clock keeps ticking.

*Pierce demand trade?- yes, he called our youngsters selfish and said they should be traded for Iverson. Danny got us 24W. Hell in a hand basket may play out and Paul will jump off that ship.

• Trust Ainge to pick us a winner?- what over the past two years suggest that he can accomplish this?

*Fire Doc and Danny now?- Answer your question with a question. Unless you want to tank another season again in hopes of a high draft pick, why would you not fire them?

*Tanker conspiracy or Karma?- I believe karma gets you in the end, it may catch up with you in this life or the afterlife, it just happened to get us now. Stern is not God.

*Gerald a star?- maybe, do it here?-maybe- Gerald of all the returning Celtics needs to show he gets it. If by mid-season Gerald doesn’t show major steps forward in fundamental knowledge of the game, playing better team & individual defense, a desire to take it to the rim, etc it will be time to put him on the trading block. I felt the same about Big Al and he came through. Gerald needs to show a major notch or two improvement and do it consistently.

Gerald a star?- Yes by golly NBA dunk champion- wow wow!

Suns trade Marion for Noah deal?- No ain’t going to happen.

Yi drop to #5- probably yes and if so, we should grab him.

On this conspiracy and karma thing.

I don’t think it was a conspiracy. Had we won the draft, other fans from other teams may be saying the same thing, Stern fixed it so the Celts could get Oden.
If the Clippers with their slimmist of odds got a #1 or #2, same thing, Stern wants to put a star player in the L.A. market. Stern was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t and I think he didn’t manipulate it.

On karma, I honestly believe the balls just came out of that crappy machine the way they did. I don’t think the fix was in. People get away with murder and other heinous crimes all the time. We did spend a good amount of this season tanking but I don’t think that had anything to do with it. To me, you get your reward/punishment on judgment day, but I don’t think karma caused the balls to come out the way they did either.

It was just a stupid coincidence that the 3 teams that tanked the most ended up out of the top 3 selection.

Coincidence yes, conspiracy or karma no.

The lottery can be awesome or it could be brutal. I think it is the best and fairest way to make sure teams don’t tank or to eliminate the tanking to the extent it does.

Despite getting smacked again in the kisser from the lotto gods, I love the lottery system and Stern is right to employ it. Just because it didn’t work for us again, doesn’t mean it isn’t a good system.

As a fan, I will never again root for my team to lose so I can get a better lottery spot. Those that were against the tanking from the outset were right and fans like I who felt dirty but to a certain level condoned it were wrong. Lesson learned.

I’m trying to think positive thoughts of Billups, but I’m still sore from the kick in the nuts of not getting 1 or 2.

i don’t blame anyone- just bad luck in a stupid system and a system should not be about luck but about parity. there are way too many options to consider for the c’s and when there are so many options there is a lot of room for error. do or die for danny. doc,s an afterthought.

Kuberski33 says
Ouch. Instead we get one more season of Doc ball and watching our donut hole of a center, Kendrick Perkins stink up the joint night in and night out. To think that Oden would have been there in place of that stiff just hurts.

Totally agree… this is our archilles heal. I think we look long at Hibbert & Yi. If they don’t workout then the best defender after them is Jeff Green. My projection is he is the steal in the draft.

I think Corey Brewer will be a star and that’s who I’d take with the #5 pick. If he is projected lower than that I would look into trading down to get him and another player. He’s been often compared to Scotty Pippen, and I think that’s a valid analysis. Though the Celtics certainly could use a big man, Id go with Brewer or Mike Conley, who has top notch point guard written all over him.

Forget Marion. He’s not worth giving up on young talent. Good regular season player but struggles in the playoffs, and there’ll be no one anywhere close to Steve Nash in Boston to get him the ball where he can make plays.