The Celtics fizzled after promising fireworks at the NBA Draft
COMMENTARY
We waited for that?
It’s only late June, and the “fireworks” promised by Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck in regard to his team’s resurgence have some time to sizzle in advance of early July. But in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 NBA Draft, team president Danny Ainge is left looking like a duplicitous grandstander, having delivered stale circus peanuts when everyone had been led to believe they were getting gourmet gummy bears.
Granted, Jaylen Brown, the No. 3 pick out of California, may turn out to be a fascinating player in the years to come. But by all accounts, the 19-year-old is a project with “raw athleticism,” a term used to describe more than hundreds of hopeful draft busts over a generation.
Maybe Guerschon Yabusele (pick No. 16) will be the French second coming of Jared Sullinger (yay?), and perhaps Ante Zizic (No. 23), who sounded as if he was ready to crush any and all fools at his Thursday night press conference, could turn out to be the next Dino Rađa (yay?).
Even the most aspirational Celtics fan has to look at this draft, once promised as the doorstep to a new era, as an unmitigated bust.
There’s no other professional sports draft that has as much ground floor and fluidity as the NBA, particularly in one that everybody considered to be a two-player auction between Ben Simmons (Philadelphia) and Brandon Ingram (Los Angeles). Following the top-two, this was truly a dartboard exercise for the remainder of the lottery picks with Providence’s Kris Dunn looming as the most-wanted player.
This was, after all, a guy that didn’t fit into the Celtics’ immediate plans with All-Star Isaiah Thomas controlling the point, yet was considered the consensus No. 3 pick, and a guy that the 76ers and Chicago Bulls might want to work something for in the wake of the selection. But with no deal to be made for Chicago’s Jimmy Butler or Philadelphia’s Jahlil Okafor, Ainge fell in in love with Brown, a player whose scoring report considers him a “major enigma.”
Fireworks.
“In terms of the trades, we weren’t even close to any of the offers that came in today,” Grousbeck said. “None of them were even in the mix. So, that’s just the way it is, and if they were close they might have stretched. We didn’t feel anything was close.
“We would give counteroffers and the other side didn’t feel it was close. There was just never even . . . I’ve been doing deals one way or another since I think 1986, 30 years, not sports deal, necessarily, but just making agreements with people. And this was not a day to make a deal. It was not the right thing in our view for the Boston Celtics to make any of these deals, so we didn’t.”
So, welcome, Jaylen Brown.
Based on images released to social media after the selection of Zizic, the “Caddyshack” pool couldn’t have been abandoned more swiftly than the Celtics draft party on the floor of the Garden Thursday night.
Regarding Brown, the options were limited, and Ainge took the player he thought best might help the Celtics without other teams looming in the background for a trade.
“So there was a lot of discussion over the last couple of months with the No. 3 pick,” Ainge said. “And a lot of study and hard work by my staff. We had some, like I said, a lot of discussion and even trading that pick and trading down in the draft and trading for future picks and so forth. Ultimately, there wasn’t anything to our liking.
“We grew very fond of Jaylen. He’s a great kid, 19 years old who has a man’s body, great athleticism, sort of a vogue new type of player in the NBA, of the versatile player, the versatile wings, can play multiple positions, defensively. And we think he has a lot of upside. But we think he’s a 19-year-old kid that can get on the court and play with the big boys right out of the gate.”
Maybe.
Maybe.
That’s the problem with the NBA though, a league so heavy-set with superstars that take all the cheese, that it’s impossible to truly have any sort of championship goal without one. So, neat, the Celtics are now poised to be the next run-of-the-mill playoff team. Essentially what they were in 2015-16.
Not that Dunn was that guy, especially with the presence of Thomas, but he, clearly, could have been a valuable trade chip as the No. 3 pick to prey on the desperation of other rebuilding teams this summer. Nobody wants Jaylen Brown that badly.
Celtics fans made that point with an exerted jeering at the Garden after the selection.
“Fourteen years, that’s probably the worst [reaction] I’ve gotten,” Grousbeck said. “But I’ll view this as people really care. I’ll view it as, I’ve certainly had some of those reactions to when I’ve been at sporting events. Pay your money, you get to come in.
“Look, we’re a bunch of fans who bought the team. And being a fan means you’re emotional and you’re emotionally invested in the team. And no problem. But I actually believe that, if those fans knew what I knew and were in that room, I think most of them might have done the same thing. But no problem. Bring it on. They are Celtics fans and they’ve earned the right to say whatever they want.”
Patience, right?
Patience.
Except that patience in the NBA by building through the draft is like waiting for Godot, a cyclical process that always, seemingly, rotates past the moment of assertion.
Maybe Ainge really does, still, have a free agent plan with his draft-and-stash maneuvers, not to mention the room under the cap for two max-contract players. It won’t be Kevin Durant. Let’s face truths here, folks. But Al Horford? Mike Conley? Dwight (gulp) Howard? It’s not like Ainge has the overwhelming positive of Kevin Garnett out there anywhere on the trade market.
But coming off “Empire Strikes Back” or “Godfather 2,” how do you exactly prep for a sequel failed to live up to the mastery of your past? That’s left Ainge looking for a J.J. Abrams to take him in a new direction, and thus far the reviews have been about on par with “The Phantom Menace.”
Fireworks?
More like a bomb.
Danny Ainge’s biggest trades
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