The Boston Celtics are getting good too soon. The Celtics are on an accelerated track through rebuilding and thus have most likely missed the window on drafting a superstar.
In the NBA, you win with superstars or you don’t win at all.
One of these ten players — Steph Curry, LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Chauncey Billups, Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon — has been on every NBA championship team in the last 20 years.
All of them are Hall of Famers or at least a lock for the Hall barring something catastrophic. You need to be at the top of the NBA Draft, normally within the first three picks, to have a chance at being a generational player.
If you want to win an NBA title you need, and I repeat need, to either require a top-end draft pick or be an absolutely dreadful team for at least one season.
In the summer of 2013, Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge made a brilliant trade that shipped Pierce and Kevin Garnett to the Brooklyn Nets for three first round draft picks. The move took a 41-win Celtics team from 2012-2013 and fast-tracked them to the basement of the league, setting them up perfectly to draft a generational talent.
The old adage in the NBA remains true today: you have to get bad, and normally really bad, before you can contend again. With historically little parity in the NBA, there is normally a small and clear-cut group of teams that everyone knows will contend for the championship each year.
The C’s quickly went from contenders to one of the youngest teams in the league.
However, due to the hungry aspirations of Ainge, the Celtics have added many good pieces to the team in the past seven months, such as Isaiah Thomas, David Lee and Amir Johnson. The addition of Thomas just hours before last year’s trade deadline propelled the Celtics into the playoffs last season.
Following an unexpected playoff visit last season, the C’s are even better than they were last season. In ESPN’s preseason power rankings, the Boston Celtics are the 13th best team and they’re clearly improving, which is getting most Celtics fans very excited, but not me.
I will admit that I’m spoiled growing up in Boston with my sports teams, but why do I want the Celtics to finish just over .500 and make the playoffs and then lose to a contender year after year? I don’t.
This is why the failed rebuilding process is so frustrating. I wanted the Celtics to be dreadful and draft a stud. Some Celtics fans would argue that happened in 2014 when Ainge drafted Marcus Smart sixth overall.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a defense-first guard who can’t shoot that well is not the centerpiece player on a championship-caliber team. He can be a good piece on a championship team, but the Celtics already have enough pieces. You don’t win a championship with a bunch of good pieces, you win with pieces around a star or two.
The Celtics have officially missed their chance to tank and use their draft picks to get a stud.
Many critics of this thought, true homers, will say we can always make a trade or get someone in free agency. Well guys, how did that work out this summer? The only free agent that would even answer your phone call and agree for a meeting, yes just a meeting, was Amir Johnson. Not taking anything away from Johnson, but he is no more than a good role player or low-end starter on a top-tier team.
Additionally, the time is ticking to make a trade as many of the Celtics young players are losing or realistically have already lost their value as potential stars in the league, such as Jared Sullinger, Kelly Olynyk and Avery Bradley. The only player on your roster with real trade value is Marcus Smart, who is apparently not on the trading block, according to Ainge.
So what is going to change going forward? Not much at all. Whether it is the cold winters or the coach or a lack of talent on the current team, Boston isn’t the basketball hot spot for NBA players.
Once again, it sounds obvious but if you aren’t a top-tier NBA team you better drop all the way to the bottom so you can build up to the top. For example, look at the Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers.
The 2015 Celtics are now completely stuck in the mediocrity of the NBA, too far from contention and too far from a top lottery pick.
However, the Celtics have the luxury of three of the Nets first round picks in from 2016-18. Putting it mildly, the Nets will be terrible this season. The Celtics clearly won the 2013 trade, which has luckily provided some promising light at the end of the tunnel for this mishandled rebuilding process.
The future of the Celtics completely rests in the projected failure of the Nets in 2015-16. Ironically enough, Celtics fans should care more about Brooklyn losses than Boston wins this season.
