u/SaveHogwarts

Not Kansas City, but close enough, and step in the right direction locally.

Shoutout to the goat, Daniel Theis, for continuing to be a part of this franchise.

"To be transparent, it's weird," Tatum said. "I've been on the Celtics for nine years, and he was my teammate. You understand throughout the course of your career that the NBA is a business, and people change teams ... but it doesn't make it any easier ... But there's also a side of, like, you have to welcome our new teammates."

I have nothing, obviously, but love and respect for JB," Tatum said. "It's tough when you are a professional athlete, and everything we do is publicized and nitpicked. And it's been like that. We played together for nine years. There was a period in our career when we hadn't won a championship yet. But in retrospect, we were only 23 and 21 years old."

"The expectations were so high, and they just had to figure out a reason why we hadn't won yet," Tatum continued. "They tried to put us against each other. One guy shouldn't be here, or whatever. The truth is, we had nine amazing years together. We went to the Finals twice. We won a championship. I will forever be grateful for those memories and the time that we spent together."

From the post:

7. Boston Celtics

With the Jaylen Brown saga behind them, the Celtics are in a position to be a better team than the one that won 56 games and finished as the East's No. 2 seed last season.

This isn't a knock on Brown, to be clear. I'm not buying into the on/off split stuff that somehow the Celtics are better without one of the 20-ish best players in the league. This was a money thing. He isn't quite good enough to take up 35% of your cap, especially when Jayson Tatum is taking another 35%.

It's true that Paul George makes just as much as Brown, but George is on a shorter deal. He could be traded after this season as an expiring deal. Hell, maybe he'll be traded before or during this upcoming season.

But assuming he isn't, he's a much better shooter than Brown, particularly off the catch, and is a great fit in Boston's drive-and-kick offense who will take up far less usage than Brown, leaving more for Tatum and Payton Pritchard, a star waiting to pop.
On top of that, the Celtics added Mitchell Robinson. They're already a tough team to beat at the possession game with all their offensive rebounds and low turnover rate. Robinson is maybe the best offensive rebounder ever, and George won't turn it over at the rate Brown did.

Look at it like this: Tatum, for all intents and purposes, didn't play last season. So he's a new addition to last year's team, and he's an upgrade from Brown. Robinson is an upgrade from Nikola Vučević. And George is an upgrade from Anfernee Simons.

The Celtics got better. Now, so did the Eastern Conference as a whole, and 56 wins is a hell of a bar to clear. Not having a stretch big is a big hole in today's game (Luka Garzabecomes third on the depth chart, and he's low volume anyway).

Still, if you're thinking Brad Stevens just made the dumbest trade this side of Nico Harrison by swapping Brown for George (on the court), you're wrong. Brown didn't have much of a market because every other team has access to the same numbers Boston does. He's not good enough to take up as much of your salary space as he does. Now that is Philly's problem.

The Celtics will be fine, and perhaps they're not done. They are about $8 million under their hard cap with a $27 million trade exception to work with. They can trade Sam Hauser, just as an example, and take back around an $18M player. Trust in Brad Stevens. He knows what he's doing.

“The Boston Celtics have signed Tucker DeVries and Milos Uzan to Exhibit 10 contracts, a league source told @spotrac.

E10 deals are non-guaranteed training camp contracts. After camp the vast majority of E10 signings will end up joining the franchise’s G League affiliate.”

- X, the everything app

On JB:

“Well, we won a championship with Jaylen Brown in Boston," Cassell said. "Jaylen has done everything possible for this city… He'll be missed, but it is the NBA. Wilt Chamberlain got traded after he averaged 50 points one year. So it happens. Trades happens in this league. I wish nothing but the best for Jaylen Brown. He's a hell of a basketball player, a great person, and life goes on."

On PG:

"Good man, plays hard," Cassell said. "Just gotta understand how we wanna play, and he'll be fine here. Get him here, he don't have to try to be Jaylen Brown. He's gotta be Paul George. That's all we need him to be."

"We'll be fine," Cassell said. "Yeah, we'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll figure it out. The game's played on the basketball court. We'll figure that part out."

Boston Celtics 7-footer Neemias Queta will sign a new four-year, $56 million extension with the franchise, his agent Bill Duffy of WME Basketball tells ESPN. Queta has established himself as a critical Celtics piece – from two-way contracts to averaging 10.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocks as starting center.

“Boston's first splash in free agency could be Kevon Looney, per @TheSteinLine &
@JakeLFischer

"It's believed that Looney is also on Boston's list of center targets, which is likewise known to feature former Celtics big man Robert Williams III.
Yet don't forget that Knicks coach Mike Brown has a pre-existing relationship with Looney thanks to their time together in Golden State."

Today’s the day, folks.

As a big recruiting and college basketball fan, draft day is one of my favorite days of the year.

Last year, we struck potential gold at the end of the round by selecting Hugo Gonzalez, who quickly turned into a fan favorite and productive rookie.

We’re in a similar boat this year, picking at the end of the round, looking for a diamond in the rough.

Some names that could go in the 20-30 range:

Allen Graves
Isaiah Evans
Dailyn Swain
Chris Cenac
Tarris Reed
Henri Veesaar
Labaron Philon
Koa Peat
Josh Jefferson
Maleek Thomas
Zuby Ejiofor
Alex Karaban

Lots of other names, as well.

This draft in particular is very deep. The top 4 is guaranteed, but 5-15 could be any number of players. This will lead to a few guys slipping further than expected, and I think we’ll see some surprising names on the list when the Celtics are on the clock.

Anyways, happy draft day. Let’s get it.

Let’s play the hypothetical

Milwaukee finds Miami’s offer more attractive:
*Herro is tradable and can net an additional pick or two
*Jacquez and Ware are on rookie deals
*3 first round picks, with the new lottery reform, are looking juicy

A combo of Bam and Giannis is a good start, but Miami would have to do a ton of work to field a highly competitive team - their picks are attractive with the new lottery rules in effect.

So what happens? The obvious pivot is to keep JB, trade some lesser pieces, make use of the TPE for a center, and go from there.

But

What if JB wants out at this point? What’s the pivot?