Minnesota Sports Forum

TheGrey08 wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:I don't think Hayward moves the needle for them. He seems like a good, but not great player. I am kind of surprised by the money being thrown at Porter. We are going to need to lock up Wiggins.

The biggest issue they had in the playoffs besides the injury, was scoring. It should be interesting.

They have a log jam at wing too....Hayward, Brown, Crowder, Tatum.....I guess they will play a few of those guys as small-ball 4s for significant stretches, but I think they will continue to be vulnerable to teams that can rebound and get into the paint.

Q12543 wrote:

TheGrey08 wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:I don't think Hayward moves the needle for them. He seems like a good, but not great player. I am kind of surprised by the money being thrown at Porter. We are going to need to lock up Wiggins.

The biggest issue they had in the playoffs besides the injury, was scoring. It should be interesting.

They have a log jam at wing too....Hayward, Brown, Crowder, Tatum.....I guess they will play a few of those guys as small-ball 4s for significant stretches, but I think they will continue to be vulnerable to teams that can rebound and get into the paint.

I noticed that too when I looked at their roster with the Hayward signing.. kinda strange they let Olynyk go and didn't have plans to unload a wing or 2.

TheGrey08 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

TheGrey08 wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:I don't think Hayward moves the needle for them. He seems like a good, but not great player. I am kind of surprised by the money being thrown at Porter. We are going to need to lock up Wiggins.

The biggest issue they had in the playoffs besides the injury, was scoring. It should be interesting.

They have a log jam at wing too....Hayward, Brown, Crowder, Tatum.....I guess they will play a few of those guys as small-ball 4s for significant stretches, but I think they will continue to be vulnerable to teams that can rebound and get into the paint.

I noticed that too when I looked at their roster with the Hayward signing.. kinda strange they let Olynyk go and didn't have plans to unload a wing or 2.

Olynyk' cap hold was over 7.7 million so that was a pretty big chunk. To bring him back on another contract he would cost more than that per. Crowder is a better player on a cheaper contract and obviously Brown and Tatum are high potential guys. All of those guys and Hayward are plenty big enough to play PF for minutes at a time the way the league is now. In addition the Celtics have a couple international players they will have on their team this year one of which they already signed. If they need to sign a decent vet big that will be pretty easy to do either for the vet min or using an exception. It's something they probably need to address but I wouldn't think they HAVE to make a move with one of those guys to do it. It's not all bad to have an embarrassment of riches at that spot when the rest of the league is desperately looking for wings. Gay and CJ Miles are some of the best available guys right now. Yay!!!

The question now is who is the last guy they have to dump to get that last few bucks to fit Hayward into a max salary spot. If they move Smart they can probably ask for an asset back. He is cheap can actually plate espcially defensively and his RFA next year is possibly attractive espcially depending on how much teams may have to spend.

Yeah good point. It'll be interesting to see how things shake out now with so little cap space available around the league.

Q12543 wrote:

TheGrey08 wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:I don't think Hayward moves the needle for them. He seems like a good, but not great player. I am kind of surprised by the money being thrown at Porter. We are going to need to lock up Wiggins.

The biggest issue they had in the playoffs besides the injury, was scoring. It should be interesting.

They have a log jam at wing too....Hayward, Brown, Crowder, Tatum.....I guess they will play a few of those guys as small-ball 4s for significant stretches, but I think they will continue to be vulnerable to teams that can rebound and get into the paint.

I'd love to help relieve their long jam by taking Crowder, Brown or Tatum off their hands. :) Unfortunately.... If only we still had McHale heading our front office; perhaps he and Danny Ainge could work out an agreement among old friends to exchange Cole Aldrich for Brown. :)

Seriously, this is why I wish we had our own 1st round pick next season. I don't know if we could leverage that pick into getting Crowder, but perhaps we could put something together for a Celtic player given the Celtics need for cap relief. That's why you don't trade 1st round picks for the likes of an Adrienne Payne. And it's why you don't put yourself in a position where you have to give away a 1st round pick to get rid of a player like Wes Johnson. I wouldn't presume that we could get Crowder for our own 1st round pick or even a combination of our pick and the OKC pick. But you never know. If nothing else, having our own 2018 first round pick would make it much easier for us to trade the OKC pick + Cole for CJ Miles since we'd still have a 1st round pick in what's expected to be a deep draft next year. Who knows what other opportunities are out there for us now or in the near future that we could take advantage of if we had the pick we gave away for Payne.

Report that the Celtics are shopping Smart, Crowder, or Bradley!

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/246770/Celtics-Aggressively-Seeking-Trade-Of-Marcus-Smart-Jae-Crowder-Or-Avery-Bradley

WHAT?! They only need to get rid of Rozier or maybe Smart for the Hayward contract right? Why are they dumping one of those guys?!?

Whatever. I WANT ONE!

Bradley is the best of the three (great defense, good shooter, perfect Thibs guy, he'd be perfect for us), but he's due for a raise next year, and we probably don't have what they want. If Glen is willing to go into the luxury tax to extend him next year, I'd give them the OKC first in a heartbeat for Bradley. Oh my god, that lineup would be awesome.

I'd really think about Crowder for contract purposes. He's on a really team-friendly contract, 3 years about 22 million left. Can defend multiple positions, handle the ball, shoot it a bit (hopefully last year was not an anomaly, because he shot nearly 40%). Could be a really good role player on a great deal.

Smart I'm not so interested in. We need somebody who can shoot outside better.

Other than the OKC first, is there anything else we could give them? Somebody's gonna outbid that for sure.

I want smart or Bradley. I think Crowder would be redundant with what we have. Another ball handler would be nice for us. Especially one who defends well.

thedoper wrote:I want smart or Bradley. I think Crowder would be redundant with what we have. Another ball handler would be nice for us. Especially one who defends well.

For any of those guys, don't we need to dump Aldrich because they all make more than the exception (not sure if you can absorb a guy into the exception anyway). Could we use the stretch provision on Aldrich?

I love Avery Bradley and he'd be an awesome fit for us. If we did somehow manage to get Bradley, we'd have to extend him because otherwise he becomes a UFA next offseason. That would make it almost impossible to extend Wiggins as well for next year, right? Unless we found a way to trade Teague? Or unless Glen was willing to go into the luxury tax, which I'd totally be willing to do if I were a billionaire and we were getting Avery freaking Bradley! I love that guy!

The dude who makes much more sense contract-wise is Crowder. First, Boston is much more likely to move him. Second, he's only making 7 million per year for the next 3 years. That's a great deal for him. And I don't really think Crowder is THAT redundant. He can defend the 2, 3, and 4, he's about a league average 3 point shooter and could actually be better (shot nearly 40% last year), and he can handle the ball and pass it pretty well. You could plug him in as a backup at the 3 or 4 and just always make sure to keep either Wiggins or Butler on the floor at the 2 next to him.

Stretch Aldrich, trade OKC's first to Boston for Crowder, then sign a guy like Terry, Afflalo, or even CJ Miles with the exception and we've got a hell of a team next year and without putting ourselves into a horrible cap situation, which is what Bradley could do. That's a pretty good, solid team, not just at the top.

Teague/Tyus
Wiggins/Afflalo
Butler/Crowder
Gibson/Bjelica
Towns/Gorgui

My guess is if they are shopping Bradley and Crowder they are looking to get something back. Heck the Dunc'd on guys think they could get a protected first or a couple picks for Smart and Bradley and Crowder are better players. They are calling around trying to unload someone and teams are probably saying "Hey we get you want to move Rozier but what about..." so they may not even be shopping those guys at all.

We should be able to absorb Smart, so that's who I'd target of the three. Would OKC first and our 2nd next year get it done? He has two years left on his rookie deal, and then is a RFA which bodes well for us moving forward. He is a pest of a defender, capable of defending 1-3 despite being a bit on the short side at the 2/3. A lineup of smart,Wiggins,butler,Gibson,and Towns has the potential to be very good defensively with plenty of offense to go along with it.

The second choice(would be first if the cap situation allowed it) is definitely crowder, but how do we acquire him? If we were to buy out Aldrich does he come off our cap??

Edit: it seems I was mistaken. Smart enters free agency next season. Do we keep his RFA status if we traded for him?