| The Long Interregnum: The Celtics Entering Year IV AD (After Danny) Authored by Elrod Enchilada - July 17, 2006 - 5:12 pm
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This is also a long interregnum in a broader sense, and it is this long interregnum that I pray is an interregnum. It is this interregnum that concerns me, and all Celtics fans. It is now 20 years since the last title, 18 years since the Cs were legitimate contenders, and 13 years since we were a very good team. That was the summer Kevin McHale retired and Reggie Lewis died. (Oh, I know, some Celtics fans and beat sportswriters wax on about the greatness of the 49 win 2001-02 team, but with every passing day it is clear that that team was a fluke – an overachieving team with marginal talent and no potential for development that exploited what was then an extraordinarily weak eastern conference. The eastern conference is no longer a weakling, a point we return to below.) The period since 1993 has included some gruesome moments, and the entire Pitino era was nothing short of a disaster for the franchise.
So it has been a long time since the Cs contended, and Danny Ainge was hired with the mandate not to generate a quick fix, but lay the foundation for the Celtics to return to their status as year-out and year-in contenders. Ainge has certainly not delivered a quick fix. In this past season, the third of his era, the Cs were reduced to 33 wins. Yet, quite impressively, the ownership and much of the fan base is tolerant of the team’s inability so far to generate more wins. Let’s hope this patience will extend for one more season, because, in my view, it will be a very good season if the Cs finish above .500 this year. Not because the team is bad, but because it is still very, very young, and there is no shortcut when the bulk of a team’s rotation players are under 24 years old, unless their names are Wade or James.
Danny has needed all this time to develop the team for good reasons. He inherited a team that had two marketable talents, and one of them, Antoine Walker, was not easy to trade. Otherwise his 2003 roster was almost bare of quality young starting caliber players, or even veteran starting caliber players. The team was well above the salary cap and held no appeal to prospective free agents in any case. Worse, yet, the team was not bad enough to get high lottery picks, so the opportunity to draft the ready-made superstar, the franchise-star who anchors a team for a decade, was not there. Oh, if only the Cs had truly stunk the year before Danny took the helm: Four of the first five selections in Danny’s first draft for the Cs in 2003 were James, Anthony, Bosh and Wade. Youza!
So we are still in the midst of our long interregnum in the broader sense and this may be a good time to evaluate if Danny’s program is going to get us out of this maze of mediocrity, or if the Ainge era is on a path to be filed in the history books next to names like Dave Gavitt, M.L. Carr and Rick Pitino.
Some Context
There has been one great change in the NBA basketball in the past five years, one that is rarely commented upon, and that is the increase in the talent pool. Most of this is due to the explosion in the number of talented players coming from other nations in the world. While there are professional leagues all over the world, the NBA is by far the “premier league,” so all the best players end up here. My sense is that we are still at the beginning of this process. It is also due to the fact that basketball is increasingly the sport of choice for young men in the United States. One is far more likely to see a bunch of kids playing a game of hoops in a playground than baseball or touch football. That is a major change over the past 50 years.
This is affecting the game, and what Danny Ainge must do, in a lot of ways. It means that if there are a lot more good talents around, that the draft will be deeper. And that has certainly become the case. Second round picks now have a better chance of being players than a decade ago. One does not need a lotto pick to get a quality talent. This is a huge change. Take a look at the first round of the NBA draft back in the 1980s, for example. Most of the players taken after the first 10 picks were bowwows. I think we are seeing a change here, though it will take a few more years to have statistical confirmation of this trend.
All indications are that both the 2007 and 2008 drafts are going to be swimming in stud talent. I think we are starting to realize that the worst drafts in the coming years will rank with the very best drafts of the 80s or 90s. We are in a new era, and the Cs are lucky to have a talent scout with the genius of Danny Ainge at he helm. The key moral for our purposes is this: smart teams will accumulate future first round draft picks as they are currently undervalued in the market, especially when in the hands of a drafter like Danny Ainge.
But while this means that a talent sleuth like Danny Ainge can better locate prospects deep in the first round and in the second round of the draft, it also means his competitors can too. Even mediocre GMs land an occasional whopper if the river is swimming with fat fish. And this means the level of competition is higher and the degree of difficulty of getting enough talent to distinguish one’s team from other teams is, in a way, harder.
Look, for example, at the eastern conference teams for 2006-07. Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and New Jersey all have a great deal of veteran talent or transcendental superstars in Wade, O’Neal and James. The other playoff teams from last year – Indiana, Milwaukee, and Washington – are no slouches. If Indiana gets Al Harrington to replace Peja, a case can be made that each of these three teams will be better next year than last year. So the Cs are going to have a tall order to get in the first eight next year.
And that barely takes into consideration that the other eastern conference lotto teams all see themselves as the Cs equals in terms of future prospects, and not without reason. Toronto has Bosh, Bargnani and TJ Ford. Atlanta, yes Atlanta, is swimming in young talent, and with Shelden Williams and Speedy Claxton may have the missing pieces to start winning games. Charlotte is a couple of years away, true, but it has a nice collection of kids. And then there is Orlando, whom most people expect to emerge behind Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson as a playoff team this year.
So no matter what Danny does, the Eastern Conference is now tall timber and getting to the playoffs, even for a talented GM, is no cakewalk. Now, more than ever, patience is the order of the day. There are no shortcuts that will allow the Cs to leapfrog over the other teams in the east. It is going to take time, to let the young players get into their mid-20s. Then they can become cornerstones or be traded for players that are better fits. A lack of patience will put a team in the situation of the Knicks, which faces a future that is virtually hopeless for as far as the eye can see.
The Changing Equation for Building a Champion?
Some hypothesized that, perhaps due to this infusion of talent, the age-old equation for building an NBA champion has changed. The NBA has traditionally been a very anti-egalitarian league, and professional basketball has been the least democratic of our team sports. In general, teams only win titles if they have one of the three best players in the game, and teams win multiple titles in they have two of the five or ten best players in the games. NBA history is littered with teams that have won 50 plus games year after year but have never won a title. In the NFL guys like Barry Sanders never get close to a title. In the NBA talents of Sanders’ magnitude almost always win at least one title and often more than one.
Think I am kidding? Well consider this. Any list of twenty best NBA players over 50 years probably would include nearly any the following 12 players: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Walt Frazier, Larry Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Isiah Thomas, Tim Duncan, Dave Cowens, Shaquille O’Neal. Those guys were either the best player or, at worst, in one or two instances, an indispensable second-best player, on 43 of the last 50 NBA champions. In most of those 43 seasons those guys would have been considered in the top five players in the game, and in well over half of them the player arguably was the very best player in the game at the time. And on many of those 43 championship teams, the second best player on the roster has been an extraordinary top 30 talent like Bob Cousy, Willis Reed, John Havlicek, Oscar Robertson, Kevin McHale, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, or Kobe Bryant. (Dwyane Wade looks like a likely candidate to join this list.)
What about those other 7 seasons?
They fall into two categories. Teams that have top 20 or top 25 type superstars who only managed one championship: Julius Erving, Rick Barry, Bill Walton, Bob Pettit, Jerry West, Moses Malone, and Elvin Hayes account for five of them.
And the truly great players who deserve to be ranked with these players, like Karl Malone, John Stockton, Clyde Drexler, or Elgin Baylor, had the misfortune of playing during dynasty eras. But their teams went to the finals multiple times, only to lose to dynasty teams. And if guys like Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley or Allen Iverson deserved to be mentioned with this crowd, they probably would have led a team to a title somewhere along the way, or at least led a team to the finals more than once.
So if you took the 27 names I just listed, plus the four guys who led multiple teams to the finals to lose to dynasty teams, would be pretty close to the list of just about the best 31 players of the past 50 years, not including the current young generation.
Look at the 31, to see what I mean:
Centers:
Bill Russell
Wilt Chamberlain
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Willis Reed
Dave Cowens
Bill Walton
Moses Malone
Hakeem Olajuwon
Shaquille O’Neal
David Robinson
Power Forwards:
Elvin Hayes
Bob Pettit
Kevin McHale
Karl Malone
Tim Duncan
Small Forwards:
John Havlicek
Julius Erving
Larry Bird
Scottie Pippen
Rick Barry
Elgin Baylor
Shooting Guards:
Michael Jordan
Clyde Drexler
Kobe Bryant
Point Guards:
Bob Cousy
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Isiah Thomas
Walt Frazier
John Stockton
Magic Johnson
This is one amazing list. These 31 guys have basically controlled the NBA title for the past 50 years. And they have dominated the all-NBA lists year after year.
Now granted, this seems a bit circular: if your team wins a title you are deemed a superstar. But not really. There is no way that would be the case in baseball or football. Countless superstars have never won a title. An individual player simply does not have the same impact upon the game as in basketball.
And then there are the “ensemble” teams. These are teams that win not on the strength of one or two unreal talents but on the strength of a highly skilled team with several all-stars. Some might consider the Cs of the 60s an ensemble team, because it had so many exceptional players. Or the Knicks of the early 70s. But Russell, Cousy, Havlicek were unreal talents. And Frazier and Reed, before injuries wiped him out, were too, though not as good as the Celtics threesome. The Bad Boy Pistons come close to being an ensemble team, because Thomas was not that much better than his key teammates. But the team was built around Isiah. He was the straw the stirred the drink. The rule is that if a team wins more than one title it is not an “ensemble” team. It probably has a superstar on the roster.
The two ensemble champions in the last 50 years of NBA history are the 78-79 Seattle SuperSonics and the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons. Both were veteran teams with quality all-stars. Seattle had Jack Sikma, Dennis Johnson, Gus Williams, Fred Brown and Paul Silas. You all know Detroit’s roster. Neither repeated or won a title again with their core units. Seattle’s team was clearly a fluke, squeezed in after Bill Walton’s foot injury derailed a certain Portland dynasty in the making and before Larry and Magic took over the league in 1979-80.
After the Pistons title in 2004 speculation began that the NBA was entering a new era in which the superstar dominance of championships was going to be taken over by teams swimming in good talent, but without necessarily having the league MVP on the roster. The Sacramento Kings were another archetype. This would have been great news for Danny Ainge and all the teams in the league that did not possess Wade, James, O’Neal, Duncan, Bryant, and a handful of other players. It would have meant that building a core of excellent players might be enough to build a champion. It would have meant that the need for locating a transcendental Hall-of-Famer, a Russell, a Bird, a Wade, a James, would have been reduced.
That may still be the case. Maybe the Bulls will win the title next year. But the last two NBA champions clearly fit the classic mold, especially the Heat. Take Wade and Shaq off the Heat roster and it was arguably a 30 win team. Take the top two players off the Pistons 2004 team and it still wins 45 games. And looking at how a 21 year old LeBron James made the Cavaliers a contender was eye-opening. By historical standards, there is every reason to believe James is going to win multiple titles before he retires.
Danny’s Solution to the Problem
If the old rule still applies, and a superstar is necessary for a title, this puts Danny is something of a pickle. He needs a superstar to actually win a title but he has limited recourse to getting one. The idea of pulling an ML Carr and finishing deep in the lottery every year until a LeBron James or Greg Oden appears is not viable. The owners and fans might put up with that for one season, but a steady diet is unacceptable. The risk is way too high for that to be a rational course. Remember that ugly 96-97 season in pursuit of Duncan; now imagine doing that six years in a row. And in those rare moments a superstar is available in the free agent or trade market, the Cs have not had the cap space, assets, or attractiveness to be a serious contender.
Danny’s solution has been to swing for the fences when he has drafted, going after high school players or young players who can hopefully develop a la Garnett and Bryant into superstars. Four of Danny’s first round picks have been Perkins, Jefferson, Green and Rondo. Perkins has never been considered superstar material, but Jefferson and Green have mercurial talent. Danny has stated that Rondo has the best upside of any of them. He clearly has almost unprecedented physical tools for a point guard. Nonetheless, the odds are very much against any of these guys taken in the mid first round will emerge into Hall-of-Famers. The NBA’s new rules prohibiting high schoolers and 18 year-old international players from entering the draft makes Danny’s approach harder. The younger the player, the better the chance for upside potential, the higher the likelihood of a mid or late first round steal. If a Jefferson or Green goes to college for a year, and one of them is truly a superstar, the chances are that will show during their freshman year and they will not be available when the Celtics draft.
Danny has acknowledged this dilemma. In a recent interview, he commented that the team’s hope is that that one or two of their young prospects will develop into a superstar. This is a very important point Danny was making, and if Danny follows through on it, it suggests how he might handle the team in the next two or three years.
Where Do We Stand?
So where do the Cs stand as we begin the fourth year of the Ainge Era? In one sense, the regime has been a failure. He inherited a 44 win team and in its third season it only won 33 games. By no rational calculation will the team be in a position to win a title for at least three seasons. So at its best Danny Ainge will need six seasons to contend. And there is no guarantee the team will ever contend. This may continue to be a mediocre team, especially if Danny’s draft picks do not pan out. And, as I pointed out above, the East is chock full of teams with talent, much of it young. This is not going to be a cakewalk under any circumstances. Oh, to have a superstar like Wade or James. That would be sweet, wouldn’t it?
On the other hand, even if the Ainge Era does not provide a contender, even if Danny steps down in a year or two, he has done an impressive job of talent accumulation, and cap management, especially in view of the draft picks and assets he had to work with. He is leaving the cupboard in much better shape than what he inherited. The 2006-07 roster, as it presently stands looks like this:
It has only one player left from the mess Ainge inherited, 28 year-old Paul Pierce: a top 20 all-star in his prime and under contract for five years. Pierce is comfortable with the direction of the team. He is not a Wade/James superstar, but he is an all-star and a probable hall-of-famer. Danny and Doc have done an excellent job working with Paul to get him to this point;
It has only two grossly overpaid veterans on the roster, Theo Ratliff and Wally Szczerbiak. Danny had to take them to unload other lame contracts, one of which he was responsible for – Mark Blount – and the other, Raef LaFrentz, he had to take to make the Walker for Allen, West and Rondo deal work out. (Those are the three players we got from the players and picks we got in the first Walker trade.) Both Ratliff and Szczerbiak, and especially Wally, can still play. They are just overpaid. This is not that big of a deal since the Cs are not going to pay the luxury tax. These guys come off the books in 08 and 09 respectively. If the Cs avoid trading for an high-priced vet and avoid using the MLE for two more seasons, by 2008 and certainly 2009 the Cs should be in decent shape vis-à-vis the salary cap, possibly even under it;
It has one overpaid and useless vet in Brian Scalabrine. This was a terrible signing by Danny. The bad news is we are stuck with him until 2010. The good news is his contract is not for that much so we might be able to dump him in a trade or even eat the contract;
That is it for veterans. The remaining 11 players are all 24 or younger. Dwayne Jones is not much of a prospect, so we are down to 10. Leon Powe and Allan Ray are intriguing but clearly longshots to become effective players in the league. So let’s put them to the side for now and see how they look in a year’s time. Now let’s look at the remaining eight. I think it is fair to say that no team in the league, and no team in league history in my memory, has had eight legitimate prospects on its roster under the age of 24. All eight of these guys look likely to be rotation players in the NBA. A majority of them will be decent starters. And some of them will be quality starters. What is unknown is if any of them will be all-stars or even superstars. Chances are 50-50 that we have at least one all-star in the group, but probably not a superstar. Look at these eight names: Perkins, Telfair, Jefferson, Allen, West, Green, Gomes and Rondo. When you compare that list to the eight youngest players on the team Danny inherited, it is easy to see why Danny is regarded as a talent genius by many Cs fans, myself included. It is also why it underscores the intelligence of putting as many draft picks as possible in his hands.
Danny has kept all of our draft picks plus we have Portland’s second in 2008 and we get a future Minnesota no. 1 pick as long as the Timberwolves make the playoffs before 2010.
So we are young and talented, we have not gotten that way by using future draft picks, and we do not have a lot of dead weight contracts weighing us down long into the future. Don’t get me wrong, Danny has not been perfect. No GM is. He signed Blount and Scalabrine. In his desire to make the team better in the short term he made dubious trades for Gary Payton and Antoine Walker. The jury is going to be out on the Telfair deal for a while.
So What Should Danny Do?
Chances are that if Danny just holds on to these guys and let’s them develop, adds some more draft picks, in three years we will have a very nice ensemble team. We simply do not know how these eight guys will develop yet. We need many years to find out. I believe the fans will support this approach, and the owners will too. By my logic it would be absurd and short-sighted to trade away youth or future draft picks for a veteran like Allen Iverson. Even with Iverson the Cs will not win a title. So when Iverson is washed up the Cs will have fewer assets left on the team. I simply cannot believe Danny would seriously entertain a deal for Iverson. There are no short-cuts, at least not now. It may look different a year or two from now.
So if Danny stays the course, develops the kids, adds draft picks every year, the team should be on a solid path if we are patient. The team is already overstocked in the back court so at some point the Cs can trade from strength to fill needs as they develop. In particular it is plausible to see West, Telfair and/or Allen involved in a deal to bring back a big in the next year or two. All the kids are very tradable due to their low salaries. In one scenario the team does better than expected and we might make a run for a Garnett or Jermaine O’Neal. But not now. We are not at that point where it makes sense. And when the kids come up after their fourth seasons, we will have to determine whether to keep them or do sign-and-trades for them. That will be the big story in the summer of 2008. The Cs can use free agency to fill need too in the coming years. With prudent management this should be a fine team in a few years if we can wait.
But will it win a title? History says probably not. Not unless Rondo or Telfair or Green or Big Al become a first-team all-NBA type player, and I think that seems far-fetched right now, even if they do become good players.
There is also one other moral to this story. Danny is going to feel pressure from the players, from the coach, from the owners, from the fans, to get this team winning as soon as possible. Patience is not endless even if patience is rational and justified. There will be a temptation to trade away a West or a Green or a Jefferson for a serviceable veteran who can fill a need, and make the team stronger. In some cases it might even be a veteran like Drew Gooden, who is young and will be around for the long haul. If we are about building a very good ensemble team, about becoming a 48-52 win team, I think this makes sense. If we are about winning a title and being a truly legitimate contender year in and year out, I think this is not the best approach.
Instead, by my logic of what it takes to win a title, I would argue that the Cs should trade young players for future no. 1 picks, in the hope of landing lotto selections. Even low no. 1 picks in rich drafts are valuable in Danny’s hands. We already have a surplus of young talent, and the way Danny drafts it will only get worse. Keep giving Danny weapons to use on draft day. Then selectively trade off surplus talent to other teams for suture draft choices. So if it looks like Allen can play and Telfair and Rondo are for real, then trade West for a future no. 1 pick. If Leon Powe and Al Jefferson develop maybe do the same with Ryan Gomes. Don’t get me wrong, I love West and Gomes. These guys are dream Celtics. They would be wonderful players to have here for another dozen years. But this is the sort of thinking we might need to have to keep generating opportunities to have a crack at a superstar. Better that than trading kids for overpriced vets on long-term contracts, unless those vets are superstars, and then they are not overpriced. This also plays to Danny’s strength: drafting.
So this is my assessment of where the Cs stand during the long interregnum and how I believe the team should approach its future strategically. I love this team right now and want to see them play. I am patient. I think that is Danny’s inclination as well. I hope so. The chances of our getting a solid annual playoff team are high. The chances of our getting a championship team are low, as they are for every team that does not have James or Wade on its roster. I want the latter. I want to end our long interregnum. |
