Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
Boston also has eight draft picks in next month’s draft (three in the first round, five in the second), the most of any team leading up to the draft since it went to a two-round system in 1989.
Those picks plus a roster full of really good but not great talent, gives them the kind of ammunition to pull the trigger on a trade that could add that much-needed All-Star caliber talent.
But it’s like a high school chemistry experiment as the Celtics try to figure out the right combinations to avoid having it all blow up in their face.
A. Sherrod Blakely at CSNNE with yet another breakdown of the upcoming draft. This one focused on value outside the top spot.
In the run up to the draft, you’re going to see a lot of comparisons of how draft picks in the top three have turned out. There have been some major duds at the number three spot (as there have at the number two spot), but one thing to consider is how often those picks are being made by teams that are so poorly run that they are perennial lottery dwellers. A team that consistently loses far more games than it wins is probably going to be assembled by a general manager that can’t properly evaluate talent–and that tends to make some of these high draft slots look cursed.
If you take a look at the 2014 NBA draft, Boston doesn’t seem to have reached at all by picking Marcus Smart, whose career has arguably turned out better thus far than the players taken ahead of him (apart from the consensus 1 & 2 picks of Wiggins and Parker) and most of those taken after him (you could argue that Zach Levine was a steal for Minny at the #13 spot).
That’s something to bear in mind when looking at the track record of teams picking third. Most of those picks were not made by teams that had won 48 games that year.
Page 2: Where what happens if you declare for the draft and nobody notices?
At this year’s combine, several prospects who had not signed with agents said that NBA teams wanted to know how sincere they were about the process. Some told the prospects that if they were going back to school, they did not want to waste time on them.
But the Celtics generally held a different view. Even if a player would likely return to school, Boston’s executives viewed this early scouting period as a time to gather extra information that could someday be valuable.
“It doesn’t bother us at all [when a player is not fully committed to the draft],” said Celtics director of player personnel Austin Ainge. “I’m of the belief that every player who’s a sophomore or older should put their name in. Why not?”
Adam Himmelsbach with a deep dive into Yale sophomore Makai Mason and his decision to declare for the draft. It’s an interesting look into what the draft looks like from the other side. While Mason tends to view the experience positively, his experience convinced me that like many other NCAA rules, this rule has an effect that is either intentionally or unintentionally the exact opposite of its alleged purpose.
In case you missed it, players can now declare for the NBA draft without losing their eligibility, provided they don’t hire an agent. In practice, agents are the NBA’s gatekeepers, so denying players access to these individuals essentially creates this secondary pool of talent that can be safely overlooked by just about everyone in the league. Ultimately, nothing on the ground has changed–the NCAA has given itself the appearance of loosening its regulations without doing anything meaningful whatsoever. It’s a Barmecide feast for marginal players, and status quo for the top dogs.
The rest of the link:
CSNNE: Report: 76ers look to deal Okafor or Noel in draft trade
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