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.
The Celtics end the season on a back-to-back, playing the Washington Wizards on April 10 before closing their season on April 11 against the Brooklyn Nets. That might be a game the Celtics want to win, if the Nets are in a position to gain ping-pong balls in the lottery.
The Celtics will have 34 total national TV games — four on ABC, 11 on ESPN, 11 on TNT and nine on NBA TV. That’s the sixth-highest total in the league, trailing the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers.
So the rest of the NBA schedule came out yesterday evening. The league has two schedule announcement events because even though it’s a 24 hour news cycle, sometimes you’ve still only got fifteen minutes worth of news.
Boston’s schedule, like everyone’s, benefits from the earlier start to the season. There are no four-in-five stretches, and fewer back-to-backs than there were last year.
Of course, the NBA’s love of back-to-backs, especially road back-to-backs, continues to puzzle me. It seems that these curiosities could be all-but-eliminated if the league made it a priority to do so but, like the league’s absolutely atrocious officiating, I suspect the powers that be consider the road back-to-back, or the home/road back-to-back to be a feature and not a bug.
Also, if you count NBA TV, Boston will have fewer national TV games next year than the Lakers. If you exclude NBA TV, Boston has one more national TV game than Los Angeles.
And this, basically, is what we call a market inefficiency. You would think, coming into this business with a fresh set of eyes, that the teams with the most national TV games were teams that the league wants to showcase, that they would represent the best on-court product.
Then there’s the Lakers. Their on-court product hasn’t matched their profile in over half a dozen years, yet they remain a staple of the national TV slate because Los Angeles is a gigantic TV market and its viewers either willingly put up with brain-disolvingly-bad basketball because it’s the Lakers, or they have no idea that the Lakers aren’t very good.
Anyway, the C’s open the season on the road, and I’m guessing there’s going to be some hiccups, and the team’s going to have a kind of disappointing record early on. Of course that’ll draw out the perpetually angry, especially since Fultz is probably going to be racking up stats Michael Carter-Williams style.
At some point, the C’s are going to retire Pierce’s number. I forget who suggested it on twitter, but I tend to think the home game vs. the Clips on Feb. 14 right before the All Star game seems a likely candidate if it’s not the home opener. Have to keep an eye out for whatever gets designated “Paul Pierce” night.
The complete schedule here. Or save this graphic:
Page 2: Where Marvin Bagley III is reclassifying and going to Duke
The 6-foot-11 Arizona native had his list down to the Blue Devils, UCLA and USC before he announced his commitment.
Bagley is an exciting prospect and will immediately slot in as one of the top prospects in the 2018 NBA draft class. The Boston Celtics, of course, have a very vested interest in the 2018 draft class, particularly the top five where — if things shake out extremely favorably — the Celtics could own two picks.
It’s unlikely the Celtics are going to get this guy, but this means the previous consensus number one is now the consensus number two, etc.
The Celtics currently have nine guys on rookie contracts; by the end of next year’s draft it could be ten (Smart’s coming off his but they might be drafting two guys). I mean, it really is easier to list the guys that aren’t on rookie deals: Baynes, Morris, Horford, Hayward, Thomas, Crowder and Larkin. Frankly, that’s nuts. You don’t see 50+ win teams that look like this, but whatever, I guess, Ainge is a terrible GM.
Am I excited about Bagley? Not really. Dude’s had eligibility issues in high school. I mean, you remember high school right? I’m telling you, it hasn’t gotten harder than it was when you went there.
Finally: Ainge is campaigning for Ainge
This offseason, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge drafted Jayson Tatum, signed Gordon Hayward, and sat in a dunk tank in Utah as people paid $25 per throw.
Ainge isn’t sure if his son Tanner’s campaign set up that fund-raiser so Jazz fans could have their revenge on him for pilfering former Jazz forward Gordon Hayward last month. But if a dunk tank could in any way help Tanner’s chances of winning the vacated seat in Utah’s third congressional district, Danny Ainge was all for it.
…
In a Utahpolicy.com poll released on Friday, 15 percent of respondents said they would vote for Ainge, while 31 percent sided with Provo mayor John Curtis and 23 percent said they would vote for former state legislator Chris Herrod.
So Tanner’s looking like a real long-shot to win the primary–this is actually the first polling I’ve seen. I guess I kind of thought he was a bit more competitive than this. He’s sitting in third place with less than half the support of the leader in the polls.
The rest of the links
CSNNE: Blakely on Celtics: They’ll be challenged early on the road | 2017-18 Celtics schedule: The road starts early | Ten highlights on Celtics’ 2017-18 schedule
Boston Herald: Celtics’ 2017-18 full schedule revealed, dotted with holiday games
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