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.
Austin Ainge, the Celtics’ director of player personnel, said Boston will begin working out players on Wednesday with the first group consisting of six players – two guards, two forwards and two big men.
“We’ll put them through a lot of different situations,” Ainge, who declined to identify the six players working out on Wednesday, told CSNNE.com. “We’ll see how bigs are at guarding guards, and guards defending bigger players, some of the roles they would have to play if they were Celtics…We’ll get a good look at what they can do in a lot of different scenarios.”
CSNNE – Celtics Begin Working Out Draft Prospects Wednesday
Will the Celtics have an opportunity to draft a blue-chip rookie like Ben Simmons from LSU or Brandon Ingram from Duke? The answer will start to become clear on May 17, when the NBA Draft Lottery takes place.
Meanwhile, expect regular reports about the candidates who work out, because there will be plenty of them. Since the Cs currently own three first-round picks and five second-rounders, they’ll need to evaluate numerous players across all draft levels – starting with those two above.
Related: CSNNE – History of the Third-best Odds in NBA Draft Lottery | Gauging the Stock of Thon Maker, The NBA Draft’s Mystery Man | Blakely: Why Celtics Should Roll the Dice on Bender (video)
On Page 2: Free agents and that salary cap thing
You know how it goes: The Celtics will never land a big-time free agent because they never have … because it’s cold, because of taxes, because of racism. But here’s the truth about the Celtics and free agency: The team was over the salary cap from 1997 until July 10, 2015.
Writing on Reddit in 2015, Ryan Bernardoni did a great job of breaking down Boston’s journey out from cap hell; the bottom line is that the Celtics were never in the running for serious free agents in large part because they could never afford one. […]
Let me say one more time that Boston is not the reason that the Celtics have never landed a big-time free agent. It’s not about the city. It’s about 1) cap space and 2) existing talent and the promise of success. The Celtics never had all of that until right now.
Boston.com – Busting 5 myths about the Celtics you’ll be hearing during the offseason
Chuck mentioned this brilliant Rich Levine article in yesterday’s Dump, and it’s worth highlighting again here specifically for the crucial passage above. When sports talking heads opine on why big-name free agents haven’t come to Boston, they NEVER acknowledge that the salary cap situation prevented it. That’s probably because they’d have to understand how the cap works, and who has time for that when they’re busy all day coming up with hot takes?
Really, if you haven’t read the article yet, take a few minutes for it. It’s fact-based opinion, which we don’t see enough of among Boston sports commentators.
On Page 3: Perspective
Ainge rebuilt without pulling a Sam Hinkie or wallowing in mediocrity. The Celtics won 48 games this season with a roster of tough, flawed players who were utilized brilliantly by a coach with an uncanny talent for putting them in a position to succeed.
With any semblance of context, I don’t know how anyone who understands the NBA and recognizes the complexities of building a roster can feel anything but tremendous optimism for this franchise at this moment in time. We all have heard from that vocal segment of the media that, whether by ignorance or deliberate deception, likes to downplay and even dismiss the Celtics’ progress. If you can’t ignore those voices, then take solace in this: soon, they will have no argument left. They’re trolls beneath a crumbling bridge. They’ll be shrieking into the void in between CBS Sports Minute commentaries while we’re over here watching a damn good basketball team.
Boston.com – The Celtics have already come so far—and the best days are ahead
If you’re still bummed about the Celtics’ early playoff exit, here’s something to cheer you up. It’s called perspective – yet another quality rarely seen in the Boston sports media.
And, finally: Can refs at least be competent?
Because it’s the playoffs and because we are who we’ve become in our video-obsessed, somebody’s-out-to-get-us society, Waiters’ shove and resulting mad scramble will be replayed more than the Zapruder tapes, especially since there are now three off-days between games.
“I don’t know what it is, what type of violation it is,” Ginobili said. “It has got to be something. But it’s not that play that decided anything. Because we got the steal, we got a shot, we got an offensive rebound.”
That is exactly the point. The Spurs got everything they needed to win the game. But they didn’t because they didn’t make the right plays at the right time. Or most of the time, for that matter.
NBA.com – Refs miss crucial call, but Spurs had their chances
The finish of that Monday game between the Spurs and Thunder may have been the nadir of NBA officiating. Fans and media sounded off all day Tuesday, with gems like this:
About last night…@talkhoops broke down the utter chaos that was the final play: https://t.co/LHH0DtVStd pic.twitter.com/8vRBf3lhiV
— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) May 3, 2016
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
When the league released this game’s Last Two Minute Report, we learned there had been eight incorrect non-calls in the final 120 seconds. Eight! Five of those occurred during the frantic final sequence.
If there was a silver lining to this fiasco, it’s that Marc Davis was the referee who was closest to Dion Waiters on the inbounds pass. It was Davis who froze instead of calling the obvious offensive foul. I believe I speak for all Celtics fans here: Davis is a jackass who has screwed over our heroes many times, egregiously. Good job, good effort, Marc.
That wasn’t the only officiating news yesterday, however. Did you know that the @NBAOfficial Twitter account announced two retroactive flagrant fouls for incidents that happened last Sunday?
- The first was a Flagrant 2 charged to Toronto’s Bismack Biyombo for a foul at 11:18 in the fourth quarter.
- The second was a Flagrant 1 on the Warriors’ Anderson Varejao, at 3:29 of the third quarter.
Here’s the thing. Neither action was whistled as even a common foul during live play. The refs totally whiffed. Watch the plays on video here:
It’s unbelievable that highly trained officials, who will practically take a microscope to video replays to decide whose fingernail touched a ball last, still miss stuff like this in real time. No one is playing defense to prevent them from getting it right. We don’t expect perfection, but competence and consistency would be nice.
While the NBA is doing the right thing by making the Last Two Minutes reports public and admitting to mistakes, the transparency is too little, too late. The game results aren’t changed. When officials are held accountable for errors, what we really need to know is: what consequences do they suffer? Because if Marc Davis shows up for another second-round game any time soon, we’ll know the officiating reports mean nothing.
Related – ESPN: Officials: Late non-call in Thunder-Spurs should have been offensive foul | Ex-NBA ref Steve Javie: Dion Waiters play something ‘I’ve never seen’ | CBS Sports – Breakdown: Everything that went wrong on final play of Thunder-Spurs | Don’t cry over Game 2’s officiating nightmare, the Spurs certainly won’t | Sporting News – Refs will get called out for blowing Thunder-Spurs, and that’s a great thing
The Rest of the Links:
MassLive – Boston Celtics offseason: Brad Stevens wants to ‘fail forward’ | Brad Stevens loves Evan Turner, but impending free agent knows Boston Celtics have ‘a lot of stuff … going on’
Globe – Brad Stevens shares thoughts on Turner, Thomas, and other Celtics | It’s time for Celtics to shoot for a star
Bleacher Report – Top 2016 Offseason Priorities for the Boston Celtics
CSNNE – Mannix: Celtics Are Going to Need a 2nd Piece in Place to Lure Kevin Durant (video)
Yahoo – Why a Spurs series rout could lead Kevin Durant to leave Thunder
Herald – Brad Stevens says Celtics need to improve | Bulpett: This Isiah Thomas loves the Celtics’ Isaiah Thomas
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