Celtics play waiting game as trade calculus grows increasingly complicated
Danny Ainge's hands must be getting numb.
Thanks largely to one of the great heists in league history, Ainge's Boston Celtics have long been sitting on the NBA's most enviable goldmine of draft assets, and for the most part, he's stayed sitting on those hands. This season, though, there's been reason to expect the Celtics may pull the trigger on the kind of blockbuster deal they've been teasing for the better part of three years.
The Brooklyn Nets have the worst record in the NBA, meaning the Celtics have an inside track on the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 draft, meaning they should be able to add a major difference-maker to their already strong core, one way or another. The question, then, is: Will that player be one they draft, or one they trade for?
On one hand, this seems like an opportune time to strike at the trade market. The Celtics are a clear top-three team in the Eastern Conference, but a clear cut below the teams they're chasing, and their tasty draft-pick surplus means they can add another significant piece while barely weakening the current roster. They have a superstar point guard on a bargain contract in Isaiah Thomas and a terrific two-way big in Al Horford, surrounded by other cost-controlled fringe All-Stars and quality role players. They have Amir Johnson's $12-million expiring deal and Tyler Zeller's $8-million team option to package with picks and ship out for salary-matching purposes.
They also have very clear areas of need. They're light on rim protection, struggle with man-to-man defense, have no real offensive creators outside Thomas, and have been catastrophically bad on the glass. The right trade, though, could catapult them past the Toronto Raptors into the second-place perch in the East, with a chance to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a run for their money.
On the other hand, it seems like if the Celtics were serious about selling the farm, they'd have done so by now. There are game-changers that are or have been available. Paul Millsap hit the market for a minute this month. Jimmy Butler was dangled on draft day this past June. There was a brief flicker of Russell Westbrook activity right after Kevin Durant signed with the Warriors in the summer. Blake Griffin could've been had for the right price during his tumultuous 2015-16 season, and maybe still can be (though he's injured and an impending free agent). And while there's been little consensus regarding DeMarcus Cousins' availability the past couple years, there's been enough smoke to suggest there were at least some smoldering embers at one point in time (recent reports suggest he's now preparing to sign a mega-extension with the Kings).
A center like Cousins or Hassan Whiteside (whose name hasn't been mentioned in trade rumors, but who's toiling away on a terrible Heat team) could fill multiple needs while bumping Horford to his more natural power forward position.
Of course, it's possible the trade demands for those players have been unreasonably high and the Celtics have been wise to stand pat. But the Celtics also need to be wary of squeezing their assets too tight, because as valuable as they are, they're ever at risk of depreciating. The Nets pick that ultimately landed at No. 3 last year, for example, almost certainly carried more worth as a trade chip than their draftee Jaylen Brown does. Ditto for the mid-first-round picks they've used on James Young, Terry Rozier, and Guerschon Yabusele in recent drafts. Avery Bradley's cheapo contract is more valuable now, with another year left on it, than it will be as an expiring contract next season. Marcus Smart's value hasn't grown in conjunction with his body of brick-laying NBA work.
Right now, the enticement value of this year's and next year's Nets picks could well be at their peak, not in spite of their uncertainty, but because of it. The longer the Celtics wait, the clearer the picture will become, for better or worse. Waiting to see where the chips fall could ultimately help the Celtics make the best, most informed decision for their present and future, but there is a limit to the value of that patience, and a fast-approaching crossroads at which they'll need to decide whether they want to use the picks as superstar trade bait, or stay the course and see how the picks pan out.
There are justifiable reasons for equivocation. Most stars that become available do so because they're about to hit the open market, and free agency would be scary even if Boston felt confident in its ability to re-sign the player they might hypothetically trade for. With Thomas in line for a huge payday in the summer of 2018, a roster with another star could soon become very expensive. On top of that, the Celtics can give themselves something like $40 million in cap space this summer, and may prefer to try to lure a star in free agency - as they did with Horford last summer - rather than strip the cupboard bare to acquire one.
It's not an easy decision, and at this point, there's no right or wrong answer. The Cavs-Warriors duocracy will end, eventually, and when it does, Boston can potentially position itself as the heir apparent by using their picks on draftees that pay dividends down the road, rather than cashing them all in for a chance to run down those two teams now. That's a luxury that teams like the Raptors and Clippers don't really have.
Draft-day trades will still remain available to the Celtics, and lord knows Ainge has made some successful ones in the past. But the longer he sits on his hands, the closer the scales tip toward the draft-and-develop option. Again, that's not necessarily a bad thing, it just puts them on a slightly different competitive timeline than they appear to be on now, with Horford in his age-31 season and Thomas squarely in his prime. And if the Celtics do end up relying on Ainge's ability to play the draft, there's certainly a chance - and a precedent - for disappointment.
Trading a heap of assets for one star is often seen as a risk, but it's probably closer to the opposite. The NBA is a league in which you'd rather have a dollar bill than four quarters, and there aren't many dollar bills in circulation. Even if the Celtics end up with the No. 1 pick this summer, the odds of that pick turning up a player as good as Butler or Cousins or even Millsap are quite slim. The risky proposition is hoping to hit big at the top of the draft; the safe play is moving those high-variance assets for a proven commodity.
This is the tricky equation Boston is trying to solve, and it's a problem about 27 other teams would kill to be faced with. But eventually, the Celtics need to choose one path or the other, and if the go-for-broke trade is what they're after, they need to get busy sooner than later. Wait too long, and they may miss their chance.