Bos roster has no upside, they're capped out in their potential IMO. Unless BK picks turn out to be top 3 picks I dont think they can do much better than where they were last year and this year.
just noticed that..here's the rest of the article Since Shaquille O’Neal, no championship center has averaged top 60 in touches per possession in the NBA. When evaluating starting roster differences, Al Horford is the only advantage in comparison to the Lakers’ Timofey Mozgov. When you consider the way the NBA is trending and its reliance on the wing positions, this advantage is almost irrelevant when discussing which franchise is closer to winning an NBA championship. Moving on to the forwards position, Julius Randle has emerged as the Lakers’ best player this season. The 6’9 “Mobile Z-Bo” has been active on both ends of the floors with the Lakers. He continues to not back down from anyone as he performs in Luke Walton’s fun fast paced offense. Whether you compare him to Jonas Jerebko, Amir Johnson, or even Kelly Olynyk, Randle has the advantage. While it may excite C Bags fans to have the current advantage at the small forward position, this probably won’t last for long. Lakers’ rookie Brandon Ingram is expected to become a star in the NBA. Now, I will not be naive to conclusively say that he will definitely be a star player or even better than Jae Crowder, but the odds are in his favor. I will touch on Jaylen Brown a bit later. As for the guards position, this is really where the Lakers excel. I hadpreviously mentioned that D’Angelo Russell would become the next great NBA point guard. Standing at 6’5, D’Angelo Russell has a clear size advantage over the C Bags’ current best player, the 5’9 Isaiah Thomas. On the defensive end of the ball, Isaiah Thomas has been atrocious which has aided in the Boston C Bags taking a step back on their defensive efforts this season. Its quite simple, larger guards are bullying Isaiah repeatedly. As for Jordan Clarkson, his the many things he bring on offense outweigh Avery Bradley’s total value. The hard working defensive stopper is simply often injured, which makes this match up somewhat of a coin toss. Bradley’s skill set fit in well with Brad Stevens’ offense, but when paired with Isaiah Thomas, he’s often stuck guarding his match ups. Avery, 6’2, is also undersized which make the C Bags’ back court simply too small. Coaches: While Brad Stevens has been revered for his intelligence and ability to bring the best out of his players, Luke Walton has already proven that he has the ability to run a successful offense and has brought it with him to the Lakers. The sample size is too small but one thing is certain, he is no scrub. Meanwhile on the green side, the C Bags aren’t playing up to their maximum potential like they had been in the two years prior. Its early and quite frankly, the coaching advantage is not crystal clear for Brad Stevens. The ray of hope for Boston: The two best pieces on the Boston C Bags are rookie Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart. Unlike Avery and Isaiah, Marcus is not undersized for the guard position. Marcus is a 6’4, very physical guard with a limited offensive skill set thus far. The unfortunate news for C Bags fans is that Marcus hasn’t emerged as a potential stud on this team just yet. While his hard work has earned him some notoriety around the League in flashes, consistency whether due to talent or health just hasn’t been there. The C Bags’ inability to develop Marcus into an emerging star worries me about their ability to develop Jaylen Brown. If you’re an optimist, its been clear that the C Bags have been making developing Brown a priority…. as they leave him in late in losses (wamp wamp). In my opinion, theBoston C Bags need to trade Isaiah Thomas and start Marcus Smart. Many Thomas fans believe that Smart is incapable of running an offense. My question to them is, why do you believe that? Smart has never been given the keys to the offense like D’Angelo Russell has been given them. With the Boston C Bags, Smart hasn’t been tasked to play the traditional point guard role in mass minutes just yet. I personally see a young stud who shined in college and is ready to be given the opportunity to shine at this level as well. In addition to that, adding Gordon Hayward to the C Bags roster would be an ideal situation. We could do this without trading Thomas, but I’m not sure you can expect an all-star player to take a backseat role in the prime of his career; which is unfortunate because our playoff small-ball lineup would potentially be: PG: Smart SG: Hayward SF: Brown PF: Crowder C: Al Horford BE: Thomas C Bags fans, the last time a small guard was the best player on his team has to win an NBA championship, ironically, trace back all the way back to Isiah Zeke Thomas. Iverson couldn’t do it, and Thomas is no Iverson. If you want to fill sits, keep Thomas. If you want to win a title, NBA fans should start calling for Marcus Smart to start. Bottom line: Unless Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown develop to compete with the young Lakers, the C Bags are in trouble in terms of competing for a title before or while the Lakers do. Lakers fans, from a C Bags fan, your team has a whole lot of potential and you should be very exited.
Simmons knew. He knew this draft was what wold put everything together. And they missed it by one slot. He knew they needed Ingram. All these have are role players. And one really good role player.
i've been talking about how overrated boston is for a couple years now, but even i think this fan goes overboard. bkn's pick is big for them, and it's how they're going to pull even with the lakers (and i do think they're behind, despite record and recent FA "success"--due to the lack of stars or players with star potential). i also disagree that a) smart is their great hope and b) avery bradley is less useful than clarkson. i don't think smart is going to get much better. i suppose he could still turn into the pg/sg version of ron artest's indy years as a sg/sf, but that would require some rapid development on offense--something we haven't seen yet. and bradley's defensive abilities are probably as useful as clarkson's offensive abilities, with each being equally meh on the other end. anyway, i think boston needs to move bkn's pick for a star (cousins is the most likely, right?), as i don't think they're great at drafting. plus, the lotto system could still screw them even if bkn is the worst team in the league.
Ainge prides himself as a shrewd talent evaluator in the draft (see their alleged draft notes after the fact on some great players which the C Bags leaked themselves) but a little snob pre-draft from Julius and they were hurt and went with the limited Smart instead.
The C's did a good job of acquiring quality players and a good coach. It appears like their team is constructed to attract a big FA as their path to contention. Unfortunately their biggest pull so far is Al Horford. They didn't have high draft picks as high as ours, so I don't know what other options they have. Their biggest mistake so far is probably passing on Randle TBH.
