Doc possibly leaving after this season.

[meta4]

Personal issues seem to be the reason...I don't know. I don't think Doc wants to babysit anymore.

http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/nba/news/story?id=5085789

[nighthob]

I'm assuming it's his way of warning the owners that he doesn't want a return to the gory years of 2006 & 2007.

[CaptChris]

Doc would be smart if he left. Can you imagine having Rasheed for the next 2 years. UGLY!

[hurdler]

The fuse is lit.... He was a young coach of the year, and still young when he won his championship. We are going down hill as a team. If he leaves, he works the teleprompter for a year or 2 while guiding his kids thru their senior year decisions. He will be on the upper echelon of coaching choices. A career move for him.

If they go ultra cheap this summer and next, they might squeeze under the luxury tax, get good draft picks in 2011 and 2012, and have tons of space for 2012. Doc can avoid and/or initiate rebuilding.

[nighthob]

They won't be getting good draft picks in 2011 & 2012. They'll be getting mid first round picks, which means gambling on high risk/high reward players that rarely pan out quickly.

[texascelticsfan]

Especially in a system that rarely develops young players.

[nighthob]

Especially in a system that rarely develops young players.

It's tough to "develop young players" without top 5 picks. Boston's batting average is considerably higher than the mean given their draft positions.

[texascelticsfan]

Thats B.S., look at the Rockets playing without their #1 pick. How many of those guys were top 5 picks?

Their batting average post-Glen Davis sucks.

[nighthob]

They've had one first round pick post-Glen Davis, a not-terribly-talented guy named JR Giddens, who'll be out of the NBA soon. Their only other picks were a Turkish center with the last pick of the 2008 draft (and if they ever get a minute from someone like that they've done well), a balky kneed swingman drafted with the 47th pick (Billy Walker), and then Lester Hudson, the 58th pick last year. If Boston's owners hadn't cheaped out last year, and allowed Danny to buy some picks in a deep draft pool, Boston might have done better (for example, Ty Lawson and Rodrigue Beaubois were drafted with purchased picks last year). But it's purely an artificial distinction to claim that they're terrible at "young player development" for failing to develop late second round picks. Those players pan out about as often as the lottery.

If you look at the actual draft picks made for the totality of the Rivers/Ainge years, Boston's done pretty well given that they sold their only lottery picks over the course of the run. Gerald Green was a bust, but he's out of the NBA completely, so you can't blame Boston for Green's inability to grasp the concepts of NBA offense and defense, that's on him. Pruitt couldn't provide the aggression needed to be an NBA combo guard, but he hasn't been able to hook on elsewhere, either. If he really was a hidden gem, he'd've succeeded somewhere else. Aside from that the rest of their top 40 draftees are still playing at various levels of quality in the NBA. Hell, they even have guys from the bottom of the barrel still playing in the NBA (Gomes & Powe were both picked in the latter stages of the second round).

Now, if the owners don't cheap out again this year, Boston has a chance to take a gamble on some high risk/high reward players in the top 40 (see my thread in the draft forum regarding this). But if the owners do cheap out again, you can expect similar results.

[setshot33]

I thought he left three months ago?

[texascelticsfan]

What do you make of Rip? Risk/Reward or Too Old? If they can rid us of Sheed in the process...

[nighthob]

Allegedly George Shinn is going to sell off the Hornets and wants to gut the payroll to increase the sales price. In other words, Chris Paul's available.

[Spleen]

Think of some of the players the Celtics "coulda" have had:

In 2006 we could have had Brandon Roy but did the deal with Portland to get the great PG Sebastian Telfair and Theo "we hardly knew ya" Ratliff. Minny was sold on Foye so we could have had Roy if we just did nothing.

In 2007 we could have had Jeff Green but opted to do the deal to get Ray Allen. It helped us win a championship, but has also contributed to short-changing our future.

In 2008 we took Giddens with the last pick of the first round, but would have been better off if we had taken Mario Chalmers who Minny took and then later dealt the the Heat. We also drafted our future hope, Semeth Erden, yet nobody knows if he will ever play in the NBA, or for that matter if he is any good.

In 2009 we only had a late second rounder and Lester Hudson didn't even last his rookie season.

Big Baby as the 35th pick isn't bad, but at the same time he is only a role player and not a starter on a good team. Gabe Pruitt was taken as the 2nd pick in the 2nd round, but he didn't last.

Are Tony Gaffney and Oliver Lafayette our newest hope for the future? There may be a reason why these guys weren't in the NBA already.

I could be missing something here, but I don't see any particular brilliance in our drafting or development as of late.

[CaptChris]

The dumbest move by Danny is not in what he took, but in what he refuses to even consider. How many young foreign prospects has Danny ignored over the years?

Orien Green over Marcin Gortat -- 7' Rebounder -- I think! Orlando seems to hink he can.

Gabe Pruit over Marc Gasol -- 7'1" Center, who can shoot.

As Billy said. We could have bought both 1st and 2nd round picks if we weren't so cheap. Danny gave us this roster.