Time to blow up the Celtics?

It's been a great run these past few years.  A title in 2008, another Finals appearance where they came within minutes of winning it all again in 2010 and the pleasure of watching a trio of future Hall of Famers on the court together.  It's been an amazing ride.  Yet all good things must eventually come to an end.

The Celtics have come to that end.

Boston enters the All-Star break at the halfway point of the season with a disappointing 15-17 record that has dropped them to the 8th seed in the playoff race.  Injuries have ravaged the team, but given the age of the players on this roster, there's little reason to expect that won't continue.  We knew that coming into the season.  We knew that the condensed schedule of a lockout shortened season would be brutal for a veteran team, but we didn't expect things to be this bad.

Right now we are realistically looking at a 7 or 8 seed in the playoffs, which sets us up for an ugly first round exit against Miami or Chicago.  Best case scenario appears to be stringing together enough wins to leap to the 6th seed, which gives us a chance to at least make it out of the first round.  Another semi-final exit against one of the East's elite teams is a likely outcome though.

You can make the argument that if they can manage to be healthy enough come playoff time, the leadership and experience of their veterans will carry them in the postseason and at the very least, make them a tough out with a puncher's chance at making a surprise title run.  After all, nobody gave an aging squad like Dallas much of a chance last year and look how that turned out.  The Celtics still play championship level defense, ranking third in Defensive Efficiency, Opponents Scoring and Opponents FG%.  The problem is, they're too inconsistent on offense.  Their point guard is too often afraid to attack the rim for fear of being fouled and he lacks a jump shot worthy of keeping defenders honest, while the rest of their key players have essentially become jump shooters.  If the shots are falling, they can get hot and compete with anyone, but it's not an efficient way to run an offense (23rd in Offensive Efficiency).  They also turn the ball over far too much (28th in turnover rate) and are a poor rebounding team because most of their players play so far away from the basket (25th in Rebound Rate).

Break it all down and this is not a contending team.  Recent seasons have proved that picking up spare parts off the scrap heap late in the season have little chance of having a positive impact, while the team is too far over the cap to make substantial upgrades.  So where does that leave them?  At the moment it appears the Celtics are doomed to end up in perhaps the worst possible position for an NBA team - no man's land.  They're just good enough to cling to a lower seeded playoff spot in a top heavy Eastern Conference, which takes them out of the draft lottery while leaving them with little chance of being a title contender.  For a team that will be forced to rebuild after this season anyway, one and done in the playoffs with a mediocre draft pick is the worst case scenario.

The last time this franchise had a Big Three of future Hall of Famers, they hung on to them until they were far past their prime.  Danny Ainge was a part of that team and has made it clear that he believes it was a mistake to keep the core of that team together after it was clear their title window had closed when they could have gotten value for their aging star players.  Now that he's in the GM position, don't expect Ainge to be shy about shaking things up if he has the opportunity to improve the team in the long run.

This Celtics team needs to be honest with itself and determine if they really think they have a shot at making a postseason run.  If not, then they shouldn't wait until after the season to blow things up.  They have a lot of expiring contracts, including players like Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett that could help another team looking to make a playoff run.  They are likely to lose those players after the season anyway, so they might as well get something for them now if they can.  Losing those players will weaken the team in the short term, but that will increase their chances of getting a better draft pick to select a young player to help their rebuilding process.  Given the number of terrible teams below them, it'd be impossible to bottom out completely, but with a little lottery luck, missing the playoffs could get them a top 10 draft pick in what is expected to be a talented and deep draft.

Of course it only makes sense to blow things up if they can get some value in return.  So our next step has to be finding a realistic landing spot for the veterans the Celtics would look to ship out.  Here are a few ideas.

Boston sends Ray Allen to the LA Clippers for Mo Williams, Eric Bledsoe, and a future 1st round draft pick
Ray's sweet shooting stroke would be a perfect fit for the Clippers needs and could be just the piece to put them over the top and cement their place as one of the best in the West.  He's also on an expiring contract, so they free up cap space to add additional pieces for next year and could even bring back Allen at a reduced rate.

The Celtics get a combo guard in Williams that is capable scoring in bunches, plus a solid young player that should develop into a good back up point guard in Bledsoe.  Boston already owns the Clippers draft pick this year, and since you can't trade your pick two years in a row, the earliest they could receive another pick from LA would be 2014.

Boston sends Kevin Garnett to Dallas for Shawn Marion, Lamar Odom,  and a future 1st round draft pick
Dallas would likely take this deal in a second.  They are desperate to trade Marion's contract for an expiring one because it would give them enough cap space to make a run this summer at both Dwight Howard and Derron Williams.  KG essentially replaces Odom's current role as the first big off the bench and would help keep them a very good defensive team in the short term.

Odom's contract is expiring, so Boston only takes on the two extra years of Marion's contract.  It expires in 2014, the same time as Pierce's contract.  In the short term, he provides a versatile player that can score and defend multiple positions.  Considering how badly Dallas wants to unload Marion to get cap space for this summer, Boston could probably squeeze a non-lottery pick or perhaps a young player like Roddy Beaubois out of them as well to add to their assets.

Boston sends Rajon Rondo and Jermaine O'Neal to LA Lakers
LA Lakers send Pau Gasol to Houston
Houston sends Kyle Lowry, Louis Scola and Chase Budinger to Boston
The Lakers have the worst point guard tandem in the league and are in dire need of an upgrade at that spot if they intend to compete in the remaining year's of Kobe's prime.  Sure, they'd like to get Dwight Howard, but trading for D12 would likely cost them both Gasol and Bynum.  Instead of upgrading in an area that is already one of their biggest strengths, they should fix their biggest weakness.

The Rockets have been looking to deal some of their depth to acquire a star and have long had their eye on Gasol.  The pieces they give up here are similar to the package they were ready to give to acquire Gasol earlier this year in the three way trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers until the league stepped in to squash the deal. 

As talented as Rondo is, he has his flaws (with his game and attitude) that have many in Boston questioning if he's the right player to lead the next generation of this franchise.  If the right deal comes along then Ainge will not hesitate to pull the trigger (as shown by his desire to use Rondo in a potential trade for Chris Paul before this season).   This deal would give them another young point guard enjoying a break out season and looks to be a future All-Star.  Scola is having a down year, but has picked it up a bit lately and has shown his value the past couple of years.  His contacts isn't great, but not crippling either ($8.6 million this year, with three years left after this).  Budinger is a young prospect that has looked good in limited minutes.

If Boston pulled off all three of these trades, they would end up with a roster that looks like this: Lowry, Williams, Pierce, Marion and Scola in the starting rotation.  Odom, Bass, Bledsoe, and Budinger would come off the bench, along with their current group of youngsters (Bradley, Johnson, Moore, Steimsma).  They can keep a couple of their remaining guys that are on expiring contracts and cut or trade the others for late draft picks and/or trade exceptions (Wilcox, Pietrus, Daniels, Pavlovic) so they can keep the roster at no more than 15 players.  That roster may be even better than what they have now and certainly sets them up better for the future.  They also could potentially have as many as 3 first round draft picks (their own, Clippers, and Mavs), in addition to another future pick from the Clippers.  That could help them reload with more young talent or give them enough assets to pull off another trade (move up in the draft or bring in a veteran). 


Granted these trades would eat up the cap space Boston has lined up for this summer (they would still be over the salary cap next year, but well under the luxury tax), but realistically they don't have much chance of luring an elite free agent like Dwight Howard or Derron Williams anyway.  The top free agents want big markets, warm weather and tax free states.  Boston doesn't have any of those perks.  If they can't snag an elite player in free agency, then a bevy of cap room only opens up the option to overpay for one of the restricted free agents or a mid-level type player.  That's not an ideal way to rebuild. 

Paul Pierce is the team's only other potential trade chip that could bring back anything of value, but the combination of his age (34) and contract (over $15 million in each of the next 2 seasons after this one) will prevent teams from lining up to acquire him.  Plus, is there any true Celtics fan that wouldn't like to see "The Truth" end his career in Celtics green?  If his production really falls off a cliff in the next couple years they can still use the amnesty clause to cut him for cap room or trade his expiring contract in a couple years, but it's unlikely that they'll get enough value in return for him now to make it worth trading him away.  He means more to this team than he would to any other.

The trade deadline isn't until March 15th, so there's still time to consider all options.  The only thing that should not be an option is standing pat.  The Celtics need to make some moves.  If they find some extra pieces that they can bring in to help this current core compete then great.  Maybe they do have one last run in them, but finding those pieces at this point seems like a long shot.  If they can't improve this season then the alternative has to be doing the right thing for the future of the franchise.  Sometimes to do what's best for the long run you have to sacrifice in the short term.  Otherwise you end up stuck in the middle, in NBA purgatory.