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.
4. Boston Celtics (82.7)
Key young players: Jared Sullinger, Kelly Olynyk, R.J. Hunter, Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder, Terry Rozier
Everybody is waiting on the Celtics to acquire or develop their next superstar, but in the meantime Danny Ainge has put together one of the deepest rosters of young talent in the league. The talent pool in Boston was made even deeper this summer with the additions of Rozier, Hunter and Jordan Mickey through the draft, and the recent acquisition of Perry Jones III via the trade market. Is there a star here? Can the crafty Ainge parlay this group into his next big three? At least he has given the Celtics plenty to work with.
Boom! The Celtics have the 4th best young core in the league. That’s how you rebuild!!
The Bucks, Pelicans and Jazz make up the top 3. The Celtics are followed by Philly, Portland, Charlotte, Toronto, Orlando and Detroit.
Hmm, there’s some odd placement (Philly, Charlotte) in that top 10. What’s the metric for this ranking system?
Today we’re ranking the top young cores across the league using projected three-year WARP. The error bars on these kinds of forecasts are large by nature. For one thing, young players are inherently more difficult to project than veterans. And once you get beyond the coming season, the picture changes in ways that even the best projection model can’t foresee.
WARP stands for Wins Above Replacement Player and it evaluates players in the context of a team made up of them and four completely average players. Before you doze off, just know that the analytics geeks put a lot of stock into these numbers. Nerd support aside, I find it hard to get excited about a system when the author cites a large error bar right off the bat.
Aside from the inclusion of Philly and Charlotte in the top 10, there’s one gigantic reason why this system fails miserably. It’s because the Minnesota Wolves are 12th. The team with Andrew Wiggins and Karl Anthony Towns is 12th!!
I’m sorry, but aside from Anthony Davis, there isn’t a player or combination of players any GM wouldn’t include in a deal for Wiggins or Towns.
On Page 2, league scouts dish on the Celtics draft picks.
Our annual check on scouts’ opinions of Celtics drafts has generally been quite kind, but many of the league’s talent evaluators are not exactly sold on first-round picks Terry Rozier and R.J. Hunter.
Told that the reviews for his work were not entirely kind, president of basketball operations Danny Ainge shot back, “You’re talking to the wrong people.”
On the other hand, second-rounder Jordan Mickey was drawing praise even before showing his talents at summer league.
Said one personnel man: “He’s going to be so good, he’ll make people forget about the guys they took in the first round. We talked about taking Mickey in the first round, and then we tried to buy a pick early in the second round to get him. But I don’t know about Boston’s first-round guys.”
After an impressive Summer League performance was rewarded with the richest contract ever given to a 2nd round drift pick, the Mickey hype train is gaining steam.
I’m no scout, but Rozier and Hunter exceeded my expectations. You always have to take opinions from scouts and personnel guys with a grain of salt. You don’t know who you are talking to… the guy who insisted the Bulls take Jimmy Butler at #30 or the guy who wanted Fab Melo at #21 (oops).
Steve Bulpett also has a few nuggets about the Celtics being Kevin Love’s 2nd option.
The rest of the links
CSNNE – Summer League scouting report |
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