BGleas

Outside of whoever lands Durant, and the Golden State Warriors, the Celtics might be set up better over the next 5-10 years than any team in the league. They have the best young coach in basketball and they have a GM who knows what he's doing (rare in the NBA), and both of these guys have the full support of ownership. Knowing the Celtics ownership, they stick with their coaches and GM's, and don't make knee jerk decisions. Unless something goes terribly wrong, Stevens will be there as long as he wants, they love him.    The Celtics not only have Brooklyn's 1st rounder unprotected this year, they also have 1st rounders from Dallas, Minnesota (protected so they won't get it) and their own. The other kicker is that in 2017 the Celtics have the right to swap 1st round picks with Brooklyn and they also own Brooklyn's 2018 1st rounder. So essentially the Celtics are going to get high lottery picks in each of the next three drafts from Brooklyn. Danny Ainge absolutely undressed Billy King in the Pierce/Garnett trade.    Ainge will do the same thing he did when building the '08 Celtics. He'll either hit the jackpot in the draft (which didn't happen between 06-08, he was hoping for Oden or Durant) or he'll do what he did then and flip those selections or picks into superstars. His entire strategy has always been to accumulate assets to later flip into proven comodities. He said that when he first got to Boston and executed it perfectly by flipping Al Jefferson, Delonte West, Gerald Green and the Randy Foye pick into Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.    With all that said, it doesn't mean I think IU has no shot at Stevens. But the shot they have is mainly based on his personal pull to IU/Indiana in general, how he/his family likes Boston and his feelings between college/NBA. 

If you just remove him, maybe. But if you're saying our record would be worse without Troy, but I get to replace him with a player that actually has an ounce of BBall IQ, I'd argue our record would be better. I don't even mean a superstar, just a basketball player that has IQ, skills, etc. I'd argue our record would be 2-3 games better.

Gordon should have won easily. He had the 2, maybe even 3, best dunks. I thought LaVine's teammates (Townes and Wiggins) on the bench overreacting to his dunks influenced the crowd and then ultimately the judges.

Always.

Agree, the only way to get Iowa to 14-4 is for one of those losses to be us beating them at their house.

I do not want to see Wisconsin in the BTT.

I don't know about being happy about him returning, but if the question was what do I want to see down the stretch? I'd like us to go at least 4-2 over the last six, which I don't think is unreasonable, and I'd like to see us at least make the BTT Championship game.    I think a 24-7 regular season, especially given the start in Maui/@Duke, and finishing top 3 in the Big Ten would be a fairly successful regular season.

That's when the coach tells him not to worry about fouls anymore.

Once you pass the 3-4 minute mark it doesn't really matter anymore.

Why is TB not in?

Horrible shot by Yogi!!!! Where is Bryant?

That's why we need a lead. If this goes down to the wire we won't get good shots.

Everyone was in a zone except Yogi.

Yogi in the wrong defense.

They are going to destroy our 2-3.

This team is in full meltdown mode.

Awful

He's talking about the defensive glass. We gave up several 2nd chance baskets.

I don't either. I guess they feel it's a bit of splash to get a 2-time all-star point guard.    I agree with you on Vic. He's a good player, but on a really good NBA team he's a good role player.   

It is weird, maybe Atlanta figures Schroeder is ready (probably financial pluses to shedding Teague too if structured right), and then they add a young, defensive guard to replace an aging Sefolosha.   

I'm curious whether that's the lineup you would pick, or the lineup you think Crean would go with?

Simmons? Skal isn't even in the same conversation as Bryant, Stone and Swanigan.   

Absolutely agree with you on consistency, that's the huge question with Crean, and it goes beyond game-to-game and is even more about season-to-season, but in this case I'm going to disagree a bit. The Wisconsin and Minnesota games are going to happen over the course of an 18-game conference schedule. Look at Maryland, they've struggled against some of the bottom-feeders too.    My problem would be if we follow up last night and basically cancel it out with a dud at Penn State. That's the game where we find out if Wisconsin/Minny were just the dog days of the conference season, or if consistency is going to be a big issue. We can't blow what happened yesterday by not showing up ready to play Saturday.   

I'm getting greedy, but not a peep on our game on SportsCenter...

Since I gave Yogi a hard time about his D early in the game thread, I have to say now that after that timeout he was phenomenal!    It's also nice to see us putting it on some teams, but not just because we're hot from 3, but because we're playing really good D, attacking the basket, moving the ball, cutting down on turnovers, etc.