Jacoby_Ellsbury

Almost my exact thoughts. In most other sports organizations you hire a GM and just let him cook until he proves himself totally incompetent or starts trying to f*** the interns. The Red Sox on the other hand choose their GM based on the direction they want to go in the coming 3 or so years (get under the luxury tax, build the farm while treading water in the majors, go for it) and his strategy or specialty must align with that. Once that directive is out of date, Henry would rather prematurely-slash-proactively just get rid of him and replace him with someone who fits the updated strategy, rather than just keep the other guy on and see if he'll adjust. Like some Microsoft/big tech project where different contractors are brought in/let go depending on what phase of development they're on. Then again I'm pretty out of touch with the team nowadays beyond "they're doing good, they're doing bad, somebody got traded" level knowledge, so I could just be bullshitting.

This team is softer than the 2011 Red Sox. All the principal players except Tatum can go, and I'm right on the edge with Tatum; he's shown that he can really carry with his scoring. I'm hoping he's just in his early-00s Dirk Nowitzki phase where he just needs to mentally toughen up a bit and he'll be good to go once he does. But Smart is past his prime and getting by on reputation, Brown is one of those Ricky Davis/Michael Finley tier guys (i.e. not a star and definitely not a guy you max), obufscated his scoring numbers, which only seem superior because of the higher pace of the game nowadays (Pierce would easily average over 30ppg if his prime occurred today). Robert Williams is damaged goods and probably never getting back to pre-injury form, Grant Williams is a no-skill hockey enforcer in an era where even hockey doesn't have enforcers anymore. It's been six seasons now at pretty much the same level. There's no breakthrough coming without a serious retool.

This aged tremendously.

Out of all the good players to be drafted in the last five years or so, of course the Celtics found the next Carmelo Anthony. (that's not a compliment)

If you listen closely, you can hear the ESPN writer fingering the voodoo doll.

I don't know if I would want Varitek to be the manager. It's not that I think he can't do the job, but he's already a Red Sox legend and fan favorite, and I'd hate to see his legacy get f***ed up if/when his tenure as a manager ends on not-so-good terms.

I have legitimately never seen or heard the phrase "my Senators" before.

Nice clickbait. What is this, Bleacher Report?

The f***ing Clippers get Kawhi Leonard, while LeLoadmanagement gets the corpse of DeMarcus Cousins. Hilarious.

I understand the Celtics not wanting to commit 4 years to Horford at that price tag, but that doesn't change the fact that he was a team leader, an all-around rock solid player, and an anchor for the defense who did things right and never put his success over the team's interests. Losing him hurts. The Celtics have no way of replacing what he would have brought to the table this year and next year.

Kyrie leaving is fine. Losing Horford is really bad in the short term. Giving Kemba Walker $35M a year to fill the IT/Kyrie role is absolutely retarded. That's not a void that needed to be filled, and it does nothing to change the team for the better. All this is going to do is perpetuate the dynamic of the last three years where everyone stands around holding their dicks, waiting for the "all-star" point guard to do something. They could have signed Patrick Beverley, a much more useful player for our current roster, for much less money. Trading out D'Angelo Russell for Kyrie is a lateral move for Brooklyn. Adding Jordan makes them marginally better I guess. Durant will be 32 by the time he's ready to play again, and even with him they don't have a championship caliber team. The Sixers got better, they might be the favorite in the East even if Kawhi stays in Toronto. Losing someone like Butler hurts, but they kept Tobias Harris, and they came out ahead by replacing Butler with Horford and Josh Richardson, two of the better support players in the league.

Meh.

I wouldn't do Hayward for Chris Paul. After last season, Hayward really has nowhere to go but up. Chris Paul is very much on the way down and as a teammate he's not much better than Kyrie. Trading Baynes to Phoenix was stupid. One of our only good defensive players and decent teammates last season, and Danny decides to dump him on the Suns for... what, exactly?

Depends on how you define playoff contender. Contender to make the playoffs and then get stomped by Golden State/Denver/Houston? Yes they were. Contenders to actually win the title or even the conference? Not at all. There's no reason Smart can't be the starting point guard. I can't imagine Rozier stays in green after he went on ESPN and put a bunch of people on blast. Which is fine with me, because Rozier is a shoot-first guard who isn't particularly good at anything besides putting the ball in the hole, and those guys grow on trees. Patrick Beverley would be my number one target for signing another guard (if he has to start over Smart then so be it), but I don't know off-hand what kind of deal he's looking at (he is slightly injury prone) or if the Celtics could swing it (all the NBA databases are in that after-the-season-but-before-free-agency mode where players who clearly won't be back are still counted on their team's roster and cap).

We'll win 50 games next year.