re: Here to eat my crow about Griff

I’ve been listening to the emotional mouth breathers, some of which are still negative because Griff didn’t bat 1000%! You negative Nancy’s forget the best part. We have all this growth potential of the young guys, Zion coming back, and this God damn mother fricking war chest of assets we could flip for an all star or two if we can fit them in the cap! Boooooooooom

Also Kemba, Hayward, IT, and Irving didn’t work out for him either. He got Smart, Brown, and Tatum with picks 6, 3, and 3. Luck plays a big role in every GMs job. It’s why Dumars looked like a genius when he put together the pistons fab 5 but failed miserably after that era.

Watching the 4th quarter made me think Griff deserves executive of the year this season. It showed all his moves this year leading to the breakthrough:

Willie
CJ
Herb
Jonas
Jose
Trey
Nance

He also deserves credit for getting the Lakers pick, with the way he structured the Anthony Davis trade to get draft picks in later years when the Lakers more likely would be in decline. There's luck involved but he positioned us well to reap.

You can ding him on Graham, but would we have made it to where we are if we didn't have Graham before getting CJ and before Jose ramping up to where he is now? All the moves as a totality got us here. I also think he could have managed the Zion situation better PR wise, but that's a sticky situation (with the stepdad) that would have been difficult for most to handle.

All in all, Griff hit on nearly every part of a massive remake of this team this season. That's remarkable.

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does that mean Ainge was a bad GM?

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I mean, I think he is somewhat overrated post the big 3 move and subsequent trade, yes. At least when you hear people talk about him as a top 5 GM during his post KG/Pierce/Allen Boston days. When other than Griff, I struggle to think of a team with a better starting position to rebuild, and he had a big market to work from to go with it….and the result has been meh. Just a ton of squandered opportunities and questionable decisions for a franchise that at one time it was just assumed was gonna dominate for a decade or more due to their draft capital and early finds.

I know this is a Griff thread, but you have to give alot of the credit to Trajan. Swin too!! I think Trajan does a wonderful job of identifying talent, and he assembled, what I believe, will be the best Gleague team.

Griff actually created that culture he was blabbing about since he got here. After a while I thought he was full of shite, but he did it. I give way more credit to Willie Green than Griff on that front, but hey great hire Griff. Let's have another solid off season (after we frick up every other team in the playoffs and win the ship of course) and fukin RIDE next year

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Griff got lucky that Willie Green turned out to be a great coach.

Griff got lucky that Herb Jones turned out to be one of the top rookies in the draft.

Griff got lucky that Jose Alvarado became the consistent spark off the bench that the team needed.

Griff got lucky that the Lakers sucked and we got their pick, likely at #8.

Griff got lucky that he was able to trade for CJ at the deadline.

It was all just plain luck.

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Both can be true.

I think at this point we all have to give Griff credit. But I also think it would be disingenuous to not think he's had some real luck along the way.

If not, you're saying you expect him to sustain success in picking gems in the 2nd round and undrafted dudes. That's simply not going to happen.

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but part of a GM’s role(which to Griff’s credit he has been masterful at) is understanding cultural fit can be as important to making a team work as talent.

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Well yeah. That's why SVG will always taint his time here...or at least the early portion of his time here.

That choice was just an abortion that makes no sense and almost destroyed the whole team from the inside like insidious rot.

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And Kyrie was always going to be a baggage player for them

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But the word is he told them he was fine in Boston (after every other star said "not no but frick no") and then flipped. They literally had to roll the dice b/c NBA players just hate Boston. Remember how AD/Klutch had to basically telegraph that he'd possibly sit out if traded there? Boston is only a slightly better FA destination than Nola and the population difference is irrelevant.

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or the Suns did with CP.

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CP3 is a professional. That's the difference. He'd actually have been a great guy to get (I don't know if the salaries would have ever worked post-LA). CP3 soldiered on and elevated a tanking OKC

And the Warriors tried to trade Steph and Klay for CP. And tried to sign Dwight the year he was a FA. And other things along the way that would have prevented them from ultimately signing KD and establishing their dynasty.

Every GM of a good team has a lot of good luck along the way. For anyone to pretend that Griff is unique in that way is being disingenuous.

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But the word is he told them he was fine in Boston (after every other star said "not no but frick no") and then flipped. They literally had to roll the dice b/c NBA players just hate Boston. Remember how AD/Klutch had to basically telegraph that he'd possibly sit out if traded there? Boston is only a slightly better FA destination than Nola and the population difference is irrelevant.

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Again, that’s overstating things quite a bit. AD told 29 teams not to trade for him, not just Boston, and Boston has not had a ton of difficulty getting free agents or willing players in trades: Horford, Bradley, Turner, Crowder, Marcus Morris, Gordon Hayward, and through the years ended up doing alright in the buy out market, which is a good barometer of how vets see your franchise.

Are they a glamour market? No, but the Celtics aren’t exactly a franchise that struggles to get callbacks from free agents or has difficulty getting players to buy in playing there. If Griff is sitting in Boston this past off-season instead of New Orleans, I don’t exactly think he literally strikes out on all his bats(for good or worse).