#smiling so big it's the way jayson wants to put his face on jaylen's back!!!!

[eliottweetsill]

The Daily 30th: Boston Celtics

Mood: Rolling in Bitcoin

Best thing going: Being the other team in the East

Best player: Isaiah Thomas

Worst player: Terry Rozier

1-year core: Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Gordon Hayward, Al Horford

5-year core: Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, a plastic box in Danny Ainge's office labeled “assets,” filled with cut-out paragraph descriptions of the parameters surrounding future draft picks the Celtics have acquired, and also filled with candy so that if all else fails, there's still something in there.

“Today, the basketball gods smiled on the Nets.” Those were Mikhail Prokhorov's words on the day Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were sent to Brooklyn in exchange for three first round picks and an optional pick swap. If the basketball gods did smile on the Nets, it was a wry, knowing smile. The Nets fell to pieces as Garnett's age caught up with him, then Pierce's, and the draft picks Boston acquired turned golden. Danny Ainge absolutely fleeced since-fired Billie King. It was a GM move you make a career out of. Those with riches in the moment will face difficulty later. At the time, the Nets had riches. Now the Celtics do. Are there difficulties down the line in Beantown? Actually, yeah.

Gordon Hayward was one of the biggest names secured this summer, just below Paul George and Jimmy Butler. Hayward was the centerpiece of a fledgling Jazz team that had just gotten its wings and flown into the second round of the playoffs. Hayward joins Isaiah Thomas and Al Horford in Boston where they're looking to turn a No. 1 seed into a team capable of actually challenging LeBron James and the Cavaliers. To help with a thin front line, the C's brought in Aron Baynes and Marcus Morris. That would be more of a problem if the center position wasn't going extinct in the NBA. A lineup of Isaiah Thomas, Gordon Hayward, Jae Crowder, Marcus Morris, and Al Horford is always there if the Celtics want to play safe. You could get a lot further, though, throwing Jaylen Brown into the mix and going small by putting Morris on the bench where he belongs. For young players, lineups featuring Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum will show just what the Celtics are building.

Here's the problem for Boston right now: Do they have the capacity to build a team for now and a team for the future at the same time? That's what they're trying to do. They're going full tank rebuild, only they've managed to get Brooklyn to do the losing for them. Meanwhile, they've manufactured a team to contend for a conference championship. Is their insistence on fighting the war on two fronts — the future and the present — going to make this fortuitous transactional run all for naught? Quite possibly!

Ainge's reputation will sour greatly in the next decade if Boston fails to turn their bountiful chest of assets into a ring. Is Isaiah Thomas, Gordon Hayward, Al Horford a big three powerful enough to beat the Cavaliers? No. The Warriors? Hell no. If injuries clear a path, the Celtics could become a beatable favorite. The league isn't likely to be fooled again into taking on aging players like Thomas or Horford (in a couple years) to restock the cupboard for the future. So, Tatum, Brown, and next year's Brooklyn first rounder (which should not be as great as the previous couple) are going to have to turn into a championship core. Ainge deserves credit for playing the long game so effectively, but Jimmy Butler could be a Celtic. Paul George could be a Celtic. Markelle Fultz could be a Celtic. Guys like Horford, Hayward, and Tatum represent a modest, almost small-market approach to team-building. Paul George and Jimmy Butler are stars. Markelle Fultz seems poised to be a star. Gordon Hayward is a great player. Jayson Tatum has a lot of potential but projects as a good-to-great player. Yesterday I wrote about the Atlanta Hawks shedding big names and improving by being greater than the sum of their parts. I left out the part that those Hawks were never taken seriously as a threat to LeBron. Until these Celtics show strength beyond what's expected, they shouldn't be taken as a serious threat either.

But hold up. There's really no way they haven't gotten better, right? The Celtics add Hayward, a team-plus guy who averages 22 points, 3.5 assists, and 5 rebounds a game. They've lost several rotation pieces, though: Amir Johnson, Kelly Olynyk, Gerald Green, Jonas Jerebko, Avery Bradley, and Tyler Zeller. It's a credit to Brad Stevens that such players were “rotation pieces” on a No. 1 seed, seeing as how only Bradley and maybe Johnson are good enough to be starting players. Whoever replaces them should be used in a way that fills any gaps left by those who've moved on. Baynes and Morris will need to step right in and play well to provide the front-court tenacity to keep up with some of the larger teams lurking in the lower seeds in the East. Tatum has looked better than projected in summer league, and Brown looks like he's ready to make a significant leap in his second year. Marcus Smart is a prototypical Celtics player and if he continues to improve his scoring, he could be one of their most valuable assets, especially since he brings rugged rebounding from the guard spot. The Celtics right now are wing heavy, and that gives Stevens a lot of speed to play with. That bodes well for Boston, and should prove menacing for opponents.

It's OK if it doesn't happen for Boston this season. It's not really supposed to. The Celtics have, essentially, five first rounders coming their way over the next two offseasons. The quality of those first rounders should lessen, especially since Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Philadelphia all appear to have hit bottom and be on their way back up. A Clippers pick coming their way via the Doc Rivers trade (weird) could diminish in value if the Clippers fall into the lottery for a couple of seasons. Still, the Celtics have plenty of gold to trade still, and haven't cashed in on most of their assets. Should they decide that team-building on two fronts is indeed impossible, they could easily transform into a present or future contender in one summer. If they can't move those picks, and they don't turn into future All-Stars, the Celtics could wind up with one of the biggest misses in NBA history. Playing the asset game halfway (as opposed to going full Process) is a more difficult game than playing the star game. The race between the Celtics, the 76ers, and the Lakers to prosperity is a fascinating case study in team-building. What's the best way to build a winner? Is it by fully welfare-queening your way to top prospects, is it by showcasing a winning tradition while outsmarting other teams, or is it by staying flashy through the down years and boasting your Hollywood extravagance? Or maybe the Warriors will outlast all these efforts and put the league into a decade-long depression. Could be any one.