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The Ticker
8 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

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8 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

12
9 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

94
10 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

13
13 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

42
13 days ago

Final Grade: Avery Bradley (C+)

In his third year in the league, in which promising players often make brash leaps from benchwarmer to starter, from starter to star, Avery Bradley took a big step back. But his regression might be deceptive. When he returned to the Celtics’ lineup on January the 2nd after two in-season months recovering from offseason shoulder [...]

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The Luxury of Choice

We here at CelticsHub make a lot of predictions.  We predict the winners of games, playoff series, free agent targets, and even final scores.  Sometimes we get it right or close and sometimes we are way off.  This week, however, we all put our rings together and came up with a guy who we felt would be on the other end of David Stern’s, “And with the 25th pick of the 2011 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics select…”  Man, were we wrong…and then sooo right.

If you read our prediction column last week than you already know how right we were.  The Celtics ended up drafting Marshon Brooks before quickly flipping him to New Jersey for JaJuan Johnson, the actual player the Celtics wanted, and a future second round pick (reflecting back on Thursday night, doesn’t it seem really weaselly to draft the guy they knew NJ wanted and make them give up a future second round pick for him?).

We here at CelticsHub decided on Johnson as well for a number of reasons: he has size, he has skill, he’s polished, he works hard.  Even though our consensus ended up being Johnson, he was pretty much our silver medal.  Brian’s first choice was Reggie Jackson, Hayes wanted Jeremy Tyler, I was banking on Jimmy Butler, and Ryan is Canadian (and the Canucks suck).  Little did we know, Johnson was also the Celtics’ second choice.  After the draft, Doc Rivers and Danny Ainge admitted they had three guys on their draft board: Jackson, Johnson, and Butler.  Oklahoma City took Jackson with the 24th pick and the Celtics were left with drafting Butler or Johnson (notice how Tyler wasn’t even in the running, didn’t get picked until the second round, and then was immediately sold to Golden State for cash.  There’s one guy every year that fans go crazy.  They almost always have physical gifts, precieved talent and potential.  Last year, it was Hassan Whiteside.  This year it was Jeremy Tyler).

With Jackson off the board, the Celtics had to choose between Johnson and Butler.  Time will tell if this was the right choice, but what do you think?  Would you rather have Johnson or Butler? I think there is an easy argument made for either guy.  The Celtics needed size but Johnson may not be able to step in right away.  Butler, on the other hand, is an NBA wing defender and something every team needs now that every team is trying to build themselves as Miami Heat stoppers.  Considering how Jeff Green proved himself unworthy of guarding anyone, I could easily see why the Celtics were interested in Butler.

It really depends on which Celtics’ need will be more easily addressed in free agency and we won’t know that until the new Collective Bargaining Agreement exists.

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