The Weekend Greenie Bag: Is It Time To Shut Down Kyrie?

With a few hours to kill before the Celts tip off, and depending on when you’re reading this there may not be college basketball on, what better time to check in with the stoolies to see what’s on their mind in regards to our beloved Celtics. As you can imagine, given the current state of this team there were a lot of questions about health and what it could mean for their future. Just so you know you too can be a part of this weekly mailbag by just tweeting me with whatever pops in your head with #GreenieBag or you can email greenieceltsbag@gmail.com. It’s that simple.

With that said, your questions…

Greenie,

I’m embracing my sorrow over all the injuries and Toronto’s irritating as shit hot streak. So I figure while I’m in this place its best to just rip the bandaid and be miserable. In your opinion, who will we NOT see on this team next year (be it trade or RFA)? I’ve avoided thinking about it all season and tried to just live in the now, but with what feels like the entire team out injured I might as well just give up and begin to face some hard truths about next season. And keep doing what your doing, you and Yabu are the heroes we need! #Freegreenie – Ashley

First things Ashley, take a deep breath. We are a long ways away from just giving up on this team and this season just because some guys are injured. There’s still an entire second season to play in just about a month. But you do ask a good question in that the Celtics will have some tough calls to make on a couple of players. Guys like Marcus Smart, Aron Baynes, Greg Monroe, and Shane Larkin are all set to be free agents after this year. Given that the Celtics will probably have to reserve a hefty sum to match a Marcus Smart offer, chances are you won’t see all three of those other guys back. If I were to bet, I imagine the Celtics would go with Monroe over Baynes, especially if Moose has a good playoff run. He’s four years younger and while not nearly the defender, probably makes more sense.

You also can’t count Danny out for not looking around about Morris. He’ll be an expiring $5M in salary next year, just the kind of salary you could include in any sort of deal.

I dunno….you tell me?

That’s what I thought.

Since the popular opinion is the Celtics can’t win it all this season without Hayward and because of all the young guys, do you consider shutting Irving down for the season to get knee surgery and jump start that process ASAP? – Justin

An interesting question considering we learned tonight that Kyrie is still out and missing the NO game so you honestly have to start considering it. I think a lot of it will depend on what TOR and CLE do. If TOR drops a couple and suddenly you have a shot at the #1 seed and CLE stays in the 3 spot like they are now, I don’t think you shut him down. You try and snag that top spot.

If TOR keeps their current level of play up and there’s no chance of catching them, then yeah I’d pull a GS and just keep making up injuries until we get to the playoffs. It’s almost impossible for the Celtics to drop to the 3 seed, even without Irving, so given that situation I’d prefer him rested and healthy.

The whole thing does make me a little nervous. So does Ainge saying they already knew and were expecting him to get surgery at some point. He’s about to get a $35M+ extension pretty soon and the last thing we need is for him to have chronic knee issues already.

This summer Marcus Smart will be a free agent and Terry Rozier will have one year left on his deal. The Celtics are tight on cap space so I’m wondering if it’s a possibility to sign both to new deals? Be a real shame to see either guy leave. Hoping to see them in green and white for a long time. – Jack

That’s the beauty of Bird Rights and having owners who are committed to spending over the cap Jack. It all comes down to ownership. If they feel like keeping this group together (plus Hayward) shows to be a legit contender, they’ll spend to keep it in tact. They’ve already shown us their willingness to do this during the Big 3 era. Trust me, Wyc has no problem paying for his championship.

I honestly hope it happens but you have to question if guys are going to want more for their careers. I can’t imagine Rozier is going to want to come off the bench forever, especially if he reaches RFA and a team wants to pay him like a starter. It’ll be interesting to see if Ainge works out an early extension with him, something he basically NEVER does. But he does love Terry like a son so you never know.

This is a dangerous question because on the surface I do agree, MIL would probably be my choice. At the same time that seems crazy because they have the best player in the series in terms of talent. I totally understand being somewhat hesitant to go against Giannis and then next thing you know he’s dropping 33/12/8 on you with ease while he takes a leap into superstardom. Sadly I don’y think PHI drops enough so this is most likely in the Celtics future.

While we don’t know what the health situations will be if they do match up, if fully healthy I’d say the Celts win that series in 6.

Hi Greenie,

Don’t get me wrong I love what Harford’s game and what he stand for. But thinking long term the money can be used to resign multiple players (Larkin, Theis, Smart, Moris, Monroe) and may still have money left to help resign Irving (if he opts out). Possibly sign Isaiah Thomas (even though he said he is no 6th man)??

I realize and appreciate Harford’s significance in where Celtics are at this point.

I have seen enough of Theis and Morris to think the combination of the two would help fill most of the void Hardford would leave for fraction of cost. – Sujan

Nope. Not doing it. Not on Sunday, the day of rest. Nice try Sujan.

I sure as shit do. Here are the areas I’d like to see him improve

1.) Ball control in traffic
2.) Finishing at the rim
3.) Ball handling

Now remember when we see Tatum next season he’ll also be dealing with Hayward in the rotation, so who knows what his production/playing time will look like. Personally I’d like to see Brad go with my 2K lineup which is Kyrie/Jaylen/Hayward/Tatum/Horford. It wouldn’t shock me if his overall numbers were similar to what we have this season, but his improvement comes in areas. Like we won’t have to pull our hair out every time he puts the ball down and goes into the paint, only to have it stripped. I’m ready for that change.

I also expect another jump from Jaylen as well. We saw what it looked like going from a rookie to basically the 2nd option. In the NBA it’s the 3rd year you really expect to see the serious jump, so this is a big summer for Jaylen as well.

Think the Celtics are having second thoughts about parting ways with Eddie Lacerte this year? – Ben

I’m not so sure Hayward landing wrong, or Kyrie’s knee acting up, or Smart tearing his thumb diving for a loose ball, or Jaylen landing on his neck really has anything to do with who their head trainer is I’m sorry to say. These are just freak things that happened, and what makes it weird is that they’ve all happened to the same team.

But I do think Ainge was something like 13% mad he couldn’t force his training staff/doctors to clear Smart like they did Isaiah.

Don’t ask me how to figure it out, but I think it would be really cool if the last like 20 games of the season the NBA took all the teams currently in the lottery and based their lottery odds on how they finished. So it’s not a situation where the best team gets the 1st pick, just the best odds. Lottery cheating can still happen like it normally does, but I think that would prevent tanking to some degree.

Now where this gets tricky and pretty much kills the idea is a playoff race like we’re currently seeing. Take UTA for example, they won like 18 of 20 games and didn’t move out of 10th. Should that team get the best lottery odds? I guess why not, and then you’d be going with the idea that if a team is going between 8/9 seeds over the final 20 games then the team that misses the playoffs but played well could be in play for a high lottery pick. Would that encourage more teams to fight for that 8th spot even if it meant getting swept by GS/HOU? Maybe.

I’m not sure if that even made sense, but that’s what I’d do.

And that’s it! Thanks as always to everyone who wrote in, see you all next weekend.

Have a great rest of your lazy Sunday