Oh come on. Now you glorify yourself after you get that extra 6 million?! I'd probably buy this shieet if Boston was the one offering 6 million less. Stop this nonsense.
Boston has a lot good going for them, but they still lack the hardest piece to acquire, a top 10 player.
This is very true. Atlanta fans are awful. I used to follow the Hawks closely and it was always like this. Even in the Mike Woodson days where they were improving every year with a fun to watch team full of athletes. It was like a damn library.
Boston deserves him. They built through draft and some small trades. They have a excellent coach and " team first " mentality. Congratulations to them. I hope they get KD also.
LOL Wot???? He wouldve gotten that money here, there or anywhere. He just chose boston. Youre saying if he wouldve came here, he wouldnt have been one? Some fans are so salty about everything.
This is bar none, the second worst contract given by a team this year. 4 yrs $80m for Ryan effing anderson smh.
http://espn.go.com/nba/insider/stor...d-kevin-durant-better-cleveland-cavaliers-nba Boston Celtics with Al Horford and Kevin Durant better than Cleveland Cavaliers? - NBA by Kevin Pelton on 2016-07-21 05:05:05 UTC (original: http://espn.go.com/nba/insider/stor...d-kevin-durant-better-cleveland-cavaliers-nba) The Boston Celtics finally landed the kind of star they've been trying to acquire: Al Horford. Now, they're going to try to pair him with another, even bigger catch: former MVP Kevin Durant. Would Horford and Durant make the Celtics the best team in the East? On Saturday, Horford declared on Twitter that he was signing in Boston. The four-time All-Star will reportedly sign a four-year max contract worth approximately $113 million after the Atlanta Hawks were unwilling to offer a full five-year maximum deal for their unrestricted free agent. But Horford's biggest impact could be on the Celtics recruiting Durant. Boston met with the Oklahoma City Thunder free agent earlier Saturday and can now sell him on the idea of joining Horford, moves the Celtics could make without having to execute any trades to clear the requisite space. So, after surprising the league by winning 48 games last season, how good is Boston now? And how good might the Celtics be with both Horford and Durant? Projecting Boston with Horford While the Celtics' 2014-15 season might have been unexpected in many quarters, their rise was predicted by ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM). Projections based on the multi-year, predictive version of RPM pegged Boston for precisely 48 wins before the season, the second-best forecast in the Eastern Conference. While they did win 48, as predicted, the Celtics didn't finish quite that high because the Toronto Raptors dramatically outperformed their RPM projection. Still, the C's did finish tied for third in the East during the regular season. (Tiebreakers pushed the Celtics down to the fifth playoff seed, where they lost to Horford's Hawks without home-court advantage in the first round.) So now let's take a look at what the preliminary version of those projections say about the 2016-17 Celtics, taking into account only their 13 players currently under contract. Celtics' projected RPM Player MPG OffRPM DefRPM Isaiah Thomas 32 2.4 -1.4 Avery Bradley 33 0.7 -0.2 Jae Crowder 32 1.6 1.8 Al Horford 32 0.4 1.8 Amir Johnson 23 -0.3 1.9 Marcus Smart 28 0.3 0.8 R.J. Hunter 8 -1.2 0.0 Jaylen Brown 15 -2.5 -1.3 Jonas Jerebko 15 -1.1 1.0 Kelly Olynyk 20 1.0 1.3 Terry Rozier 8 -2.1 -1.4 James Young 5 -0.7 -1.1 Jordan Mickey 6 -0.7 0.3 Total 1.9 2.6 RPM sees next year's Celtics as a much more balanced team. In 2015-16, Boston was only league average in offensive rating, but their 2016-17 projection calls for them to score 1.9 more points per 100 possessions than an average team. In fact, just three teams were as good relative to average at both ends last season as the Celtics' projection, all of them in the West: the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs. Overall, RPM pegs Boston for about 53 wins, which would have tied for the league's sixth-best record last season. With the Raptors likely to take a step backward after the best season in franchise history, I'd consider the Celtics the early favorites to finish second in the East behind the Cleveland Cavaliers. Of course, Horford's greatest value probably won't be evident until the playoffs. After all, depth, defense and execution meant Boston was already a good regular-season team. That didn't translate in the playoffs, when the Celtics couldn't find enough capable two-way options to compete against Atlanta after losing Avery Bradley to injury. Most notably, Boston's starting frontcourt of Amir Johnson and Jared Sullinger couldn't defend mobile Hawks counterparts Horford and Paul Millsap. Presumably, Horford takes Sullinger's spot in the starting lineup, upgrading the Celtics' shooting and making them more athletic defensively. Projecting Boston with Horford and Durant While the Celtics were already one of the six teams to secure a meeting with Durant, beating out bigger markets, adding Horford surely strengthens their pitch. One big advantage for Boston over anyone else except the Thunder: the Celtics don't have to trade away any core pieces to clear the necessary cap space to sign both Durant and Horford. All Boston has to do is renounce its free agents and waive Johnson and Jonas Jerebko, whose 2016-17 salaries are non-guaranteed through later this week. (More realistically, the Celtics would probably trade Jerebko and Johnson, and might get something of value in return.) If Durant signs on, that would produce a rotation that looks something like this: Celtics with Durant Player MPG OffRPM DefRPM Isaiah Thomas 32 2.4 -1.4 Avery Bradley 33 0.7 -0.2 Kevin Durant 35 4.1 0.8 Jae Crowder 32 1.6 1.8 Al Horford 32 0.4 1.8 Marcus Smart 28 0.3 0.8 R.J. Hunter 6 -1.2 0.0 Jaylen Brown 15 -2.5 -1.3 Jordan Mickey 15 -0.7 0.3 Kelly Olynyk 20 1.0 1.3 Terry Rozier 6 -2.1 -1.4 James Young 6 -0.7 -1.1 Total 4.9 2.1 Adding Durant would push the Celtics' offense from good to great. Just two teams -- the Warriors and Durant's Thunder -- were better relative to league average offensively than RPM projects for Boston with Durant and Horford. Altogether, that translates into a projected 58 wins, which actually would have won the East last year. Cleveland finished with just 57 wins, though a healthy Kyrie Irving and the presence of another legit challenger would probably push the Cavaliers to a stronger regular season in 2016-17. The Celtics with Durant and Horford project slightly better by RPM than the Thunder (with Durant), whose projection after adding Victor Oladipo called for 56 or 57 wins in 2016-17. Moreover, Boston has more avenues for improvement going forward. No matter how good the Celtics get, they've got a chance to pick high in the lottery the next two seasons thanks to a 2017 pick swap with the Brooklyn Nets and holding the Nets' 2018 first-round pick outright. Boston also has its core players locked up, while Oklahoma City star Russell Westbrook can become an unrestricted free agent next summer. None of the Celtics' rotation players can become an unrestricted free agent until after the 2017-18 season, when Avery Bradley and Isaiah Thomas are due to become free agents. Last week, I projected how the teams in the Durant hunt might perform with him over the next three seasons. Adding Horford doesn't dramatically improve Boston's projection, which already called for 60-plus wins in 2017-18 and 2018-19. But it does solidify the Celtics as the team with the best long-term outlook with Durant aside from the Golden State Warriors. Among the other teams, only Boston can expect to keep getting better in subsequent seasons after adding Durant. Our evaluation of the Horford signing shouldn't hinge on whether Durant joins him in Celtics' green. Either way, adding Horford is a coup for Boston and a big step forward in the team's long-term plan -- they add a player who helps now and might attract other players later. And the Celtics have a chance to reach the Eastern Conference finals with or without Durant. But if Durant joins up, it would turn Horford's signing from one that shifts the team's fortunes to one that shifts the entire league, with Boston a serious contender to win its 18th championship banner and then some.
I'm guessing this was brought up, but if not.. I remember reading a while back that it was believed horford wanted to go somewhere with larger Dominican population, FWIW.
I could have lived without knowing that in lieu of never having to see this thread ever again. Just saying
