Finding and securing those unrecognized, underutilized, or overlooked jewels is the El Dorado for every general manager. Opportunities include injuries, underutilized players, stifled talents mired behind All-Stars, overseas phenoms, conflicts with coaches or teammates, small school whoa-what-happened-here developments (think Scottie Pippin), and I suppose there will eventually be a 7’7” walk-on from some village two buses and a yak ride from civilization that bartered for a basketball from the nearest basketball-without-borders outpost and hung a mango basket from a banyan tree.
Perhaps the ultimate “stealing a march” ploy was the Larry Bird heist when Red Auerbach drafted Bird before his 5th-year-senior season (draft eligible because his age-group had completed their normal 4-year span while Larry had red-shirted one season after transferring), a feat most unlikely to be repeated in this one-and-done era. The closest thing to a what-the-hey moment from this year’s draft came with Toronto drafting Bruno Cabloclo (he of “two years away from being two years away” fame). Obviously the trick here is to strike gold by marching to the tune of a different drummer rather than plodding in the path of everybody else.
For years it was the draft-and-stash that made late picks a future investment to be cashed in after it had appreciated for several years. Now everyone is doing it (although the Celtics not so much), but long before it became fashionable, San Antonio began feeding their contending squads with foreigners drafted several years earlier. They added these critical pieces to the dynamic duo of Duncan and David Robinson (who was himself an outside-the-box acquisition drafted in spite of his four-year commitment to the Navy upon graduation) and leveraged that into a decade and a half of challenging to play in the last game of the season. In defense of the Ainge-era paucity of draft-and-stash assets--following the Garnett/Allen trades, Danny had both a shortage of picks (depleted in the Allen/Garnett grabs) and a dire need for immediate help during the “short” window of the aging stars.
Paul George’s horrific injury was traumatic for everybody--the players, his teammates, the fans watching, the players across the league, GM’s, and fans everywhere. In every minute of every game (or practice for that matter) disaster looms as the next misstep could destroy the career of these awesome physical specimens. Typically it goes unmentioned, perhaps even unnoticed, but Friday night the elephant in the room finally trumpeted his malevolent presence. But in the dark clouds of doom for one team, the silver lining of opportunity shines brightly for others.
Was Indiana’s plight serendipity for Boston? It shames me that the time lag between “Oh my, poor George!” and “hmmm, opportunity for the Celtics?” was less than a full breath. Still, I have poured over the injury lists for years, looking for something the C’s could leverage. There is a duality of possibilities in that the player’s team may need a replacement that could vault the return on a Celtics’ asset, or could the injured player (who is of no use this year [when Boston has minimal need] but will return next year [when the Celtics can make maximum use of his talents]) be acquired relatively cheaply. I am not at all sure I would favor such a move but with Indiana losing both their standout wings, could Green ($9.2M) and Thornton ($8.6M) for the disabled George ($15.9M, insurance?) work for both teams?
When I am searching for potential trades (as I have been for Danny’s consolidation coup), I not only have open the future obligations websites but also look at the draft-rights-held lists. This summer I kept eyeing the Lucas Nogueira rights held by Atlanta as a nice plum that might be included in a move, alas Toronto was paying attention also. Last year I was eyeballing Ante Tomic whose rights are held by the Utah Jazz who have about a hundred centers (o.k. three, which seemed like a hundred last year when Boston had, well, zero after Faverani went down).
There seems to be a whole new realm of chances emerging from the high school or college suspension/dropout to D-league, or this year to China, an un-natural fallout from the NCAA/NBA/agent/FIBA/rest-of-the-world group grope. One thing you can be sure of, all parties concerned will continue to push the boundaries, more lawyers will get involved, and we average fans will grow ever more estranged from the sport we love (is there anybody that enjoys digging through the War and Peace sized CBA, or even the FAQ?).
One last note about innovative approaches. Writing a new chapter in the draft-and-stash strategy book, the OKC has gotten quite a bit of buzz with the Huestis experiment. He becomes the first 1st round draft pick to be directly designated to the D-league without signing an NBA contract. He was admittedly a stretch for the first round but in an agreement apparently discussed even before the draft, the Thunder offered to take him 29th if he agreed to go directly to the D-league with an implied agreement for an NBA contract in the future. Oklahoma City piloted this approach with other players not drafted in the first round as far back as the 2008-09 season (an interesting read on these earlier moves at http://www.seadubscentral.com/2014/07/25/oklahoma-city-thunder/
where you will see this has been building). An ingenious method to maintain control of the development of players before they reach the 15-man roster, and another step toward a true farm team system.
Only 56 more days until training camp.
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