Your Morning Dump... Where tortoise beats hare?

Danny Ainge takes another call about the Brooklyn pick swap

Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

Here’s an unpopular opinion: The Celtics should exercise the same sort of restraint they did in their pursuit of Horford and maximize that asset stash in order to ensure a sustained run as a title contender.

Next year’s free-agent class figures to be flush with top-level talent. Westbrook, Griffin, Steph Curry and Chris Paul headline the 2017 list. Familiar names Gordon Hayward, Danilo Gallinari and Paul Millsap sit right below the top tier. One summer after getting a chance to pitch to one of the league’s biggest stars in Durant, the Celtics would be armed with enough cap space to again pursue a superstar on the open market.

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What’s more, Boston owns the rights to swap picks with the Brooklyn Nets in the 2017 draft (and owns their top pick outright in 2018). With the Nets projected to occupy the basement of the league, the Celtics would be in position to add a player from a draft that already is being hyped as transcendent at the top.

ESPN Boston

After yet another Barmecide feast of rumors and suspiciously vague and suspiciously detailed ‘scoops’, Thursday ended with, as far as I know, every single player in the NBA on the same team that he started out on.

If your life is somehow validated by getting retweeted, the thing to do, apparently, is to post something you know is incorrect, in such a way as admits no possible contradiction, and then sit back and watch people who want to believe in it retweet you.

At any rate, Chris Forsberg is the voice of reason in the article above. The Celtics have flexibility; they do not need a mammoth trade to get to the top of the pile. If they stand pat this season, they could end next season with 50+ wins, a top ten draft pick and enough cap space to sign another max salary free agent.

If you think that situation isn’t the envy of 27 other front offices, then you probably stopped reading this post somewhere in that previous paragraph.

Page 2: Where Chase Budinger might be the Celtics’ second big free agent signing this summer!

SMall bit of @celtics news … Still looking for shooters, source said they reached out to free-agent Chase Budinger.

— Sean Deveney (@SeanDeveney) July 14, 2016

Brad Stevens has been a coach for all of three years, but that’s long enough to say that Budinger might be a player that would benefit from playing for Brad. What formerly well-regarded (Budinger was co-McDonalds All-American MVP in 2006 with Kevin Durant) latterly dismissed player hasn’t thrived in Boston over the last few years? If you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, Boston is the place for you. Been scapegoated because you got stuck in a bad situation? Come to Boston where you’ll get treated like a human being and set up for success instead of failure.

Finally:

Someone decided that it would be a good idea to kill as many of his fellow humans as possible yesterday. Again.

Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. —Jon Donne

Because we are capable of such extraordinary cruelty, please choose to be kind.