Boston Celtics Media Days

[Conroy]

GM ROY:22...It has recently been brought to my attention it has been 22 years since our last championship. Over 2 decades, it's been about a decade since our last finals appearance. That's way too long, unfortunately it's still going to be a while before we get back to being competitive but we made the difficult decision to enter a rebuild. We had a promising start with the rebuild around John Wall, but a lackadaisical approach from us squandered any possibility of building on that start. We traded John Wall to give us as many chances as possible at the top pick in the draft, Wilmer Pak who has officially filed paperwork to change his name to Karl-Anthony Towns. The pick we traded for ended up being 4th, but the net result made our pick become the #1 pick. We also picked up our PG of the future in Elfrid Payton and a future pick as part of the Wall trade. With the #4 pick we got the second guy on our board David Roddy, now known as D'Angelo Russell, which tells me one of two things maybe the luck of the Irish is returning to us, or our scouting department is not good. We selected Jason Fisher with the mid first round pick and plan for him to grow into a sharp shooting role. We basically sat out free agency because we want to give these young guys as much run as possible.

Training Camp rolled around and these young guys showed how serious they are taking this rebuild. They want to be the ones that get this franchise back on top. I think we had the highest overall improvement, and it was spread out even 30 year old CJ Miles only lost 4 overall points trying to prove he can keep up with these young guns. KAT had the best camp and as long as he continues to improve on his conditioning we have a lot of faith he can become a force in this league. Elfrid Payton improved across the board and really brings what we like in a PG, pass first, play great defense and put the offense in good spots. D'Angelo Russell, McCall, Faried, Arruda all had great camps. Faried is now a b/b, in his prime, rebounding machine. We know TC can be a crapshoot with so many young guys so it was a giant relief to see it come out great for us.

As far as lineups go we will probably experiment quite a bit, but I believe try to start out somewhat traditional with:
PG: Elfrid Payton
SG: Melvin McCall
SF: Kenneth Faried
PF: Chris Arruda
C: Karl-Anthony Towns

with D'Angelo Russell being the first player off the bench. The plan will be for KAT to eventually move to the PF position, and he'll get some time there, but I wouldn't be surprised for us to completely forgo rebounding and trot out some small-ball lineups that gets Payton-McCall-Russell-Towns all out there on the court together.

[garbageman]

Pretty even scoring from your team across the board in preseason...who are you going to be looking to as the focal points of your offense this year?

[JNR]

GWR: Are you planning on keeping Fareid for mentor purposes or are you trying to unload his contract for future assets?

[ballsohard]

The Knicks have Jokic, The 76ers have Simmons, the Nets have Pedroza, and now you have KAT. Talk about the bigs in the Atlantic in terms of a build and coaching perspective to compete in the Division. Which do you think has the highest upside?

[Conroy]

Pretty even scoring from your team across the board in preseason...who are you going to be looking to as the focal points of your offense this year?

Towns, Russell, and McCall will all get turns at being the focal point of the offense, and from there it will just be whoever performs the best. I'm hoping that is Towns, but we didn't get to see much of him in the preseason. James Hill and Chris Arruda are offensive focused players too, if they get the mins they'll chuck it.

[false9]

You just acquired Sherwood Winger from the Magic. What are your plans for this gentle giant?

[IamQuailman]

Your team seems to be filling out very nicely. How many more seasons of a rebuild do you imagine before the switch is flipped?

[WigNosy]

Do you expect any contributions from CJ Miles this season?

[digiskunk]

You were able to walk away from the draft with the #1 unanimous overall pick, Karl-Anthony Towns. What kind of statistics do you expect him to put up in his rookie season? Also, how good are his chances of winning the Rookie of the Year from your perspective?

[78#]

Do you feel KAT's height will limit him as a center long-term? Also, who do you see as your SG long-term? McCall or Russell?

[Conroy]

GWR: Are you planning on keeping Fareid for mentor purposes or are you trying to unload his contract for future assets?

Faried has been THE leader in the locker room. He has come in and improved over 80 points in TC the last two years. He's ready to play for a team that will win more than 20 games he's talked about it, we've talked about it. The plan will be to trade him, but the purpose will not be to unload his contract.

[Conroy]

The Knicks have Jokic, The 76ers have Simmons, the Nets have Pedroza, and now you have KAT. Talk about the bigs in the Atlantic in terms of a build and coaching perspective to compete in the Division. Which do you think has the highest upside?

The bigs are great in this division, and it should be a lot of fun to watch as time goes, because only Buddy really plays much defense. In terms of a build and coaching perspective, I've always had an easier time building from the inside out. It's tough to say because some of these guys are still so raw. Simmons probably has the highest upside, and Pedraza is producing the most right now, Jokic seems like he'll become the most "complete" player, and KAT's my guy so I choose him and he's the youngest, I hope he can learn from these guys and look at Pedraza being 6'9 with a great inside game scoring a lot of points, Jokic's passing and jump shot, and once we see Simmons on the court we'll know more about him.

[Conroy]

You just acquired Sherwood Winger from the Magic. What are your plans for this gentle giant?

To campaign in the suggestion box and rule change meetings that I can take away some of his height and quickness and give it to KAT. If that fails, he will see A LOT of time at Center and probably another fun wrinkle in the goofy lineups we'll trot out this season.

[Conroy]

Your team seems to be filling out very nicely. How many more seasons of a rebuild do you imagine before the switch is flipped?

It's hard to say, a key trade here, a unexpected signing there could change plans. But we are looking to the 2019 draft as the last draft class that I want to really scour over. We have 3 1st round draft picks that year and we will probably have endured 3-4 pretty awful seasons in a row at that point. If we are heading into that 2020 draft with hopes of landing another stud in the draft, I will have to say I'll be disappointed in how the rebuild is going.

[Conroy]

Do you expect any contributions from CJ Miles this season?

Not much, he'll get minutes at the SF position. Preseason was pretty ugly, making only 1 3 point shot in 14 attempts. I hope the Boston area gets some charitable contributions from him from that fat paycheck he'll cash every week, but other than that we aren't expecting much from Mr. Miles.

[Xist2Inspire]

Random Reporter: I'd like to hear more about Arruda, who you penciled in as a starter. What's led to him getting this role in his second season?

[Conroy]

You were able to walk away from the draft with the #1 unanimous overall pick, Karl-Anthony Towns. What kind of statistics do you expect him to put up in his rookie season? Also, how good are his chances of winning the Rookie of the Year from your perspective?

It's hard to guage, but he'll be a primary option for weeks at a time. He won't be able to rely on his athleticism and he hasn't quite grown into his game yet, but the opportunity will be there. If he can average 14 ppg and 8 rpg I would consider that a pretty successful season, if that puts him in the running for ROY that will be an added bonus, but I expect some of these rookies to put up pretty good stats on what will be much better teams.