Boston Celtics Talent Drain Continues: Luke Kornet Gone Too

Boston Celtics Talent Drain Continues: Luke Kornet Gone Too

It’s a sad day. Sad, sad day. Another member of the Boston Celtics
championship team from just a year ago. Has left for a new team. He’s joining the San Antonio
Spurs on a four year 41 million deal and that’s Luke Kornet. The Celtics have now lost Jrue Holiday,
Kristaps Porzingis, and Luke over the last week or so, and it’s just
looking bad, looking real, real bad. Al Horford could be on his way out A
few days ago, Adam, Adam Himmelsbach reported that Horford was taking
time to Molly’s options and that not to really expect a decision on the
opening day free agency as we saw. That decision didn’t come so
Himmel back was right under money. There’s a chance that Horford could
still decide to stay, but it’s looking weaker and weaker by the day. I’m your boy, Adam Taylor. Welcome to the Taylor Talks
Celtics Show, hosted by the Celtics Chronicle Newsletter. Welcome to Into my homie Compadre
co-hosted Crime, Mr. Billy Calabrese. What’s popping, Billy? The tank is on. It’s looking so ugly. It’s making me so, so sad. Ah, man. Uh, we knew it could get, we’re
gonna know like immediately what Brad’s move, what was it, it was
gonna be, what, basically what his plan was and letting these guys go. Obviously, I. God bless Luke Kornet. $41 million about an average of 10
million a year for a guy that was hanging on by a thread in the NBA and
we developed him and turned him into one of the best backup bigs in the league. It is a beautiful thing
watching him get paid. It is so freaking cool and
he’s gonna go play with Weby, like it’s gonna be awesome. I’m very happy for Luke Kornet. No hard feelings there. Um, it would be malpractice if
we paid him that money, but San Antonio has a wide open piggy bank. That let him go get it. The Celtics, the way I’m looking at it is
it looks good on a franchise. When you can take a guy that’s
hanging by thread and then develop into somebody that gets paid. Other, other players are gonna be more
willing to sign with you now because they feel like they can raise their
value and get paid later down the line. So from that standpoint,
that’s a good thing. Losing Luke is tough though, just
because of the talent drain that’s happening on this team right now. Now look, the Celtics did
sign Luca Gaza for, I think it was two years, $5.5 million. I’m pretty low on that deal. I think that. He’s gonna give you some stuff on offense. He looks good offensively, but he’s
doesn’t really give you much defensively. He only played 35 games for the
timber wars last season, and now there’s a chance you could be
looking at him and NMI fighting for the starting spot at the five. And I’m not high on either of
those guys as a starting level. Big man in the NBA, the
talent trainer has been real. The, the, we’ve spoke about this
before we come on air, like the center rotation itself, if Horford
doesn’t come back, is abysmal. You’ve got Gaza, you’ve got
Nimi, and you’ve got Tillman. Then your four rotation is your,
uh, it’s Niang George Niang. That’s it. And maybe you can plug Hauser
in there if you need to. The front court itself just looks rough. Now the Celtics, according to Keith Smith
are $2 million below the second April. Now they’ve signed Gaza. Okay, so realistically, any moves that
happen now will come via trade rather than via the free agency markets. It’s worth noting that the Celtics do have
a 25 million trade with player exception. Confirm that Krista Pauling this deal. That makes them a little bit
more viable in trade discussions. But as things stand, I think
you’ve gotta tip your hat to Luke. He was such an important part of that
champ, uh, the 2020 last season, 24, 24, 25 season, and he played a role
during the championship run as well. He’s earned that. But from a Celtics perspective, a team
that was supposed to be bordering on a dynasty and then now we are here
and wondering how the hell they’re gonna put out a, a competitive front
court within the roster next season. Man, it’s just, it’s so tough to swallow. I mean, maybe it’s hubris, but I
do think that Brad knows that he can find the next Luke Kornet, and
I don’t know if it’s Luca Garza. Luca Garza has had a very strange career. I’m a big, big 10 basketball fan. That’s like one of the only parts of
college basketball I like is the Big 10. And this dude absolutely
dominated the Big 10 at Iowa. And then he went to the G League,
absolutely dominated the G League. And then whenever he comes up to
the NBA, he just sucks donkey balls, like he is absolutely terrible. In the NBA, we’re talking about like
averages of like two and three, if that. So like he has completely
been useless in the NBA. He’s basically in his prime right now. He’s about 26 years old If he’s ever
gonna be anything, it’s now, but I, it’s a weird thing, like we kind of had, cornet
was probably in a worse situation when we signed Cornet than Garza is right now. And we turned cornet into somebody
that’s making over $10 million a year. So if it is gonna happen. It might be with Garza. I’m higher on Garza than Kada,
honestly, because I just, ’cause I see the basketball pedigree. So the thing with me is when you turned
cornet into the play, he’s now, you did it in a low pressure roll off the bench. You did it as the fourth big, and then
he got into a battle to become the, the third big, the backup big obviously. ’cause Celtics slots
play two bigs at times. He didn’t have the expectations of
being a starting level five to begin with, and that gave him time to
room to grow, room to kind of figure out how he fit into the system. Gaza’s not gonna have that because. There is no starting five, so there’s
gonna be a fight there for who gets that starting spot and it could look ugly. The, and whenever a guy dominates in
the G League and then doesn’t do much in the NBA, I usually think of them as
like a tweener, somebody that’s too good for the G League, which is not quite
NBA ready yet and maybe never will be. Maybe there’s just that
cap on his ceiling. It’s the same reason I’m not
high on JD Davidson because he dominates in the G League. Comes up to the NBA and everything
just kind of falls apart and you can say that he hasn’t been given
the chance or the role isn’t there. But even in the minutes, he does
get even against other garbage time guys, he just looks average. Whereas if he goes down to the G
League, he looks like Superman. And the same can be said for Gaza. Yeah, that makes it really tough to then
be like, oh, well we need to, we need to kind of just throw our support and
belief behind what this team are doing. Because Brad, so far, and I’m,
I’m gonna hold my hands up here. He has, Brad has never put a foot wrong. Everything he’s touched has turned
to gold up until this point. But now they’re in a position where. Yeah, everything they’re
doing wasn’t planned for. This is very reactionary from what
happened to Jason Tatu with the Achilles tear and now everything
kind of starts to unravel. You have to make moves to get below
the second April, and we don’t know if there’s a mandate from the new
ownership group there, like there’s a lot of unknowns from our side. But when you look at the way this current
team looks right now, and it’s a Jalen brand-led offense with Derek White Paint
and Pritchard, who’s like your big three and no front court help whatsoever. It’s really tough to stomach in
terms of without moving, making some moves in the trade market. Losing Luke Kornet could actually
be more of a hammer blow than many of us thought it would be. And I get that. People are gonna say,
we’re overrating a guy. We’re overrating a role playing big man. But it’s the lack of talent that’s
already on the roster that makes his his departure feel like it’s so important. Like it’s such a pivotal moment. See, this is where I kind of like, I
know everybody online is like already got out the tiki torches, but, um,
I’m really respecting the balls on Brad because for him to do this just
shows how confident he is in his position where, hey, Tatum’s out. We don’t have a freaking chance. We’re not gonna just, you know, put
lipstick on a pig and just put a team out there that’s quote unquote
competitive and it ends up like what the Miami Heat are every year. Like, oh yeah, they got a chance. You know, be a playing team. Be this, be that. Like give, give everybody false hope. No, he’s telling you with these moves,
we’re gonna be absolute dog shit, guys. We’re talking lottery, we’re looking at
aj, we’re looking at, uh, cam boozer. We’re looking at these guys that
are at the top of the draft next year, and that’s gonna be what
we’re gonna be looking forward to. ’cause it ain’t gonna be wins, but that’s the problem for me, right? Like I’m completely on board. If that’s the route you want to
go, then okay, we will, let’s go. We’ll follow, we’ll, let’s go that route. Why do that when you’ve got Jane and Brown
leading the charge, you know what I mean? In the, and I understand that, hey,
this is a one year tank, and then Tatum comes back and everything changes. But as I said to you before we came
on air, if that’s the case, why are you chasing a rookie anyway? Because when has a rookie ever came in and
been a vital contributor on a championship run, LeBron didn’t do that in his first
year, didn’t do it in his second year, and there’s a chance that you, you land
someone and they just slu perfectly. I get that, but. If you are gonna be tanking and you
want the best chance at actually get getting one of these high picks, having
Jalen Brown on the roster is actually a negative to what you are trying to achieve
there, because you’re trying to be bad and Brown’s good enough that he’s gonna
keep you just above good enough to not be a bottom out, top five lottery teams. You get what I’m saying? I, I do. But is there any evidence of that? I don’t think Jalen Brown by himself
makes you an a. Above average team average, you’re paying him. You should at least make
you an average team. That’s the point. Otherwise, that contract starts
to look a lot worse and a lot more questions start to get asked to JB then. So it’s actually a nega. You lose lose by keeping
him or losing him. There’s no win here. Yeah. ’cause he might be the secret, uh,
stealth tanking option, but it also just completely destroys his value,
which they might be okay with. They might be like, Hey, we’re keeping
this guy for, to be next to Tatum anyway. We don’t care if he looks like crap as
the number one it, we’re losing games. He probably won’t play back to backs. You probably will shut him down in
March if, uh, the season’s going the way we kind of expect it to go. So, oh man. It’s, uh, it’s pretty bleak to talk about
and say out loud, but, uh, it’s kind of the situation we’re in and like, don’t
get me wrong, Ray, building teams are fun. So there’s gonna be a time in a year
or so where there’s new, there’s a new rookie, hopefully Hugo’s pup. So we’re all feeling super
excited about what Hugo can bring. And we’ve got Baylor that’s probably
showing some Jason Williams style passing. And we’re excited there. There’s gonna be reasons to be excited and
there’s gonna be reasons to keep tuning into these games and be behind this team. Right now where we sitting on July
1st after Luke corn’s gone with the Golden State Warriors, letting Looney
walk and every rumor to have interest in, in Horford that could potentially
move to the Bay Area for a year. There’s a lot of reasons to sit here today
and be like, man, this fucking sucks. And I, I think if you feel that way,
then you’re completely vindicated. ’cause I feel that way. But at the same time, I also know that. You’re not gonna win this year. So what do we want from this team? Do we want them to chase a draft pick
in one of the most loaded drafts in recent memory, or do we want them to
remain competitive and just give us a fun season that we can remember? Like if you think back to the Brad
era, the teams that weren’t meant to win, but then made pushes for the
conference finals and stuff, those were the teams we fell in love with. And that’s the over achievers. Yeah. I think that’s what a lot of people
were hoping for this year was like, Hey, Brad’s gonna make just enough. Moves to make, to put you in a
position to overachieve and now it’s like, hey, he is made those moves. But the, there’s not enough depth for
two very important positions for this team to have a chance at overachieving. It’s gonna be a rough watch. Yeah. I don’t see any overachieving with
this group, uh, unless something drastic happens in the next few weeks. Um, one thing I do want to call out is all
these fans that are actually turning on Al Horford for some reason, for him wanting
to spend one of his last seasons on a team that’s actually trying to win something,
Al Horford doesn’t owe us a goddamn thing. This dude is the first all-star free
agent in the history of our franchise. He came to us when nobody was
coming here and he set a tone and he just lived what Celtic
basketball is for the past few years. Not to mention taking pay cut after
pay cut when he could have made way more money going other places
these last couple years, but made sure that we got our championship. So anybody criticizing Al right now? I mean you can go f yourself. I mean that’s fair because
I’m right there with you. I think that it’s the same with Lucas. I, I see a lot of people, like the
minute a player leaves the Celtics, then that player won’t shit. Well, you were cheering
for him a week ago. You were online saying how much
you hope he stayed a week ago. We, the receipts are on your
account, so to be like, oh, Luke went well, Luke’s ass. Anyway, Gaza is the next best thing. Oh, Horford leaving. Well, screw Horford. No, Horford has been key for years. He’s played such a pivotal role in
the development of Jason and Jalen. He was, as you said, took
multiple pay cuts, was a key part of a championship team. He cemented himself in Boston
Legacy if he leaves now. Fair. That’s the way he is. I mean, we did a live stream yesterday,
uh, for the first hour of free agency. I was joined by Tim Shields
and we were talking about. What it would take for Horford to
leave, like what that would mean for him from a personal standpoint. Because if you think about the way
his family’s settled, the way his kids are in school, the most logical move
there is his family stays behind while he goes to Golden State for a year. Yeah. So if, if he does choose that, then
winning clearly means a lot to him, and he clearly wants one more shot at this
because he’s moving away from his family for 12 months and he’s been with them
all the way through his tenure in Boston. That to me shows you how much
he’s committed to, to one the city of Boston, but two to winning. And he, if he doesn’t feel like he’s got
an opportunity here, and it’s gonna be a waste of arguably the final year of
his career, let him go to Golden State. If he decides he wants to play another
year after, maybe he comes back in free agency on the veteran minimum
next season, that’s probably best case scenario from the Celtic standpoint. But yeah, you can’t be hating on him
for, for just wanting to go and compete. That’s bullshit to me. No. Well, he doesn’t owe us a thing. And like I said. Why would you wanna play on this team? Yeah. Why? Look at this roster like it is. It’s absolute dog shit. And it’s funny because everybody talks
about like how you know Tatum and Brown? Oh, who’s better? Who’s this? Who’s that? I guarantee you if it was Brown that was
out and Tatum was the one playing next year, Al would be signed up to stay. He’d be back here in one second. It just shows you the gap
between those two players. And this is not a knock on Jalen. He’s a number two though. And I really think that people are gonna
finally accept that the gap between him and Tatum is the Grand Canyon. It isn’t close, it isn’t a tossup. It ain’t one A and one B. No, it’s one and then dot, dot dot two. And I get that. People are like, well, Brian won finals. MVP, brown. I don’t give a shit. Like, I really don’t the, if Brown was
the one out, the Celtics don’t blow it up the way, they’ve just blew it up. They, they want it back. Exactly. That’s, that’s the proof right there. Brad would not blow this team
up if, if Tatum was healthy. Top five guy versus the top 20 guy. That’s, that’s the gap. That’s the chasm. And if you don’t understand the, the
talent jump from 20 to 10 and then the talent jump again from 10 to five. Well, I can’t help you there. And if you don’t see Tatu as top
five, he’s definitely top seven. And again, there’s a talent jump
between top 10 to top seven. So yeah, I mean, look, this is gonna
be a rough year as constructed. Things can change quickly. Brad can pull some out of his ass
today, tomorrow, next week, a month from now, that changes everything
and that all of a sudden we’re super excited for what’s to come. But as things stand right now. It’s gonna be rough. It’s gonna, and it don’t feel good. Really. It does not feel good. We’ve been spoiled lately for Elite
Celtics basketball, and we’ve been spoiled for being able to be super
proud of the team that’s on the floor. Now, I’ve got a lot of questions of how
the team’s gonna play, how Joe Missoula’s gonna handle being with a roster that
isn’t superstar, like, superstar studied. I’ve got questions on who’s
gonna be the starting five, who’s gonna be able to do X, Y, and Z? There’s a lot going on there. We can break down over the coming weeks,
but as things stand right now, Luke Cornet leaving on its own is in a hammer blow. But when coupled with everything else
that’s going on and with Drew and with kp, that was a real big back to the face. It was. And it’s just, like I said,
you don’t appreciate something till it’s gone sometimes. But that 2024 Celtics team was so special
and I think a lot of fans are gonna realize just how good we freaking had it. And with that, I’m gonna leave it there. We’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll be happier. We’ll be happier. We’ll find reasons to be happy. But right now we’re in our feelings. You are probably in your feelings
if you’re not in your feelings. I get it. If you are in your
feelings, join the club. With that, make sure you subscribe
to the Salt Chronicle newsletter. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube
channel and we’ll see you soon. Billy, where can they find
your movie reviews buddy? CBO, O 0 4 1 on letterbox. Everybody go CF one movie
of the year, calling it now.

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The Boston Celtics lost Luke Kornet on Monday, June 30. The championship-winning center joined the San Antonio Spurs on a four-year $41 million contract. The Boston Celtics have now lost Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis and Kornet over the last week.

We break down why this departure stings and what it means for a roster that’s bleeding talent.
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Time Stamps
00:00 A Sad Day for Celtics Fans
01:01 Luke Kornet Joins Spurs
02:05 Celtics’ Current Roster Challenges
03:45 Brad Stevens’ Strategy and Future Moves
07:06 The Debate on Jaylen Brown’s Role
11:24 Al Horford’s Legacy and Future
15:00 Final Thoughts