Atlantic Notes: Mickey, Colangelo, Ainge

The Celtics are in no rush to push rookie power forward Jordan Mickey into action at the NBA level and plan to continue his development in the D-League until he is better prepared to compete for minutes with the team’s other frontcourt players, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com relays. When asked about the organization’s plan for Mickey, team executive Danny Ainge told Blakely, “Jordan is making progress. His minutes in the D-League are very valuable. But until he gets to this level, we won’t really know for sure. In order for him to get to this level of play, Jordan hasn’t proven right now that he’s better than say, David Lee or Tyler Zeller and Kelly Olynyk, and two of those guys [Lee and Zeller] have had trouble getting the kind of minutes they would like. Those guys are certainly better players than Jordan right now. But we’re not in a rush to get Jordan playing. Jordan has been better from the first day of training camp, than we actually thought he would be. He’s really come in with a great attitude. He’s worked hard in the D-League. It’s helping him. Him and Terry Rozier both, we’re real high on them. We know these guys are NBA players. There’s not any question. But to say they’re better than our rotation players now, is a stretch.”

Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

• Ainge also told Blakely that the team is seeking to make some moves to better balance out its roster. “I just want to do the deals that help us build. It’s all about building up to the team that we want to be,” Ainge said. “We’ve had a lot of conversations and a lot of ideas on how we can improve our team. We have to find other teams willing to do what we want to do. That’s not easy. But we like all the players on our team. We have too many. That’s been a challenge for a few guys in particular.”
• New Sixers executive Jerry Colangelo expects the team to accelerate its rebuilding efforts now that he is aboard, but he did credit GM Sam Hinkie for making a number of shrewd trades, Bob Cooney of The Philadelphia Daily News writes. “The reality is, and I’ve come to understand this, Sam has done a really great job of accumulating assets. If you look at the trades, if you look the draft picks that have been accumulated, it’s all there in place,” Colangelo said. “And now it’s a matter of when do you pull the trigger on using all those assets or any of those assets. As I look at the board, if you will, I see some things that could happen sooner rather than later. That’s because if somebody gets healthy [Joel Embiid]. If the player from Europe comes in [Dario Saric] and is part of the rotation and we will have a very high draft pick. Then using some of those assets to do other things to consider, be it free agency, be it a trade, whatever. This thing could flip a lot sooner than people understand.”