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Wyc Grousbeck On Felger & Mazz: Celtics 'Going Full Speed' Toward Building Championship Contender

BOSTON (CBS) -- Celtics Managing Partner, Governor and CEO Wyc Grousbeck joined Felger & Mazz on Friday afternoon to talk about the aftermath of the NBA trade deadline and the team's big-picture plans moving forward.

Grousbeck is admittedly not a "basketball guy" - he would delegate court questions toward president Danny Ainge or head coach Brad Stevens - but he certainly has a say in whether or not the Celtics would make a major trade. He said that the Celtics did try to make deals all the way up to the 3 p.m. trade deadline on Thursday, but simply weren't able to agree on a deal with other teams.

He believes that the Celtics would have made a big trade if they believed it would have given them a chance to win the NBA championship this season, but ultimately they are two players away from getting to that level, not one.

"I'm comfortable with [standing pat] yesterday, because we didn't take [one step forward and] two steps back," said Grousbeck. "We are going full speed as fast as we can to what we think is the next contending team. We aren't interested in winning a round or two this year; we'd like to win the whole thing this year.

"If we saw a trade yesterday that would let us win the whole thing this year and push all the chips in, we would have - we didn't see that trade. What we saw is some deals we didn't want to do, so we're going to keep our head down [and] try to add two more impact players as soon as we can."

Echoing Ainge's comments made on Toucher & Rich on Friday, Grousbeck sees those two impact players likely coming in the form of a high draft pick and a max-deal free agent. He disagreed with Felger & Mazz's idea that the Celtics either need to cash in all of their assets now or say goodbye to contending for a championship for the next several years.

"What we've agreed so far is that we're going to keep [the 2017] Brooklyn pick until the lottery at least, and we're going to see where it shakes out. ... We could trade the pick after we make it. We can trade the pick on [draft] night. We could trade that guy in a year. ... Let's say we add a max free agent this summer, we pick a really good guy [in the draft], and then we make a trade next February for an impact player. Where did 2018 go in this plan? I don't understand how making a draft pick is inconsistent with winning a championship as soon as possible.

"I think you guys are a little black and white on this one. I mean, I enjoyed listening to it, but I think there's a middle ground."

Listen to the full podcast below:

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