Preseason’s Over: Your Takeaways?

[mrceltics2013]

1. They are not any better than they were last year
2. They came out the gate with the same flaws they had last year. (Lack of bench, no playmaking, no real big, too many bad 3’s)
3. They lack playmaking and Kemba is not the answer
4. The young guys are still valueless
5. Tatum is overrated
6. Teague is the only decent bench player we have
7. We are less talented than we have been the past few years
8. They lack discipline STILL


This team showed no development whatsoever. The main gripe is everyone is waiting for Kemba to come back as if Brown and Tatum wasn’t supposed to be “superstars”. Why would they need Kemba back so bad if all he offers is just 20 more points? Kemba isn’t fixing this, Tatum and Brown have not developed this coming season and anyone who denies that are in straight denial.

As matter a fact not 1 current C’s player has improved from the bubble and I can argue they didn’t play that well in there either.

And there are people who will say this is an overreaction because it’s the preseason...Kyrie and Durant didn’t even play in the bubble and they look great. Tatum and Brown didn’t look good at all... this isn’t an overreaction the Celtics aren’t a top 3 team in the east right now...

I have:
Nets
Bucks
Heat
Philly

After that it’s just who is going to be the 5th best team:

Raptors
Wizards
Celtics

This is reality not an overreaction.


 

[td450]

There isn't much to learn here.

Weird take that Tatum is a superstar but Brown isn’t an allstar yet. They both looked rusty, but Tatum more so. I'm pretty sure both will come through.

I am much more worried about Smart, because he we have all seen he can be sometimes be quite respectable on offense , and can sometimes be really awful, and without Kemba this matters quite a bit more than it used to. So far in the preseason, he hasn't even looked like an NBA player yet.

We will be fine, but we need to establish our defensive identity and we need Smart and one or two others to contribute. I expect Tatum and Brown to go off soon enough.

[Who]

My takeaway = Stevens is doing a terrible job.

(1) He is sanEdited for profanity.  Please do not do it again.ging his own team by playing Smart at PG next to limited playmaking wings destroying the team's ball movement & overall offense in the process. He has to get a PG in there next to Smart at SG to get some movement into the offense.

(2) Stevens is further hurting the team with some disastrous all-bench or nearly all-bench lineups. Particularly when he doubles down and goes small-ball all-bench lineups.

The guy has been a train wreck in preseason. He needs to get his act together.


Edit: How is sand - bag - ging profanity? I am confused.

[Who]

Oh and our bench sucks.

I can easily see our starters playing as a 48 win type team without Kemba but having our bench play so bad we get dragged back to being a .500 team.

Too many low level contributors with several possible negative contributors -- guys who actually make your team worse rather than helping it.

[jambr380]

Absolutely agree on #1. People are desperate to ship off Kemba, but he is so valuable to this team. His ability to drive and pull-up or drive and kick are essential to our team's ball movement. It's almost as if being an all-star starter means you are pretty good. Even if he is never better than he was in the bubble, that is still an extremely valuable player.

[jambr380]

Other takes -
1) Obviously he is a star, but Tatum needs a jolt of energy. I hate his slow, arrogant iso ball. Hopefully it's just because he knows preseason doesn't matter.

2) Smart is super-iffy. Of course he is Smart and we all love him, but he just can't be a top 3 player on a good team. Dude needs to stop firing away and get others involved. I would not be surprised if we eventually move him at the deadline or offseason if we don't want to pay him $20M+/yr.

3) Nesmith finally flashed his potential - which is awesome! Great effort on D, a couple of nice outside shots, and that dunk attempt where he got fouled showed some real explosiveness. He keeps playing with this mindset and he will find rotation minutes soon enough.

[Sophomore]

Hopefully they will look better when the team is using regular-season lineups, but I don’t fault stevens for playing a lot of bench guys in preseason. Less risk for the starters and you’re less concerned about winning the games than seeing what you have and giving at least a little development time to young guys.

I think the first 20-30 games might be rough as the team tries to find some flow on offense w/o Kemba. I also think Tatum and Brown are going to keep trying to add to their games and at the start it will be rough - remember last year when Tatum started out making it a point to finish more of his shots at the rim? He was missing a ton of those shots until it clicked for him. I expect a lot of the same first half of this year. Which is kind of unavoidable; no learning w/out stumbling first.

[Sophomore]

Other takes -
1) Obviously he is a star, but Tatum needs a jolt of energy. I hate his slow, arrogant iso ball. Hopefully it's just because he knows preseason doesn't matter.

2) Smart is super-iffy. Of course he is Smart and we all love him, but he just can't be a top 3 player on a good team. Dude needs to stop firing away and get others involved. I would not be surprised if we eventually move him at the deadline or offseason if we don't want to pay him $20M+/yr.

3) Nesmith finally flashed his potential - which is awesome! Great effort on D, a couple of nice outside shots, and that dunk attempt where he got fouled showed some real explosiveness. He keeps playing with this mindset and he will find rotation minutes soon enough.

I agree about Nesmith. The shooting looks to be there, and  I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see him driving and posting up a few times. May be more to his game than just sniping. The defense needs a lot of work, but I don’t see why he can’t get to average at least.

[SHAQATTACK]

need to play more team ball

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Nesmith looked a bit smaller than I expected. Not small, but smaller. He still has legit wing size. However, he also looked much quicker than I expected. In fact, one of the reasons I was down on him before the draft was that I didn't like his quickness. Watching him in actually NBA play makes me think his quickness and strides are actually one of his strengths. He's very raw on both sides of the court, but there's a lot to like.

He made several next-level off-ball switches onto opposing bigs for a guard teammate. He also rotated helpside well multiple times.

I'm starting to think he may have been one of the highest upside players in the draft, but he will need time to iron his wrinkles that take away from his positives on the court.

When I see Nesmith, he is reminding me a bit of a taller, better-shooting Avery Bradley when he came into the league. Bradley was raw too and didn't always have his footwork perfect, which led to turnovers. He also would make good plays and get completely toasted on defense early in his career. I think Nesmith could produce at a third-year Avery Bradley level this year, with 9 ppg, 2 apg, 2 rpg, 1 spg, on 40/32/72 shooting and then become the full-time starter next to the Jays next season.

[BitterJim]

My takeaway = Stevens is doing a terrible job.

(1) He is sanEdited for profanity.  Please do not do it again.ging his own team by playing Smart at PG next to limited playmaking wings destroying the team's ball movement & overall offense in the process. He has to get a PG in there next to Smart at SG to get some movement into the offense.

(2) Stevens is further hurting the team with some disastrous all-bench or nearly all-bench lineups. Particularly when he doubles down and goes small-ball all-bench lineups.

The guy has been a train wreck in preseason. He needs to get his act together.


Edit: How is sand - bag - ging profanity? I am confused.

The 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th letters

Similar to saying that you had a rest-ful night's sleep (though that's 3rd-6th)

I'm nor worried about preseason rotations. These won't be the lineups we play when games really matter

Just prepare for some odd lineups to start the season, because Brad always uses the first month or so to see what he has and what weird things might work

[Who]

My takeaway = Stevens is doing a terrible job.

(1) He is sanEdited for profanity.  Please do not do it again.ging his own team by playing Smart at PG

Edit: How is sand - bag - ging profanity? I am confused.

The 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th letters

Ahh, okay. Thank you. I was trying to figure that out and I couldn't see anything. I was wondering what the heck I was missing!

[Who]

1. They are not any better than they were last year
2. They came out the gate with the same flaws they had last year. (Lack of bench, no playmaking, no real big, too many bad 3’s)
3. They lack playmaking and Kemba is not the answer
4. The young guys are still valueless
5. Tatum is overrated
6. Teague is the only decent bench player we have
7. We are less talented than we have been the past few years
8. They lack discipline STILL


This team showed no development whatsoever. The main gripe is everyone is waiting for Kemba to come back as if Brown and Tatum wasn’t supposed to be “superstars”. Why would they need Kemba back so bad if all he offers is just 20 more points? Kemba isn’t fixing this, Tatum and Brown have not developed this coming season and anyone who denies that are in straight denial.

As matter a fact not 1 current C’s player has improved from the bubble and I can argue they didn’t play that well in there either.

And there are people who will say this is an overreaction because it’s the preseason...Kyrie and Durant didn’t even play in the bubble and they look great. Tatum and Brown didn’t look good at all... this isn’t an overreaction the Celtics aren’t a top 3 team in the east right now...

I have:
Nets
Bucks
Heat
Philly

After that it’s just who is going to be the 5th best team:

Raptors
Wizards
Celtics

This is reality not an overreaction.

I was reading Kemba is not the answer and my mind went two different ways:

(1) I don't think Kemba gets enough credit for how he improves the offense with ball-handling, speed, dribble penetration, playmaking and overall passing. How he impacts opponents defenses and forces help defensive actions creating space and opportunities for others.

(2) That this brings me back to a strong thought / feeling that I was having last season in how we were lacking big man passing. A big man who can help organize the halfcourt offense and distribute the ball to our wing scorers. Someone who can help our PG out so all the pressure / responsibility is not on our PG's shoulders.

That yes, Kemba alone is not the solution. He is just part of the solution. And that need for more passing elsewhere in lineup (particularly big man passing) will be even more plain to see this season with Gordon Hayward leaving - and leaving a big hole at that in terms of secondary playmaking from the wing.

Whatever about a big man that can shoot, a big man that can pass is what we really need.

[gouki88]

1. They are not any better than they were last year
2. They came out the gate with the same flaws they had last year. (Lack of bench, no playmaking, no real big, too many bad 3’s)
3. They lack playmaking and Kemba is not the answer
4. The young guys are still valueless
5. Tatum is overrated
6. Teague is the only decent bench player we have
7. We are less talented than we have been the past few years
8. They lack discipline STILL


This team showed no development whatsoever. The main gripe is everyone is waiting for Kemba to come back as if Brown and Tatum wasn’t supposed to be “superstars”. Why would they need Kemba back so bad if all he offers is just 20 more points? Kemba isn’t fixing this, Tatum and Brown have not developed this coming season and anyone who denies that are in straight denial.

As matter a fact not 1 current C’s player has improved from the bubble and I can argue they didn’t play that well in there either.

And there are people who will say this is an overreaction because it’s the preseason...Kyrie and Durant didn’t even play in the bubble and they look great. Tatum and Brown didn’t look good at all... this isn’t an overreaction the Celtics aren’t a top 3 team in the east right now...

I have:
Nets
Bucks
Heat
Philly

After that it’s just who is going to be the 5th best team:

Raptors
Wizards
Celtics

This is reality not an overreaction.

I was reading Kemba is not the answer and my mind went two different ways:

(1) I don't think Kemba gets enough credit for how he improves the offense with ball-handling, speed, dribble penetration, playmaking and overall passing. How he impacts opponents defenses and forces help defensive actions creating space and opportunities for others.

(2) That this brings me back to a strong thought / feeling that I was having last season in how we were lacking big man passing. A big man who can help organize the halfcourt offense and distribute the ball to our wing scorers. Someone who can help our PG out so all the pressure / responsibility is not on our PG's shoulders.

That yes, Kemba alone is not the solution. He is just part of the solution. And that need for more passing elsewhere in lineup (particularly big man passing) will be even more plain to see this season with Gordon Hayward leaving - and leaving a big hole at that in terms of secondary playmaking from the wing.

Whatever about a big man that can shoot, a big man that can pass is what we really need.

Definitely agree. Rob Williams has shown flashes of making really good passing reads, but he’s then followed it up with heaps of brain farts with the ball in hand.

If he could cut out all those errors and learn how to screen like Theis he’d be golden for our offence, perimeter jump shot or not

[Csfan1984]

My takeaway = Stevens is doing a terrible job.

(1) He is sanEdited for profanity.  Please do not do it again.ging his own team by playing Smart at PG next to limited playmaking wings destroying the team's ball movement & overall offense in the process. He has to get a PG in there next to Smart at SG to get some movement into the offense.

(2) Stevens is further hurting the team with some disastrous all-bench or nearly all-bench lineups. Particularly when he doubles down and goes small-ball all-bench lineups.

The guy has been a train wreck in preseason. He needs to get his act together.


Edit: How is sand - bag - ging profanity? I am confused.

The 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th letters

Similar to saying that you had a rest-ful night's sleep (though that's 3rd-6th)

I'm nor worried about preseason rotations. These won't be the lineups we play when games really matter

Just prepare for some odd lineups to start the season, because Brad always uses the first month or so to see what he has and what weird things might work

And chemistry suffers for it. BS needs to play the best talent and let guys figure it out falling into roles. He needs to stop not the tinkering for 4 to 8 min stretches for half the season.