Starters: 150 Minutes
1 - Kemba (30)
2 - Smart (32)
3 - Brown (34)
4 - Tatum (34)
5 - Thompson (20)
Bench: 90 Minutes
6 - Theis (20)
7 - Teague (18)
8 - Nesmith (18)
9 - G Will (14)
10 - Langford (12)
11 - R Will ( 8 )
That would be my anticipated everyone is healthy rotation. Of course, there will be plenty of nights when players are out due to injury/rest when players 7-11 in that rotation would be in line for larger roles and Pritchard/Semi would slot in to spot minutes.
I feel like Timelord will want out of Boston if he’s only getting 8MPG. Not that I disagree with your rotation - I actually like it. But I do wonder if Rob thinks he could get more time elsewhere
8 minutes for Robert is just wrong. I’m pulling for him to outplay Theis and Thompson.
Yes, Rob should at least play 15-20 minutes a game. He has shown enough talent to warrant that.
I'm still very high on Timelord and see him as a more skilled Capela.
Since Theis is an expiring contract and with his $5M an absolute bargain (and thus valuable) I wonder if the Celtics shouldn't look to put him on the market. We know that Celtics players tend to be overpaid in free agency and also that Ainge doesn't want to overpay for role players. Do we want to lose a valuable player again for nothing?
Starting: Kemba Walker / Jaylen Brown / Jayson Tatum / Tristan Thompson / Daniel Theis
Rotation: Jeff Teague / Marcus Smart / Aaron Nesmith / Grant Williams / Robert Williams
Bench: Payton Pritchard / Carsen Edwards (G-league) / Romeo Langford (injured) / Semi Ojeleye
I was with you until you picked Thompson over Grant Williams. Grant is obviously the worse player but he will stretch the floor better than Thompson which will be important for the starting lineup.
I still think Stevens goes with the starters he had in the playoffs. Walker-Smart-Tatum-Brown-Theis. The bench will be low scoring again with Thompson, Teague, Grant, Langford, Timelord and either Semi or Nesmith finishing off the rotation, so Stevens is going to have to leave two of Smart, Brown, Tatum and Kemba in most of the time.
If the bench can give the team 25+ points a game, I think the Celtics will be winning a lot of those games
As with the minutes assigned to Timelord by previous posters, I believe starting Walker-Smart-Tatum-Brown-Theis makes the rotation unbalanced.
Walker/Smart is perfectly adequate backcourt (no complains), but now Brown has to defend PF's and while he can do a decent to good job (Siakam
) at that I'd rather not having Brown constantly defend players who are bigger than him.
And on the offensive end I find Brown better at exploiting his size advantage against SG's than his speed advantage against PF's.
Your bench consists of almost only guards and bigs. Would you play Thompson and Robert Williams together on a bench unit? Because otherwise with Langford currently injured and Smart starting, you only have Grant Williams, Ojeleye, Nesmith to fill in the wing spots (SG/SF/PF) on a bench unit alongside either Tatum or Brown.
I'm admittedly done with Ojeleye as a rotation player, but with your starting line-up he automatically will get minutes on the bench due to the scarcity on the wings, while you create a logjam at center (especially if Grant Williams plays minutes as super small ball center
)
While the Celtics were able to cope with a very weak scoring bench last season, I'm not that comfortable now with Hayward gone and Walker having to be load managed. We need to create a bench unit that can get some points without Tatum needing to carry it.