can we re-sign him already! now that LeBron is out of the East, we need him more than ever!
We need Smart more because Lebron is gone?
We need him to help ensure that our odds increase for winning the East now that Lebron is gone. Smart is a better distributor and point guard than Rozier. He also is much better defensively than Rozier. They really need to bring him back (I bet BS agrees).
Our odds increased the moment Lebron left the East.
Smart's a better distributor than Rozier and I'll give you the defense because of his size and switchability, but Rozier is a plus defender and their advanced defensive stats are almost identical. Otherwise, Rozier's a better shooter everywhere on the floor, a better rebounder, and protects the ball much better than Smart who is a turnover machine. As a result, Rozier's Assist/Turnover ratio per 100 possessions is 2.9 to Smart's 2.0. Think Rozier has passed Smart, but I hope Smart comes back at the right price because I keep thinking his shot selection has to improve someday without any evidence that it will.
We need both of them at least for this year. Rozier is incapable of playing point. He is still have a poor court vision and not a very good off-ball defender. Not to mention he gets killed on switches and nullifies his defensive capabilities due to positional mismatch. We need Smart more than Rozier because he provides things that Rozier or any scoring guards cannot replace. Not to mention, we already have Kyrie, Tatum and Hayward for scoring load. He's a luxury at this point.
Rozier will be the starter if Irving leaves or gets traded. Smart's a big liability offensively despite the nonsense about him being a better PG. Smart was 441st in total shooting% and 471st in turnover% last season in the NBA. When you're that far down the list, most of the names below you play minimal minutes. As long as he doesn't shoot or put the ball on the floor he's great.
Smart is definitely a better PG than Rozier. It's not even close. Rozier is a good ballhandler but can't run an offense. The reason his turnovers are so low is because he's not looking to create for other guys, he only make the safe, rote pass within the system. Good creators tend to have high turnovers (unless they're freaks like Chris Paul and Rozier is not Chris Paul).
Rozier's 5.7 assists per game in the playoffs as the primary point guard that took his team to the ECF say hi. Oh, and his 4.75 to 1 assist to turnover ratio called and left a message.
By the way, Rozier's offensive rating of 115 in the playoffs dropped by earlier and would like you to call him back.
Rozier's 5.7 assists aren't worth anything if he isn't creating better offense with the ball in his hands, same goes for his A/T ratio. The C's created 105.8 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs with Rozier on the floor and 105.5 with Smart. The defense was far better with Smart at 102.9 than Rozier 105.2 resulting in better Net rating with Smart +2.6 than Rozier +.6
The regular season numbers favored Smart even more where both the offense and defense were better with him on the floor than Rozier, Smart on 105.9, 99.4, +6.5 and Rozier on 104.0, 101.0, +3.0
The Celtics in the playoffs as a team turned the ball over the least among all players when Smart was on the floor 10.8%, Rozier on floor 11.7%. The C's also had an A/T ratio higher with Smart on the floor than they did with Rozier 59.4-58.9
Having a high A/T ratio does not mean you are creating more/better offense. Rozier being safe with the ball and not creating/inability to create high quality scoring opportunities actually hurts your offense.
The 115 offensive rating you quote for Rozier is a bogus rating of Rozier's own boxscore statistics and has no bearing on reality. People that continue to spew the nonsense that Smart kills the C's offense are wrong.