Why Baynes is likely the odd man out this summer

[gouki88]

Also, it appears that basketball-reference doesn't have Gordon Hayward having played a 50-50 split at SG/SF in his last season in Utah.  They have him playing 70% at SF and 30% at PF in the regular season and in the playoffs it was 38% at SF and 62% at PF.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/haywago01.html#advanced_pbp::none

interesting numbers.  He's got like 25 pounds on Tatum i think...and just a little lighter than Morris.  Pretty hulky guy...

Yeah, over the last 18-24 months he's really bulked up. Hasn't made him any less mobile though

[wiley]

If the offer for Smart is too high the Celtics won't match.  If the offer is high but tolerable...I wouldn't be suprised to see the Celtics match and then trade him (a deal already waiting with some team kind of scenario).

He's my favorite Celtic of the moment but I think he's likely to be moving on...

If the Celtics think Robert Williams will reach his defensive potential sooner rather than later...they may see Smart's awesome defensive presence as a bit less worth paying for (as long as they have good defense against the three for GS). 

On the other hand...when one player has a motor that needs a little kick start...Smart would make a great kick starter for Williams, as he is for the whole team already...

Baynes is very necessary imo.

[RockinRyA]

That said, ultimately I would be very surprised to see Marcus elsewhere next season.  Restricted free agency is a powerful tool, especially in a very tight free agency market.

Smart's QO will be $6M.  If he plays for that, then it's a no-brainer he stays.   But there's a line somewhere above that where you have to stop and ask if that's worth paying for a guy who looks more and more like the 3rd-string bench player at both of his positions.   How much are YOU willing to pay him?

Between Kyrie, Rozier and Smart, how many minutes do you think Smart is likely to get at the 1?

Between Jaylen, Hayward, Rozier & Smart , how many minutes do you thin Smart is likely to get at the 2?

Smart has in the past gotten extra minutes when we used to put 3-guard small lineups, playing at the 3.   In a roster that now has Hayward, Jason, Jaylen, Semi and Morris (ignoring guys like Nader and Bird), how many minutes is he likely to get at the 3?

There is a very real possibility that this roster (if healthy) can't (or at least shouldn't) give Smart more than ~12-15 minutes per game.  Or even less.    How much are you willing to pay for that kind of player?

Now, obviously, further moves (such as a Rozier or Morris trade) or injury would change the roster and the answers to these questions.   But given the roster as it currently looks, I see a real squeeze on Smart's role on this team.

Saltlover gave a minutes breakdown in the OP:

Irving - 30
Brown - 30
Hayward - 30
Tatum - 30
Horford - 30
Smart - 25
Rozier - 25
Morris - 25
Theis - 15

While Kyrie and Hayward deserve more minutes, remember they are returning from injuries.  If you do want to give them a few more, I think they come from Rozier and Morris while Smart stays around 25.  Smart just provides you so much on the court that nobody else can provide.  And while that totals 240, you will often see rotational players minutes on any team total far more than 240 since players pick up extra minutes when guys are injured.

And Marcus looks nothing like a 3rd-string bench player -- that's an outrageous claim.  If he did, then he won't be able to sign an offer sheet anywhere near his reported price tag.

My "claim" is based on THIS roster.

The trend on THIS roster has been that Rozier got the starts and the minutes over Smart when Kyrie went down.  Rozier played 2048 total minutes this season compared to 1614 for Smart.   In the playoffs, Rozier played 696 total minutes (36.6 per game) compared to 449 (29.9) for Smart.   Some of the difference is due to Rozier simply staying healthier, but in games they played together, the trend was still clear.   As the year progressed, before Kyrie was injured, Smart's minutes per game declined steadily from 31.1 in Nov, to 30.6 in Dec, 28.2 in Jan & 24.2 in Feb before bouncing back up to 31.0 in March after Kyrie was lost.  Right now, Rozier is ahead of Smart on the depth chart -- especially at the 1.

At the 2, Smart might get the nod over Rozier, but does he get the nod over Gordon Hayward or Jaylen Brown?   I don't think so.

On some other roster, Smart might be a starter or the 3rd guard in a 3-guard rotation again.   For example, one team that is rumored interested in him is Dallas, where he would be a defensive complement off the bench behind Smith and Doncic.  In addition to providing defense that neither of those guys can provide, he'd provide veteran experience against their youth.   In that roster, he would have the same role and perhaps more importance that he had in previous Celtic rosters.

The rumor is Dallas is trying to find somewhere to move Matthews' contract so they can make an offer for Smart.  Given that he's from Texas (in fact from just outside Dallas), don't be surprised if that looks appealing to him.

You do know that Kyrie and Smart went down at the same time, correct?  Smart played in exactly zero games in the regular season in which Rozier started, and averaged 5 minutes more per game overall despite Rozier picking up a ton of minutes after both Kyrie and Smart went down.  There’s no trend.

EDIT: Also, you cite Smart’s mere 24.2 MPG in February, which occurred in the four games post all-star break.  In those same four games, Rozier averaged only 22.3 minutes, and the only game in which he played more than Smart was a 28 point blowout of the Hornets, in which he got some of the garbage time minutes and no one on the roster played more than 24 minutes (Rozier got the most PT of anyone).

There’s no evidence that, during the regular season when both players were healthy, that Rozier was ahead of Smart in the rotation.  None, even after Rozier had started to break out in the second half.

Mea culpa on individual regular season games -- 'shoulda checked the game logs.   The overall trend there was more of a close tie in usage. 

I think my overall position is still well supported by what happened in the playoffs, though.   Stevens leaned extremely heavily on Rozier in the playoffs, with the latter logging 31+ minutes in all but one game and 35+ in the vast majority of them.   Smart, meanwhile broke 35+ in just one playoff game and was under 30 in a full third of them.

And you still haven't addressed the core positional issue on next year's roster:   Where is Smart getting his minutes?  Is he taking them back from Kyrie or Rozier?   Is he taking them from Gordon or Jaylen?

Sure, if guys get injured, it's nice to have a quality bench guy to lean on that you feel okay giving 25-30 minutes to.  But how much money do you tie up with on that guy if he's _supposed_ to only get 10-15 mpg if everyone is healthy?   And how many years do you sign him for?  Three?  Four?  Jaylen is going to need to be resigned in 2020.   The cost of that will have tax compounded on it already.   Paying the premium on the last year or two of a bench player's contract for the same position?  Not good financing.

In the playoffs, Smart was coming off missing six weeks of basketball and was playing with a splint on his hand.  Of course he played fewer minutes than Rozier.  You can’t call that a trend, completely devoid of all context.

Stevens runs all kinds of lineups out there.  Sometimes it will be one guard and four forwards, sometimes it will be three guards, a forward and a big, and we’ve even seen the occasional four guard lineup.  We don’t need to know exactly who Smart subs in for, because it’s never mattered in the past — he’s always been a 25-30 minute per game player no matter if he’s starting or not, and really no matter who else is healthy.  He can fit into a number of different roles that don’t involve shooting, and in positionless basketball, that gets him ample minutes.

Smart will get 10-12% of the team’s payroll and play about 10% of the minutes.  That is a perfectly reasonable allocation of resources.

I agree. Context is very important in reading statistics, and imho this is what mmmmm often ignores. People keep forgetting Smart and Brown were playing injured in the playoffs, and would just use raw numbers to say that Rozier/Tatum played better than them.

[mmmmm]

Also, it appears that basketball-reference doesn't have Gordon Hayward having played a 50-50 split at SG/SF in his last season in Utah.  They have him playing 70% at SF and 30% at PF in the regular season and in the playoffs it was 38% at SF and 62% at PF.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/haywago01.html#advanced_pbp::none

I used 82games.com numbers for the splits I referenced.

Positional splits are a bit hard because some sites use player tracking data (in slightly different ways) while others use straight lineup substitution data in the play-by-play stream.

Given the trend towards considering SFs and SGs as interchangeable 'wings', this probably isn't that big of distinction to worry about with respect to Hayward.

My larger point is that neither Hayward nor Tatum really have been used as 'PF' to any heavy extent.   Hayward almost none.

[mmmmm]

1.  Kyrie-Rozier-Smart trios are not as unlikely as you think.  In the 49 games last season which the three of them were all active, those three shared the court for a total of 178.5 minutes which averages about 3.6 minutes per game.  The lineup was used in 43 different games out of the 49.  Those lineups were a +9.5 differential in points per 100 possessions (+58 total on the season).  So I don’t think they are that crazy nor that bad of a basketball idea and Brad seems to like them a little bit.

What this tells me is that Brad learned (or had the roster changes) to NOT use these 3-guard lineups so much.   The prior season, he used Isaiah + Avery + Marcus together a massive  418 minutes (plus another 165 in the playoffs).   He also used other 3-guard combinations including Terry.    Overall, he had probably close to a 800 minutes using various 3-guard combos.  Some of those lineup combinations were net positives (the ones with IT generally) but almost all of them were terrible defensively.

Now, a lot of that was driven by roster makeup.  We simply didn't have that much wing depth and from Brad's perspective IT, AB & MS were three of his best players.  So he contrived to keep them on the floor as much as possible.  This meant using Marcus as a 'big wing'.

This last year's (and next year's) rosters are fundamentally different.  We have massively better and deeper wing depth.  This meant Brad had far less incentive to go with 3-guard lineups and only used them when they gave a clear and obvious advantage.   Thus the net ratings for those lineups was good, as you point out.  But really for only a tiny slice of minutes compared to the prior season.

I personally don't think we should really setup our rotation assuming we need to do that (use 3-guard lineups), given the return of Hayward (plus the increased experience development of Jaylen, Jayson, Semi & Nader) means our wing depth will be even stronger.

2.  For a minute, I liked your idea of putting your best 5 guys in at their positions first.  But the problem with that method is could end up pigeon-holing yourself to possibly need to play your 11th best guy more minutes than your 7th best guy.  Don't you want to play your better players more minutes?

Well, it depends.   Is my 7th best player really more valuable playing (and taking minutes at) the 1-2-3 positions as my 11th best player is at the 5?   

Baynes may or may not be a 'better player' than Smart or Morris.  But he's [dang] certain a better center than either Smart or Morris.    And we have lots of other players who are better at the positions Smart and Morris play.

3.  We can't keep both of Morris and Baynes, it can only be one. 

Well, I think this statement is only true if you assume we have to keep Smart.

[action781]

mmmmm, I think you're really reaching here what feels like for the sake of arguing.  My claim was simply that Marcus Smart could play 3 minutes per game at SF if we want to get everybody a certain number of minutes, particularly to ensure 25 for Rozier.  You thought those 3 minutes was outrageous.  I showed you that he played over 3 minutes per game at SF last season (I actually neglected to look at 3 guard lineups that might include Larkin too).  Your comeback was that he played even more than 3 minutes per game in 2015-16.

If Brad really wants to play Smart a career-low 22 minutes (including a career-low zero all season at SF) and give those 3 minutes elsewhere, that's fine!  I'm all for it if that's the best recipe for us to win.  I'm just suggesting that Smart could feasibly play 25 minutes, 3 of which coming at SF which has been successful in the past, in a scenario that Rozier still gets 25 minutes and is not squeezed.

[mmmmm]

mmmmm, I think you're really reaching here what feels like for the sake of arguing.  My claim was simply that Marcus Smart could play 3 minutes per game at SF if we want to get everybody a certain number of minutes, particularly to ensure 25 for Rozier.  You thought those 3 minutes was outrageous.  I showed you that he played over 3 minutes per game at SF last season (I actually neglected to look at 3 guard lineups that might include Larkin too).  Your comeback was that he played even more than 3 minutes per game in 2015-16.

If Brad really wants to play Smart a career-low 22 minutes (including a career-low zero all season at SF) and give those 3 minutes elsewhere, that's fine!  I'm all for it if that's the best recipe for us to win.  I'm just suggesting that Smart could feasibly play 25 minutes, 3 of which coming at SF which has been successful in the past, in a scenario that Rozier still gets 25 minutes and is not squeezed.

Well, look.  My point isn't that 3 minutes for Smart at SF is outrageous.  My point is that doing lineup gymnastics simply to get him enough minutes to justify a $14M or so contract that forces you to lose your best true center is not necessarily a good thing.

The OP's contention was that Baynes is the odd man out.  When I look at the roster makeup, especially given our very strong wing depth, I'm not sure he is the odd man out.    The odd man out should be whomever is getting squeezed out of playing 'wing' minutes.  And that isn't Aron Baynes.

[TheSundanceKid]

The whole Smart at SF argument is ridiculous. The poster had Haywards playing 3 mpg at SG so just switch them round...

The simple facts are that Smart plays significant minutes in all situations when healthy. It really doesn't matter what the other options are, he gets the minutes. This coming year will be no different if he returns.

If Baynes doesn't return I fully expect us to pick up a big man to fill a large proportion of his minutes in the same way. We make a significant effort to not play Horford at C for lengthy spells in the regular season.

Morris and Rozier will be the ones that suffer a loss of minutes. Morris because of the return of Hayward, Rozier because of the health of Smart and Irving. We will have the choice of moving them before the season starts in the same way we had the choice in moving Bradley, Ainge will have done his research.

[Fafnir]

The C's aren't going to only carry two 5s (Horford/Theis) who have shown they can play, especially with Theis coming off a knee injury.

Morris doesn't hold that much sway over the C's rotation.

[Fafnir]

The OP's contention was that Baynes is the odd man out.  When I look at the roster makeup, especially given our very strong wing depth, I'm not sure he is the odd man out.    The odd man out should be whomever is getting squeezed out of playing 'wing' minutes.  And that isn't Aron Baynes.

Agreed.

Even if Baynes play slips and he does fall out of the rotation, prejudging that Morris needs minutes and that we only need 1 traditional big man other than Horford seems wildly premature.

Not to mention matchup issues with bruisers or ability to absorb some foul trouble.

[dreamgreen]

WRONG!

I keep telling you Smart lovers over value him!

[Tr1boy]

say again?

had a good feeling he would resign

[vjcsmoke]

So do you admit that you were WRONG about Baynes being the odd man out?

He's the guy we just resigned!

I think Morris is more likely to be that guy.

Or if Smart doesn't come back for the QO, he might be that guy.

Maybe we sign and trade him to the Spurs if Kahwi becomes seriously available?

[Celtics4ever]

Baynes is back and he is not the odd man out and we added Williams for depth.

[Bobshot]

Baynes is back and he is not the odd man out and we added Williams for depth.

Baynes signed for 2/$11M, and the twitter word is he signed for whatever "fit" in the Celtics cap situation. Ainge did say they wanted him back, and he was true to his word.

Perhaps they now have a little more cap room to better deal with Smart.