I think he can be effective against CLE because they play a lot of half court ball and he is from Ohio and will be looking to impress the home town crowds. He is dead weight in a running game as he is so out of shape.
I think he still looks slow and out of shape and is a defensive liability. That being said, I would post him a lot against CLE. No threes, it is simply not his shot and he is shooting the same woeful .28% as he did last year. Get him inside, where he can also rebound which he is very good at.
I liked watching the team more without him. We ran, we had bigs that actually rotate on D, Sully is so slow he just watches them most of the time.
He needs a ways to go. At 260-270 he will be fine on the court. For personal health alone he should try for 250.
I think it is a myth he will be fine if he loses weight. He was in the bottom five of his combine in athletic performance. He can't run, move or jump. He does have a knack for scoring inside, knows how to use his body and great hands and is a solid rebounder.
I know guys rave he is a 14 and 8 guy but the trouble is the guys he is guarding seem to score a little more most of the time. He has won the matchup 17 times and lost 19 matchups and drawed even in 7 matchups this year. This indicates that what we have is a slightly below guy who produces some.
http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/boston-celtics/players/jared-sullinger/profile/15/2/25
Please not only one of these games was recorded on that list post injury and it reflects only games in which he played meaningful minutes, I think 25 minutes
Haven't been a fan of Sully's defense this season, but he has been a plus defender in the past, it's a matter of getting back to that. He's actually been defending quite good since he returned.
I'd be very careful on how hoopsstats is compiling that data. For example, just on a quick skim you notice that they tally Ilyasova against him. Yet, I really don't recall Sully guarding him much if at all during the whole game. I saw Bass on him plenty, I saw Jerebko and Olynyk on him plenty, but I don't recall Sullinger assigned to him per se... but I'm going by memory.
Considering how Sullinger is used, I wonder how many of these supposed match-ups that are tallied against him actually come from players Sully was actually defending. Not excusing his defense this season, as I said, not a fan, but bad data is bad data.
Our perimeter defense, even with having Smart and Bradley on the team, was very very porous through much of the season, particularly when Rondo was around. What that means is that often our bigs get caught out of position, which also in turn means that the bigs they're guarding are scoring through not fault of theirs. But again, weak defense has been something that has defined our bigs as a whole, not just Sully.
Bass for example is horrible. He does a fairly good job 1 on 1, but his rotations are terrible, his defensive awareness is terrible, but that's very hard to point out... just that it happens constantly. But it's easier to analyze players when the player they're guarding has the ball, and usually Bass looks fairly good on those occasions.
In all, haven't been a fan of Sully's defense throughout the season. I think his defense since he returned has been infinitely better. He has been very good defensively in the past, hope he returns to that, but the inconsistency does worry me. Hope his rebounding returns in the playoffs.