CelticsStrong
Celtics Basketball => Celtics Talk => Topic started by: Androslav on September 26, 2018, 05:05:45 AM
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We talk about our atomic starting 5 ("Danny's Aingels" is my favorite so far). The rest of the NBA fandom will soon "discover" it too.
But I wanted to talk about this bench of ours that is particularly strong.
How strong?
Here are 3 players to give us a good perspective.
Terry Rozier - Would, by my count, surely start on these teams:
NY, Brooklyn (Russell is actually a 2-guard IMO), Orlando, Phoenix.
He could start on these as well:
Cleveland, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, San Antonio and Sacramento but they have prospects at PG that they want to develop.
And finally there some teams that could, in theory, start him:
Milwaukee (he outplayed Bledsoe, spaces the floor better), Detroit (Reggie is almost always injured), Clippers (Beverly is injury prone with less upside, may even be on the move soon), NOLA (Jrue would move to a nominal 2-guard slot).
That's 4-14 teams that he would start on.
Marcus Smart - is a hard player to evaluate. Some things he does are elite, but some others are well below starting level. Still, his versatility is very valuable. He would start on:
Phoenix (repeating occurrence, great fit next to Booker IMO), NOLA, Charlotte, NY, and Detroit (Stanley Johnson is benched).
5 teams, maybe more.
Marcus Morris - Our 5th best wing, would be much higher in the rotation then here, even on some projected playoff teams. Wings are becoming more valuable each day.
I'd say he'd almost certainly start on Denver (Barton), NOLA (Hill), San Antonio (Gay is their starter?), Detroit (he did start there for 2 years), Portland (Harkless) and Sacramento (no wings). That's 6 teams.
We have at least 3 clear lower tier starters on our bench. Pretty strong and I can't recall when some other team had at least 3 potential starters on the bench.
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Brad Wannamaker - our 3rd ballhandler, he is a starter in Phoenix.
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Best bench in the league.
Two 6th man of the year candidates in Rozier and Smart.
Morris would be a 6th man or starter on many teams. He's the 8th man here.
Baynes and Theis are two good bench guys who can play specific roles (strong interior defender, rangy mobile defender respectively) and create good balance for the team.
Solid depth behind those guys. Yabusele, Wannamaker, Rob Williams.
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Best bench in the league.
Two 6th man of the year candidates in Rozier and Smart.
Morris would be a 6th man or starter on many teams. He's the 8th man here.
Baynes and Theis are two good bench guys who can play specific roles (strong interior defender, rangy mobile defender respectively) and create good balance for the team.
Solid depth behind those guys. Yabusele, Wannamaker, Rob Williams.
This is what sets Boston apart from Golden State.
Both clubs have incredible cores but Boston has far superior depth. Celtics are the favourite to win the league this season.
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Best bench in the league.
Two 6th man of the year candidates in Rozier and Smart.
Morris would be a 6th man or starter on many teams. He's the 8th man here.
Baynes and Theis are two good bench guys who can play specific roles (strong interior defender, rangy mobile defender respectively) and create good balance for the team.
Solid depth behind those guys. Yabusele, Wannamaker, Rob Williams.
This is what sets Boston apart from Golden State.
Both clubs have incredible cores but Boston has far superior depth. Celtics are the favourite to win the league this season.
I agree. That's why we can hunt that no. 1 seed throughout the whole playoffs. Also, we can give our All-stars those maintenance games off.
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I agree that the Celtics will have a solid bench. However, I think they will need at least one of the starters on the floor, to help maintain some sort of scoring stability. Rozier and Morris are arguably the bench’s best scorers, but I don’t think they can get it done on their own.
As for who would start on more teams between Rozier and Smart, I would easily take Smart if I needed a PG. To me, Rozier is more of an undersized SG. Smart is far better at running an offense and setting up his teammates. Also, don’t forget Smart is an elite defender that can switch.
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Best bench in the league.
Two 6th man of the year candidates in Rozier and Smart.
Morris would be a 6th man or starter on many teams. He's the 8th man here.
Baynes and Theis are two good bench guys who can play specific roles (strong interior defender, rangy mobile defender respectively) and create good balance for the team.
Solid depth behind those guys. Yabusele, Wannamaker, Rob Williams.
This is what sets Boston apart from Golden State.
Both clubs have incredible cores but Boston has far superior depth. Celtics are the favourite to win the league this season.
I agree. That's why we can hunt that no. 1 seed throughout the whole playoffs. Also, we can give our All-stars those maintenance games off.
I also agree. Our bench is crazy deep. Whip out the Pop treatment for some of our stars, and have them good as gold for a playoff (championship ;) ) run
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I agree that the Celtics will have a solid bench. However, I think they will need at least one of the starters on the floor, to help maintain some sort of scoring stability. Rozier and Morris are arguably the bench’s best scorers, but I don’t think they can get it done on their own.
As for who would start on more teams between Rozier and Smart, I would easily take Smart if I needed a PG. To me, Rozier is more of an undersized SG. Smart is far better at running an offense and setting up his teammates. Also, don’t forget Smart is an elite defender that can switch.
I feel like T-Roz can shoot, penetrate better and makes better decisions with the ball. When a guard can't penetrate he leaves out a lot. T-Roz is IMO much better fit on Point forward led teams. Think Giannis, LBJ, Simmons. Smart is a great utility guy, but a tricky piece. High TO rate in comparison. I love him, but he couldn't start on our rebuilding Celtic teams. Terry has a much clearer and defined role, that is always in demand.
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4 guys who could start on other teams (Rozier, Smart, Morris, Baynes), plus Theis as the 2nd 5.
If 2 of Semi, Wanamaker and Rob Williams prove useful on D and can contribute in a specialized offensive role, we'll legitimately be 12 deep, with 5 top 50 players starting and a top bench.
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I think our bench is fantastic. It has to be one of the best 2 or 3 bench rosters in the league.
That said, I don't think it's relevant to do comparisons of them as starters. Certainly the "our bench as a starting 5 would do X" line that has been tossed around a lot lately is absurd for a variety of reasons. But even looking at "our bench player A would start on teams X, Y & Z" is also not really relevant to understanding the strength of our bench.
The strength of a bench is really in how it complements the starters. And in this case, our bench is absolutely wonderful. It provides both backup at our key starting positions that most need backup (the 1 & the 5) and perhaps most importantly, it provides key situational matchup for the few scenarios the starters don't address.
Because we have so much depth at the 2 & 3 and even 3/4, even within our starting lineup itself (JB, JT & GH can all switch around in those slots and are backed up by MM & SO), it is critical that the bench provide backup at the 5 (to rest Al and also allow him to play down at the 4) and the 1 (Kyrie) and the bench provides that in guys (Baynes, Terry) who proved they could succeed as starters in those slots. So for backup and rest purposes, this bench is perfect.
For situational matchups, this is all about working in players WITH one or more starters also on the floor to address specific matchups. And our bench is extremely versatile with targeted defensive weapons like Baynes, Smart and Ojeleye, and guys not afraid to take a shot like Morris and Rozier. And it has several very athletic guys who can play multiple positions.
I don't like our bench as a hockey-swap, with no starters on the floor (other than in blowouts, of course). No one on the bench gives me confidence as an elite go-to scorer who you want to consistently work the offense through. I think if we do wholesale bench lineups we are going to hit some serious offensive lulls. But we have 4 of those guys (guys who can be 20+ point scorers) in the starting unit and likely at least 1 or 2 of those guys will be on the floor with the bench all the time. So the starters complement the bench as well.
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Relative to the rest of the league? Easily, top 5.
This is probably the best bench they've had since '07-08.
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I agree that the Celtics will have a solid bench. However, I think they will need at least one of the starters on the floor, to help maintain some sort of scoring stability. Rozier and Morris are arguably the bench’s best scorers, but I don’t think they can get it done on their own.
As for who would start on more teams between Rozier and Smart, I would easily take Smart if I needed a PG. To me, Rozier is more of an undersized SG. Smart is far better at running an offense and setting up his teammates. Also, don’t forget Smart is an elite defender that can switch.
I think this is right, but another reason is that our starters need the extra shots to fully realize their game. Longer term, we need Tatum and Brown to develop as primary options.
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Relative to the rest of the league? Easily, top 5.
This is probably the best bench they've had since '07-08.
I look at this bench on paper as the best in the league. We'll see the results later obviously.
I know it's almost blasphemy to put a team that has only played 5 minutes together in any sort of discussion with a championship winning squad, but I honestly see this team as superior to the 07-08 squad...
Yes, we lack a player with the impact of KG currently, but 1-8 overall I think we crush the 08 team, as well as 1-15.
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Relative to the rest of the league? Easily, top 5.
This is probably the best bench they've had since '07-08.
I look at this bench on paper as the best in the league. We'll see the results later obviously.
I know it's almost blasphemy to put a team that has only played 5 minutes together in any sort of discussion with a championship winning squad, but I honestly see this team as superior to the 07-08 squad...
Yes, we lack a player with the impact of KG currently, but 1-8 overall I think we crush the 08 team, as well as 1-15.
This team may be slightly better than the 07/08 team, but their definitely not superior. It also doesn’t necessarily mean they can win the title either. Since we’re comparing the two teams, I think your severely understating the impact of KG, who should have easily been the MVP that season. Also, I will go to my grave fully believing that the Big Three would have won 3 titles in a row if KG never injures his knee in Utah during the 08/09 season. BTW, that 07/08 team had arguably a top 5 PF (KG) and top 5 shooter (Allen) in the history of the league.
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Hard to say. When judging a bench, it's not about the individual pieces. It's about what the bench brings as a unit. What will they hang their hat on? What will be their identity?
We have some good pieces but I think that's still in up in the air. Defensively they should be good but offensively, who knows. Smart is smart, rozier and morris can still be erratic, and no one else can get their shot.
I think our bench will be fine but would not call them elite as a unit. But middle of the road should be okay for this team.
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A lineup of Rozier, Smart, Morris, Theis, and Baynes is one scary lineup defensively. Everyone is tough, competes hard, and no one in there has any fear. Morris called them BWA (bench with attitude) at media day. I think that fits.
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The true strength of our bench is heightened by the strong scoring and versatility of our starting five.
We have 4 solid scoring options on the first unit. This gives the opportunity for one of these four players to play some of his minutes with the second unit as a first scoring option.
It's a nice way of giving Brown or Tatum minutes as a first option and a road to further develop their offensive game. I can easily see either getting hot with that bench unit that normally plays strong defense.
So answer to the original question...strong.
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Great Bench.
Jamal Crawford would put us over the top.
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We have great depth at PG (Irving, Smart, Rozier) and of course epic depth at wing (Brown, Tatum, Hayward, plus Smart, Rozier, and Morris to a degree), but I don't feel that we have great depth or even top end talent with our bigs.
Horford is legit, for sure, but after that? Morris is probably our next best big and he is really more of a swing (although as a bench big, he is fine). Tatum is a great player as a wing but I don't consider him a big, certainly not a good big; he is barely a swing. So after our one really good big, our kinda big swing, and our small swing that is really a wing, we have Baynes, Theis, Ojeleye, Yabusele, and Williams.
This is our team's weakest link. It may not matter because we are so good in other areas but this is certainly not a "strength" of our team. Consider for example if Horford get banged up and misses some games. Then our stable of bigs gets really really thin.
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The true strength of our bench is heightened by the strong scoring and versatility of our starting five.
We have 4 solid scoring options on the first unit. This gives the opportunity for one of these four players to play some of his minutes with the second unit as a first scoring option.
It's a nice way of giving Brown or Tatum minutes as a first option and a road to further develop their offensive game. I can easily see either getting hot with that bench unit that normally plays strong defense.
So answer to the original question...strong.
I seem to be the lone voice in this but I think either Hayward or Tatum should play off the bench and we can start Baynes or Theis. Kind of like what Popovich did with Manu all those years and I guess GSW have done it with Iguodala as well, but two examples of recent championship teams not starting all their best players. We need to spread out the scorers as stated above, why not do it right from the start.
If we do that and say Tatum comes off the bench (even though I think Gordon "gondo" Hayward would be the perfect 6th man in the footsteps of our very own Hondo), then we really do have the best bench in the league. And our starting 5 would remain elite as well.
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We have great depth at PG (Irving, Smart, Rozier) and of course epic depth at wing (Brown, Tatum, Hayward, plus Smart, Rozier, and Morris to a degree), but I don't feel that we have great depth or even top end talent with our bigs.
Horford is legit, for sure, but after that? Morris is probably our next best big and he is really more of a swing (although as a bench big, he is fine). Tatum is a great player as a wing but I don't consider him a big, certainly not a good big; he is barely a swing. So after our one really good big, our kinda big swing, and our small swing that is really a wing, we have Baynes, Theis, Ojeleye, Yabusele, and Williams.
This is our team's weakest link. It may not matter because we are so good in other areas but this is certainly not a "strength" of our team. Consider for example if Horford get banged up and misses some games. Then our stable of bigs gets really really thin.
In reference to your concerns over our bigs depth, why do you think we need more strong bigs to contend? Our bigs are deeper than GSW (excluding the addition of DMC), Cleveland’s over the last few years and Houston’s. Most contending teams have one really strong starting big (Horford, Green, Love or Capela) and then solid role players who excel at one or two areas behind them. Like TT with his rebounding, Bogut with his defence and passing, etc.
I think we’ll be fine with Horford/Baynes/Theis/Williams/Yabu