"Are more of you converting to full on believers in this kid? Did I miss something?"
You look at the improvement he made from his freshman to sophomore seasons, where he got his first real minutes and became Big East DPOY and doubled his FT%.
Then you look at the buzz he got at the Combine based on improvement since the season ended.
Then you look at his Summer League performance, and see how he was moving faster than during his DPOY season, and how light on his feet he was.
He's now under Celtics tutelage, and he'll probably look even better at the start of training camp.
By the end of the pre-season, he will probably look night and day better than he was last season, which was night and day better than he was as a freshman. Certainly by the end of the 2012-13 season.
He's a long athletic 7' center in a league full of 6'10"-6'11" centers, or 7' stiffs.
He's got a nice looking jump shot with a fast enough release and a high release point. He'll get a couple post moves down that will be very difficult for the average center to block.
He may not ever be a dominant rebounder, but neither was Perk.
Melo already shows more offensive potential than Perk ever showed, as well as better court awareness and passing.
Perk was and is better at manning up the beefcake centers, but Melo is already a better shotblocker, and can move much better on help defense.
If Melo didn't come from a zone defense, and excel at it, I'd be much more concerned about his ability to pick up the Celtics' defense.
I think Doc was on board with this pick, and I also think Doc learned a couple things last year. One is that Doc knows he should have played Moore more during the regular season, so that he would have been more ready to play in the playoffs when he was needed.
The other thing I think Doc learned is that he could get decent contributions from big men without them completely understanding the defensive rotations. Steamer and Hollins were plugged right in there.
Melo is much more talented than either, and my hunch is that Doc will keep his expectations realistic. Everybody knows that Melo is no rocket scientist.
I could be wrong, but I think Doc will take the good with the bad to some extent, with the goal of making sure Melo is ready to really contribute during the playoffs.
I think Melo is already an elite shotblocker. We'll learn a whole lot during the pre-season as to whether or not Melo is ready to play with the big boys.
The biggest question is probably whether his mental lapses are still frequent enough to outweigh the positives that he brings.
Doc stressed to Rondo this year that he should trust his instincts and play instinctive ball more. Hopefully Melo gets the same guidance and confidence from Doc.
