Is Brad good at developing talent?

[littleteapot]

That's true, but at least there were guys under Doc that did develop when we haven't really found a single one yet under Stevens.  I wondered if it was too soon to judge and maybe it is.  But I guess I am a bit underwhelmed that you couldn't trade a single celtics player straight up for solid, yet unspectacular prospects like Nerlens Noel, Giannis, Rudy Gobert, or maybe even Elfrid Payton or Dennis Schroeder.  That's how little progress all of our players have made individually.  While I am very pleased with how our team has progressed collectively.  I do wonder which is more important though.

OK first of all I still don't understand why Payton is considered better than Smart at this point but I guess I have to stop with that rant.

The successful young players you're mentioning around the league are also guys you picked out AFTER they succeeded, and guys like Noel, Giannis and Gobert had more raw talent to begin with than anyone on our roster.

[GratefulCs]

I was reading a comment on Jeff’s front page post about what big names could the Celtics be targeting.  The comment was on player development and how Brad Stevens has done a much better job of this than Doc did.

I think I have to completely disagree.  Here are some players that were developed under Doc:
Rondo (21st overall) – 4x all star
Kendrick Perkins (27th overall) – starting center on a championship team type player
Al Jefferson (15th overall) – in his third (and last) season with us, he was averaging 16/11 on 51% shooting.  Went on to average 21ppg his next season in Minn.
Tony Allen (25th overall) – starter on a championship contender type player
Delonte West (24th overall) – serviceable role player

Doc actually did an excellent job developing these “purgatory picks” into solid NBA talent.  Names like Delonte, Tony, Kendrick might not overwhelm you, but often times guys in that range of picks don't even get a second NBA contract.

Who has Brad Stevens developed?  I have to give Brad more time, but in two years, I haven’t seen nearly the amount of development in Sullinger, Olynyk, AB, or Smart that I’d like to have.  When you have 4 players like that picked in the 6-20 range and all the playing time in the world to hand out to them, you’ve gotta develop at least one of them into a player who a non-celtic fan would bet even money on having at least one all-star appearance in his career.

That said, I’m still hopeful that in more time the Celtics organization will develop some of this young talent.  But I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Brad is better at developing young talent Doc was.  Doc had a reputation for not playing young players, but maybe it made them work their butts off for that playing time (AB, Glen Davis) which helped them become more than they originally would have.

people always gave doc guff for not developing players well. I disagree with those people



Give brad time

[Tr1boy]

So far from I have seen

Yes to make the players try to work in the system in place

Not ,individual development. He expects you to do that

For example, KO, should have a small turnaround hookshot by now(tommy has been saying).

[DarkAzcura]

The Celtics coaching staff deserves a ton of credit for force feeding Smart into 3PT shots to help him develop the shot early on amidst a ton of criticism from fans/media. That's really where the difference between Stevens and Doc is that I notice in the short-term. He's been willing to develop certain parts of players' games that seemed unlikely to amount to anything. Smart turning into a 34% 3PT shooter from the NBA line after shooting 29% from the college line is really impressive, and I'm glad the staff made him focus on that all of last year. It's a two way street, though, and Smart had to put the work in also. I'm pretty sure Doc would have had some kind of panic attack from all the 3s Smart shot last year.

On the other hand, the experiment hasn't been working as well with Sullinger (yet?).

[manl_lui]

speaking of developing, let's see how he develops Perry Jones III since he basically did nothing in the league yet...