Xavier Tillman's Role

[Silas]

Last night vs Memphis was another example of how badly Mazzulla has handled the playing time/development/implementation of Xavier Tillman into the Celtics playing rotation this season. To my mind he has blundered a possible productive rotation player's chance at any success for this team. And this is a position of need for this team. Though a bit undersized height-wise, Tillman provides interior muscle, an important role for a finesse team like the Celts, especially in the playoffs when games often become more intense and physical.

So vs Memphis last night  ........... One chance in one game ? Really one chance in 8 minutes. Real bad way to judge a player.
You have to give Tillman consistent minutes over several games to give him a reasonable chance at being productive.
Look at Kornet, Pritchard, Hauser for evidence of this.
Just all of a sudden starting Tillman one night and saying, "Here you go, you got one chance, really 8 minutes to sink or swim even though you have hardly seen the floor all season" is ridiculous. Typical Mazzulla.

I think we all had hoped and wanted Tillman to be the tough big we thought we needed.  He's still young and has played well before coming to Boston.  That said, he has played in 30 games this season so far with over 200 minutes on the floor.  The guy doesn't work well with his teammates.  Of all the players on the team that have shot 3s he is at the bottom of the barrel at 15.6%.  Ok, maybe that's not his thing, so how about his 2pt shooting in the paint.  Again, he is at the bottom of the barrel at 36.8%.  My opinion, and probably most on this forum, is that X isn't the player we wanted and doesn't have the skills needed for the upcoming playoffs.  Maybe next year with another team he might get it, but now he really looks bad on the floor.  My guess is that Joe will give him more minutes during the last 7 games but I don't hold out hope. 

[Goldstar88]

Last night vs Memphis was another example of how badly Mazzulla has handled the playing time/development/implementation of Xavier Tillman into the Celtics playing rotation this season. To my mind he has blundered a possible productive rotation player's chance at any success for this team. And this is a position of need for this team. Though a bit undersized height-wise, Tillman provides interior muscle, an important role for a finesse team like the Celts, especially in the playoffs when games often become more intense and physical.

So vs Memphis last night  ........... One chance in one game ? Really one chance in 8 minutes. Real bad way to judge a player.
You have to give Tillman consistent minutes over several games to give him a reasonable chance at being productive.
Look at Kornet, Pritchard, Hauser for evidence of this.
Just all of a sudden starting Tillman one night and saying, "Here you go, you got one chance, really 8 minutes to sink or swim even though you have hardly seen the floor all season" is ridiculous. Typical Mazzulla.

The only reason Tillman started yesterday was because he was drafted by Memphis and played there for several years. It was an act of kindness by Joe. Tillman looks slow and he has chronic knee issues. Horford moves better than X and he?s nearly 40. Also, who do you want Tillman to get minutes over? Tatum, Porzingis, Horford, or Kornet?

[slamtheking]

Last night vs Memphis was another example of how badly Mazzulla has handled the playing time/development/implementation of Xavier Tillman into the Celtics playing rotation this season. To my mind he has blundered a possible productive rotation player's chance at any success for this team. And this is a position of need for this team. Though a bit undersized height-wise, Tillman provides interior muscle, an important role for a finesse team like the Celts, especially in the playoffs when games often become more intense and physical.

So vs Memphis last night  ........... One chance in one game ? Really one chance in 8 minutes. Real bad way to judge a player.
You have to give Tillman consistent minutes over several games to give him a reasonable chance at being productive.
Look at Kornet, Pritchard, Hauser for evidence of this.
Just all of a sudden starting Tillman one night and saying, "Here you go, you got one chance, really 8 minutes to sink or swim even though you have hardly seen the floor all season" is ridiculous. Typical Mazzulla.

Or you could blame Tillman for not being a good player?

this.  he just stunk.

he's shown nothing all season.  a player needs to make the most of their chances. 

[tenn_smoothie]

All of these responses ignore my main point.

Quote all the stats you want, they have come in mop-up duty at the end of games with other bench guys and very sporadic at that.
Not sure how many rotation-type role players could develop any sort of consistency occasionally playing 2-3 minutes at the end of a game.
We have witnessed firsthand the development of productive role players on this team once they were given consistent floor time.
Maybe Tillman won't become productive, but we'll never find out with him sitting on the bench 99% of the time.
We are in a good place to give him playing time down the stretch at this point. Joe is playing the starters too many minutes as it is.
Don't need to be playing our main guys 36-40 minutes, they need to be rested and healthy.
Mix Tillman with them in a regular rotation so he is not just playing with the end of the bench.
Give the guy a legitimate chance at playing now and let's find out if he can help during the playoffs.

[ozgod]

Tenn raises a good point in that it's hard for us, as fans, to to judge him because we see him play so rarely, and sporadically at that. That said, I'm guessing the coaching staff have more data points in which to judge him, both in games and scrimmages, and they've probably been judging him all season, and this is what they've deemed him to be. What we might be seeing is the result of their judgment, not necessarily an audition i.e. "prove to us you deserve more PT". I think they've long ago decided he's not got what it takes to be a regular rotation piece like a Hauser or a Payton who can shoot the ball, but for $2m they're willing to ride with him because he might be a plug in piece when others are injured or if they need some garbage time minutes to be taken up.

Also, with respect to him starting, on the body of evidence over the past three years, Joe strikes me as the kind of coach who doesn't like "cascading changes" - where if someone on his starting lineup is out, he would rather plug a new person outside the regular rotation in there, rather than promote someone from his 2nd lineup, which would then disrupt his second lineup. That's probably why he put X in to start, along with the fact that it was probably a nod to him playing for Memphis and a chance for him to play in front of family and friends in a game that was the end of a long road trip. I've noticed he does this, putting Torrey Craig to start, or Jordan Walsh, rather than promote someone from his second lineup and disrupt the combinations that those guys have when they come on.

[Birdman]

I been disappointed with him as I expected him having a bigger role on the team

[bello_man09]

I feel bad for him, he's standing at the 3 point line shooting 3s, that's not his game but I am not sure he's good at anything really. I remember him been a big who could move his feet on defense kinda like a poor mans AL but him catching and shooting is not his game..he has some games where the shot is falling but that's not who he is...as far has yesterday he looked active on defense, fouled a lot but I wasn't totally disappointed.

[slamtheking]

All of these responses ignore my main point.

Quote all the stats you want, they have come in mop-up duty at the end of games with other bench guys and very sporadic at that.
Not sure how many rotation-type role players could develop any sort of consistency occasionally playing 2-3 minutes at the end of a game.
We have witnessed firsthand the development of productive role players on this team once they were given consistent floor time.
Maybe Tillman won't become productive, but we'll never find out with him sitting on the bench 99% of the time.
We are in a good place to give him playing time down the stretch at this point. Joe is playing the starters too many minutes as it is.
Don't need to be playing our main guys 36-40 minutes, they need to be rested and healthy.
Mix Tillman with them in a regular rotation so he is not just playing with the end of the bench.
Give the guy a legitimate chance at playing now and let's find out if he can help during the playoffs.

no one's disagreeing that Joe buries bench guys but when they do get the chance, they've got to produce, period.   We've seen 3 other examples this year getting sporadic minutes - Peterson, Scheierman and Springer. 
- Springer provided high quality defense but no reliable offense. 
- Scheierman wasn't producing anything until he finally had a game where he hit some shots and he's been pretty solid since then
- Peterson has looked ok in his minutes.  able to hit his shots reasonably well and play decent D and rebound for his position.

None of these 3 have cracked the rotation (Springer's actually gone) while actually showing far more productivity than Tillman and none of them got the same opportunity as Tillman last year and earlier this year to get a rotation spot where we really needed him to step up to give Al and Zinger rest.

I hope Tillman can bounce back next season to be an NBA-level player but it'll be some other team taking a flyer on him.