- Do you believe we're going in to next season with a starting frontcort of Olynyk and Mickey?
- Do you think Boston is going to use $12M in cap space to guarantee Amir's second year?
- Do you think Jerebko is going to start for us over the course of a season?
Or do you seriously believe we are going to re-sign Sullinger after the laughable joke of a showing he gave us in the playoffs last year?
Boston has the #3 pick. You don't take a guy that high in the draft only to let him hibernate in the D League for years. There's a reason why Marcus Smart got significant playing time even though he was sharing the backcourt with the likes of Rajon Rondo, Isaiah Thomas and Avery Bradley. Top 10 picks tend to get playing time in their rookie years - just look at Justice Winslow, Frank Kaminsky, Devin Booker, etc. The only exceptions are maybe Bender and Ingram (for physical reasons) - though even Ingram will most likely get significant playing time as a rookie.
Poeltl is much like Smart was in that he is already NBA-ready physically and defensively, it's really only his offensive game that's going to need development.
To put it into perspective, here is the Net Rating for the top rated prospects who played in college:
Ben Simmons: +18.8
Brandon Ingram: +10.3
Jaylen Brown: +1.3
Buddy Hield: +22.3
Jamal Murray: +17.6
Kris Dunn: +11.3
Jakob Poeltl: +30.3
Henry Ellenson: +7.8
Skal LAbissiere: +10.9
Marquese Chriss: +9.8
Deyonta Davis: +30.5
Poeltl not only put up excellent stats (20.4 Points, 10.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 0.9 steals, 1.8 blocks Per 36 along with 64% FG), the advanced stats show that he also had a very positive impact on his team's success as well. The Celtics brass tend to love guys like that.
Regarding Olynyk and Mickey, who knows? Mickey will still be in the d-league, most likely, and Stevens likes 'small ball'
and has had no problem trotting out ridiculously minuscule lineups with Smart at the 4
at times, iirc, plus KO can't defend, rebound, post up, get out of his own head with the incessant pump faking, and routinely gets in foul trouble. Either way, neither guy will be on the court for long, if history is any indication.
As for Amir, I hope not - please don't pick up his option and bring him back, and the same goes for Swedish Meatballs, but I can definitely see them sticking around, unfortunately, and, yes, I can see Jerebko starting because why not, lol? Ugh. I also hope that Sully is gone. Don't even make him an offer. If you can get a second round pick or something like that in a sign-and-trade, fine, but if not, just let him walk. Please. He should have been gone 3 years ago after his domestic violence 'incident', but Ainge always says that he values 'high character guys', so I guess that Sully meets that standard? Ugh.
Also, I'm not sure that I would compare Poeltl to Smart in terms of offensive ability. If this had been a year ago during the former's freshman campaign, I might have agreed, but the turtle has made tremendous improvement in his offensive repertoire. He and Smart couldn't be more different in that category.
In terms of Net Rating, I don't even know what that is, and I think that advanced stats are a load of bunk, but maybe I'm just being ignorant, so if you feel that net rating should be a determining factor when deciding on whom to draft, I'm all ears.
What I do know, however (which is not much about anything, really), is that Marcus Smart was picked at least in part because of his advanced stats like steal percentage or whatever, but that did not translate to him being any kind of star, except on Shaqtin' A Fool. There is no on base percentage for basketball, no matter how hard everyone tries to keep coming up with some method to discover such an indicator of success, so I'd really appreciate it if we would stop drafting players based on 'analytics' and workouts. Just watch the game film - it doesn't lie.
Besides, by that very measurement, wouldn't Deyonta Davis, who played only 18.6 mpg and started fewer than half of Michigan State's games (16, to be exact), be the better choice, despite concerns with his motor, personality, and work ethic? I just think that we need to be careful in trying to quantify a sport with so many variables and not make a pick based solely on numbers.
It's also worth pointing out that Stevens' offensive philosophy, ie, chuck as many 3s as possible regardless of the fact that we don't nearly have anywhere near the kind of personnel needed to successfully implement such an approach, doesn't seem to have a place for traditional big men or even midrange jumpers
, so expecting him to suddenly turn about face as far as our 'style of play' is concerned just because we finally have a real center is quite the hope, and I wouldn't exactly hold my breath about it changing anytime soon.
I agree that a #3 pick shouldn't be kept in the d-league, unless of course we're talking about Fender Bender who looks like the Croatian version of James Vanderbeek (not that that means anything other than whatever show on which he next appears will soon be cancelled), if a large conglomerate of this community is to be believed (as you know, we have one group saying Bender's Awesome!, while the other screams Bender Sucks!, and I'm like 'we don't have enough information as fans to come to any kind of reasonable conclusion pertaining to whether or not he can even play'), but on the other hand, we have a former #6 pick in Marcus Smart whose offensive ability is, at best, on the d-league level, and yet he keeps getting playing time despite routinely making dumb mistakes, taking horrible shots, and egregiously flopping, so I don't know what kind of precedent that sets as far as someone like Poeltl is concerned.
Sidebar - are you on #teamjakob (sarcasm)?
Topic: Who are the 7 players Steven's mentioned today. (Read 7670 times)