Will Stevens move Kelly Olynyk into the starting line up? when?

[mmmmm]

It's a relatively small sample size of 50 minutes.  I'd also note that when KO is with the other starters, it's often at the end of games.  Many of these times he's being switched in for offense, so he's only on the court when the Celtics have the ball, and thus a chance to gain points, but off the court when the Celtics are defending, and thus have a chance to give up points (it's either Amir or Marcus on the court in these situations). I think this artificially inflates his net rating, given the small amount of minutes overall.

That's not to say I think it's a bad lineup.  I think it definitely has its strengths.  I just think that purely going by net rating might ignore a confounding variable.

Actually, while a fair chunk (14 minutes) of the 52 minutes that lineup has been on the floor has been in the 4th period or OT, in truth the largest chunk of the sample, some 31 minutes (i.e, 60%) has come in the _third_ period.

It's interesting to note that in those 31 minutes in the third period that 5-man unit was a ridiculous 122.7 ORtg versus a 104.5 DRtg ... based largely on Isaiah and Avery going absolutely nuts.   Isaiah's TS% in that sample was 71.7% and his eFG was 61.1% and Avery was at 73.1% for both TS & eFG.

That's basically skewing the entire sample.

This whole 'analysis' by Coach Nick is really weak.

I'm not saying that at some point KO might not be good enough where it makes sense to start him over Amir.  I don't see real evidence we are at that point.

So think about why Avery and IT are going off.
Spacing, driving and kicking with a 5 man perimeter lineup and ball movement.
When KO is on the floor with that unit there are 5 legit 3 point threats waiting on the  3 pt line when IT drives. It also makes it harder for help defenders to commit to help because horford and KO can both hit the 3 so they must be respected...leaving less opportunity to swarm IT and thus he gets more open lanes to the basket.

Or ... I could just recognize the reality that it is a ridiculously small sample size.

As I said, I'm all on-board for the KO-joining-the-starters train, as soon as that is compelling.

It is not compelling yet.

I'm not sure the starters are really desperately in need of Kelly's 3PT shooting.  Here our top 3PT% shooters so far this year (3PA in parenthesis):

Crowder*    .423  (149)
Bradley*     .417  (180)
Johnson*    .400  ( 30)
Green       .400  ( 45)
Thomas*    .375  (240)
Jerebko    .373  ( 67)
Olynyk     .337  ( 92)
Horford*    .333  (120)
Brown      .325  ( 40)
Rozier      .319  ( 69)
Smart      .312  (141)

Four of the starters* have been shooting the three better than Kelly so far this year (including Amir) and the 5th (Horford) is essentially shooting just as well.

Now, personally, I expect Kelly's 3PT% to climb as he gets further away from his shoulder surgery.  But the same list above presents an argument that the bench is in need of his shooting.