Brad Stevens tried to reinvent basketball. He's wrong.

[Somebody]

For kicks, here's last year's Celtics, who were as long or longer at every position:

Kyrie 6'4"
Jaylen 6'7" (longer wingspan than Klay by 3 inches)
Tatum 6'8"
Morris 6'9"
Horford 6'10"

That team had almost ideal size, particularly with Baynes, Hayward and Smart available as well.  Lack of traditional positions / length weren't our issues.

I still shake my head thinking about what could have been.  On paper, that's a championship-contending roster.

I agree, last season's team was pretty good. I was more upset about how the Horford/Baynes duo wasn't utilised more to force feed minutes to Hayward, who imo should've been slowly fed minutes to get him up to speed in a bench role (our bench could've used his playmaking). My point about the Warriors was that they had two exceptions in KD and Draymond that allowed them to get away playing small for long stretches, while we really couldn't do the same (we don't have a guy like KD for starters lol, a speedy 7 footer who's disruptive on the defensive end would be a dream frontcourt player for me).

[Somebody]

For kicks, here's last year's Celtics, who were as long or longer at every position:

Kyrie 6'4"
Jaylen 6'7" (longer wingspan than Klay by 3 inches)
Tatum 6'8"
Morris 6'9"
Horford 6'10"

That team had almost ideal size, particularly with Baynes, Hayward and Smart available as well.  Lack of traditional positions / length weren't our issues.

I still shake my head thinking about what could have been.  On paper, that's a championship-contending roster.

It sure was talent wise.
But we were lacking the necessary leadership.

I'd say they lacked strong (not good, Brad is plenty good) coaching as well. I think a stronger coach like Pop would've implemented a shot hierarchy, and he wouldn't have force fed Hayward that many minutes to disrupt team chemistry after such a good playoff run by guys like Rozier and Brown, which would've probably unlocked more minutes at PF for us to utilise a Horford/Baynes frontcourt to combat larger teams like Milwaukee, whose 3 big lineups gave our 1 guard/2 wings/1 swing/1 big lineups fits in the playoffs.

[Somebody]

lol, when does training camp start?  we are really grasping at straws with some of these threads.
Brad is a good coach, he wasn't trying to reinvent anything.  We were playing small ball when Doc was still here.

Doc's small ball is big nowadays LOL, KG would've been perfect at C. He also never really played a ton of wings at the PF position, from what I could remember he played swings in the vein of Bass there, which was perfectly fine with me.

[nickagneta]

lol, when does training camp start?  we are really grasping at straws with some of these threads.
Brad is a good coach, he wasn't trying to reinvent anything.  We were playing small ball when Doc was still here.

Doc's small ball is big nowadays LOL, KG would've been perfect at C. He also never really played a ton of wings at the PF position, from what I could remember he played swings in the vein of Bass there, which was perfectly fine with me.

Doc played a ton of small ball. Posey was the definition of a modern day small ball 4 with Garnett the perimeter playing, hyper athletic, super long center that could guard the 3 through 5 spots but stretch the floor at the other end.That was Doc's third most used lineup in 2008.

Take a look at the 5 man units from that year. There were a ton of small ball lineups.

http://www.82games.com/0708/0708BOS2.HTM

[Somebody]

lol, when does training camp start?  we are really grasping at straws with some of these threads.
Brad is a good coach, he wasn't trying to reinvent anything.  We were playing small ball when Doc was still here.

Doc's small ball is big nowadays LOL, KG would've been perfect at C. He also never really played a ton of wings at the PF position, from what I could remember he played swings in the vein of Bass there, which was perfectly fine with me.

Doc played a ton of small ball. Posey was the definition of a modern day small ball 4 with Garnett the perimeter playing, hyper athletic, super long center that could guard the 3 through 5 spots but stretch the floor at the other end.That was Doc's third most used lineup in 2008.

Take a look at the 5 man units from that year. There were a ton of small ball lineups.

http://www.82games.com/0708/0708BOS2.HTM

That's perfectly big in nowadays' NBA, I said that Posey is the perfect 3 and D PF earlier in the thread with good length and decent height, as well as not lacking in strength to prevent being bullied by traditional PFs. What I'm saying is that we don't have that type of swing, as well as that type of super athletic big man who can be disruptive on defense.

[Bobshot]

I think the school's still out on Stevens. He hasn't won anything yet.

Are there any conflicts with Ainge and Wyc? Maybe, but no one here really knows, and anyone in the media who knows something isn't saying. They tend to leave management alone.

Ainge has played on Celtics teams that were coached a bit differently. There was the 4 in McHale, the 3 in Bird and the 5 in Parrish. All fit the position. 3P shooting was pretty much limited to Ainge and Bird. Maybe DJ some. The '08 team had Allen and Pierce for 3s plus Posey, House and other 3P specialists. KG was not a 3 guy.

What those teams did not have was a license for everybody to throw up the 3 if they had room on the perimeter. The 3 was reserved for certain shooters who showed they could shoot  35-40% 3s. That's equivalent to about 50% 3P shooting.  Just take 18 pts and get there by 2s and 3s. Easy to figure out.

By the way, a big who can shoot 75% 2s like Tacko Fall is like having a 50% 3P shooter, and there aren't many of those around. I think I've made that point before.

I'm sure Ainge and Stevens are aware of this stuff, but I cringe a little when I hear Stevens  talk of playing Kanter on the perimeter some, and his willingness to shoot the 3--despite Kanter's obvious strengths inside.  You don't know where Ainge is at on this. He is stacking a lot of bigs, and seems to recognize the Celtics are not big enough to compete inside.

Can Stevens 3P perimeter game win in the current NBA? Against teams like Philly, the LA teams and the Warriors? We'll just have to see.

[mmmmm]

I've talked about this many times, but what KGLL is going on about isn't pure size/length, it's about acquiring skilled and mobile size, or players who have qualities to overcome their lack of size/length. People like to use the Warriors as an example to pimp up small ball, but the Warriors are hardly "small": they have a 6'3 Curry who's taller than the average PG (around 6'2), a 6'7 Klay who's the perfect 3 and D SG, a 7 foot KD with a 7'5 wingspan to cover all three frontcourt positions, a 6'8/6'9 Iguodala who has a combination of size, length, strength and speed to cover the toughest wing/swing assignments in the league, and a 6'6/6'7 Draymond Green who is one of the rare exceptions in the league: a player who's absurdly long for his height with a 7'2 wingspan, strong enough to hold his ground against bruising seven footers inside, quick enough to switch outside seamlessly and embarrass plodding big men and skilled enough to be a passing hub anywhere on the court. What the Celtics have is nothing that the Warriors have in the frontcourt: we have a 6'7 Jaylen Brown who's best at playing as an oversized SG ala Klay, a 6'8 Hayward who has T-Rex arms to render him less effective than an Iggy at defending up a position or two, and a 6'9 Tatum who's long and big enough to guard bigger players, but unfortunately doesn't have the strength or nose inside to check them well. What we could do is to play with a slightly more traditional lineup at times when we need some beef in the frontcourt, but Brad Stevens is pretty averse to such lineups, and that's pretty much what we're not liking about his coaching. We'd be incredibly happy with him if we had GSW's personnel/if he plays with a bigger lineup at times when we need it against teams like Milwaukee. The small ball preaching needs to stop about pure skill overcoming multiple inches of size and length plus the nose to play inside lol, all the best "small ball" teams are nothing like this, they have skilled and mobile size who all have the mentality to play rough when matched up against more traditional lineups.

Agree the Warriors had great personnel to execute their scheme, but let's not exaggerate. Iggy is listed at 6'6". And while they did add KD, their championship run started when they had Harrison Barnes at the power forward position, no giant. In total:

Curry 6'3" (with a relatively short wingspan, at 6'4")
Klay 6'7" (the only player on their roster who was long for his position, but still not crazy long - wingspan of 6'9")
Iguodala 6'6"
Barnes 6'8"
Green 6'7"

It worked because they were great basketball players who knew how to get the most out of their scheme, not because they were long.

For kicks, here's last year's Celtics, who were as long or longer at every position:

Kyrie 6'4"
Jaylen 6'7" (longer wingspan than Klay by 3 inches)
Tatum 6'8"
Morris 6'9"
Horford 6'10"

I think folks need to review just how many combined minutes Bogut, Speights & Ezeli all got on that 2015 championship team.   They combined for over 3200 minutes and they weren't spent with each other.  The 2014-15 Warriors put a legit "true big" at the 5 for over 80% of the time.   All three of those guys was at least 6-10, at least 255 lbs and with wingspan.  Bogut got most of those minutes and was as big and old-school as they come.

And they gave another 900+ minutes to David Lee, who while listed as "only" 6' 9", had a 7'+ wingspan and was also big and strong and wasn't exactly a 3PT shooting 'stretch big' either.   He clocked about 400 of his minutes at the 5.   

That pushes the total they played with one of these 4 bigs at the 5 to probably around ~3600 out of a possible 3936 total.

Speights is the only one of those guys who shot threes and he only shot just 18 all that season.

The reality is, the 2014-15 Warriors played right around 90% of their minutes with a non-three-point-shooting, 'classic' big man at the 5.

I'm not going to argue with the general point you and others here are trying to make.  I concur with your take in general.  But I think people's memories of that first Warrior's title team are somewhat distorted.

[Somebody]

I've talked about this many times, but what KGLL is going on about isn't pure size/length, it's about acquiring skilled and mobile size, or players who have qualities to overcome their lack of size/length. People like to use the Warriors as an example to pimp up small ball, but the Warriors are hardly "small": they have a 6'3 Curry who's taller than the average PG (around 6'2), a 6'7 Klay who's the perfect 3 and D SG, a 7 foot KD with a 7'5 wingspan to cover all three frontcourt positions, a 6'8/6'9 Iguodala who has a combination of size, length, strength and speed to cover the toughest wing/swing assignments in the league, and a 6'6/6'7 Draymond Green who is one of the rare exceptions in the league: a player who's absurdly long for his height with a 7'2 wingspan, strong enough to hold his ground against bruising seven footers inside, quick enough to switch outside seamlessly and embarrass plodding big men and skilled enough to be a passing hub anywhere on the court. What the Celtics have is nothing that the Warriors have in the frontcourt: we have a 6'7 Jaylen Brown who's best at playing as an oversized SG ala Klay, a 6'8 Hayward who has T-Rex arms to render him less effective than an Iggy at defending up a position or two, and a 6'9 Tatum who's long and big enough to guard bigger players, but unfortunately doesn't have the strength or nose inside to check them well. What we could do is to play with a slightly more traditional lineup at times when we need some beef in the frontcourt, but Brad Stevens is pretty averse to such lineups, and that's pretty much what we're not liking about his coaching. We'd be incredibly happy with him if we had GSW's personnel/if he plays with a bigger lineup at times when we need it against teams like Milwaukee. The small ball preaching needs to stop about pure skill overcoming multiple inches of size and length plus the nose to play inside lol, all the best "small ball" teams are nothing like this, they have skilled and mobile size who all have the mentality to play rough when matched up against more traditional lineups.

Agree the Warriors had great personnel to execute their scheme, but let's not exaggerate. Iggy is listed at 6'6". And while they did add KD, their championship run started when they had Harrison Barnes at the power forward position, no giant. In total:

Curry 6'3" (with a relatively short wingspan, at 6'4")
Klay 6'7" (the only player on their roster who was long for his position, but still not crazy long - wingspan of 6'9")
Iguodala 6'6"
Barnes 6'8"
Green 6'7"

It worked because they were great basketball players who knew how to get the most out of their scheme, not because they were long.

For kicks, here's last year's Celtics, who were as long or longer at every position:

Kyrie 6'4"
Jaylen 6'7" (longer wingspan than Klay by 3 inches)
Tatum 6'8"
Morris 6'9"
Horford 6'10"

I think folks need to review just how many combined minutes Bogut, Speights & Ezeli all got on that 2015 championship team.   They combined for over 3200 minutes and they weren't spent with each other.  The 2014-15 Warriors put a legit "true big" at the 5 for over 80% of the time.   All three of those guys was at least 6-10, at least 255 lbs and with wingspan.  Bogut got most of those minutes and was as big and old-school as they come.

And they gave another 900+ minutes to David Lee, who while listed as "only" 6' 9", had a 7'+ wingspan and was also big and strong and wasn't exactly a 3PT shooting 'stretch big' either.   He clocked about 400 of his minutes at the 5.   

That pushes the total they played with one of these 4 bigs at the 5 to probably around ~3600 out of a possible 3936 total.

Speights is the only one of those guys who shot threes and he only shot just 18 all that season.

The reality is, the 2014-15 Warriors played right around 90% of their minutes with a non-three-point-shooting, 'classic' big man at the 5.

I'm not going to argue with the general point you and others here are trying to make.  I concur with your take in general.  But I think people's memories of that first Warrior's title team are somewhat distorted.

TP for the analysis. I don't think most people supporting KGLL disagree with that take in general, but having size like GSW did is also needed for a modern NBA contender.

[Vermont Green]

Last season, the most frequent line up by far (495 minutes compared to next closest at 140 min) was a line up of Irving-Smart-Tatum-Morris-Horford.  This group of 5 was also the top 5 on the Celtics in terms of average minutes per game.  To me, that is a pretty traditional line up.  You can quibble as to whether Morris is a big or swing he is small for a PF but certainly does not constitute "going small" to have him on the court with Horford.

Looking at this another way, the Celtics played about 66% of the time with two bigs on the court last season (two of Horford, Morris, Baynes, Theis).  I am not sure what everyone thinks he is reinventing here?  I think he understands full well that you are better off having two bigs on the court most of the time.  His favorite line up last season lined up just fine with the traditional PG-SG-SF-PF-C.

Yes, there was plenty of the time where they went “small” where Tatum (mostly) or Hayward (sometimes) played without a second big alongside Horford.  But I think the problem there is talent, not some quest to redefine basketball.  He played Horford Morris, and Baynes about as much as he could so to get more size on the court would have meant more of Theis, Ojeleye, Yabusele, or RWilliams.  So he elected to play Tatum out of position as the lesser of two evils.

So I guess I agree with the OP that it is wrong to "go small" in an extreme but disagree that there is evidence they Celtics tried to do this last season (or ever).

[Fafnir]

For the most part those who whine about small ball killing the Celtics consider Morris a SF.

They want Duncan/Robinson, Garnett/Perkins, Horford/Baynes, etc....

[W8ting2McHale]

In the history of basketball, the days of this idealized, classic Power Forward, were pretty short lived. When I was a kid learning the game, I idealized those power forwards, because that was my game. Rebounds and shots in the paint. Maybe a midrange floater.

The game has changed. The classic Power Forward era is over. It died when Tim Duncan became a center.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/nbarankPFs/ranking-greatest-power-forwards-nba-history

There is one power forward on that list from the ‘60s, Bob Petit. One from the ‘70s, Elvin Hayes, the rest, from Barkley and McHale to Tim and Dirk where all mid-80s to 2010. The classic  Power Forward era ended a decade ago. It had a good run. 1975-2005, but it’s over. Maybe it will make a comeback, but as long as the most athletic guys on the court are 6’5” to 6’8” and they can shoot 3s, probably not.

Guys that can drive or pass from the perimeter like Lebron, Giannis or Simmons, shoot 3s like Markkanen, or do it all like Durant and Leonard, are the models for current NBA forwards, not a banger in the post.

Tatum and Hayward are closer to that model than Morris ever was.

[Somebody]

For the most part those who whine about small ball killing the Celtics consider Morris a SF.

They want Duncan/Robinson, Garnett/Perkins, Horford/Baynes, etc....

I do not consider Morris as an SF but prefer Horford/Baynes to start games. Stop generalising people who whine about the Celtics from playing small into people who can only accept playing a huge traditional frontcourt. Also sign me up for Duncan/Robinson lol, they'd be perfect in today's game considering how athletic they were+their shooting ability.

[Fafnir]

For the most part those who whine about small ball killing the Celtics consider Morris a SF.

They want Duncan/Robinson, Garnett/Perkins, Horford/Baynes, etc....

I do not consider Morris as an SF but prefer Horford/Baynes to start games. Stop generalising people who whine about the Celtics from playing small into people who can only accept playing a huge traditional frontcourt. Also sign me up for Duncan/Robinson lol, they'd be perfect in today's game considering how athletic they were+their shooting ability.

Then what part of playing Morris at PF is small? What descriptive purpose does complaining about "small ball" serve if you're not demanding a traditional front court? Why not use the words that describe the characteristics you want out of your PF/C.

I too would take two hall of fame big men fwiw.

[Wretch]

I think part of the issue with the small ball versus traditional big arguments is there are really 2 seasons regular and playoff. In the regular season traditional bigs can do well but there are plenty of bigs that have great regular season stats that can't stay on the floor in the playoffs. Either they can't extend defensively to cover wings or they are non shooters that can't stretch the floor.

I also don't think the argument is framed properly. It's really not about size. It's about skill. Skilled bigs like Embid or AD will always have a place in the league but those guys are rare. Bigs whose only skill is being big and tall, will only be situational players in today's NBA

[Somebody]

For the most part those who whine about small ball killing the Celtics consider Morris a SF.

They want Duncan/Robinson, Garnett/Perkins, Horford/Baynes, etc....

I do not consider Morris as an SF but prefer Horford/Baynes to start games. Stop generalising people who whine about the Celtics from playing small into people who can only accept playing a huge traditional frontcourt. Also sign me up for Duncan/Robinson lol, they'd be perfect in today's game considering how athletic they were+their shooting ability.

Then what part of playing Morris at PF is small? What descriptive purpose does complaining about "small ball" serve if you're not demanding a traditional front court? Why not use the words that describe the characteristics you want out of your PF/C.

I too would take two hall of fame big men fwiw.

I've done that with my posts in this thread? My issue with a Morris/Horford frontcourt is that neither of them are particularly strong on the boards and interior defense. If Morris was a Siakam or Ibaka type that either has superior skill to supercharge the offense to the point where an average interior defense doesn't matter, or is strong enough inside to complement Horford's rather finesse game I'd be happy. Not really about them as individuals, but more about them combined as a frontcourt. FWIW Morris would be a great fit next to a guy like Gobert or Embiid.