Where is the love for Olynyk?

[KGs Knee]

Olynk will need to be an excellent offensive threat.  I'm not certain I can see him becoming a good defender.  If he can reach 'passable' level on that end, he might have a nice career as a '3rd big' type.

Not sure I see it in his future, but I certainly hope so.

[dreamgreen]

I think he will play great along side Rondo as long as he continues to take the shot. We would have the best 1/5 passing combo in the league.

[SHAQATTACK]

He is just a Rookie .    Confidence and NBA skills will develop with playing time on the court .    He works hard , plays hard and has a great attitude .   

KO and Hump are not the problem .


Celtics need a true center  and a replacement. For Jeff Green who plays hard every game

[sofutomygaha]

Ambivalent.

I'm glad that he got some shots to fall, though 1-4 on wide open looks from three is still not encouraging. He looked confident on that turnaround jumper from the elbow in the 3rd quarter. That was nice.

Good passing, I'm happy about that.

Lots of points inside, many of which came from two-handed push offs on Ryan Kelly. There are only a handful of players in the NBA with Kelly's combination of anonymity, weakness, and lack of athleticism. Take away any one of those factors and Olynyk is either racking up offensive fouls or getting rejected.

I'm going to feel a lot better about Olynyk after he has a 4-6 game from behind the arc and after he holds his own against a legitimate post player.

[Sketch5]

It looked like he simplified his game approach, and made quicker decisions which seemed to help him a lot.

I love the pass he had to Rondo in the post were he looked like he was going to pass it to the out side and then lead Rondo to the basket with the pass.

[billysan]

I didnt get to see the game, but I think the kid has potential. This season playing behind Humphries and Bass has given him a chance to learn a bit. With some more significant strength training and further acclimation to the NBA, he could easily be a formidable off the bench player at the 4 or 5.

I dont think he is a starter unless you can pair him with Cousins, Howard, Drummond, Hibbert type of big man. He would most likely never start on our current roster next to Sullinger IMO. The two of them can shoot and pass well enough, but we would have zero rim protection.

[mgent]

World's first 'point-center' in the making?

You must have never seen Bill Walton.

Not the first, but it look like Kelly is the only rookie center since 85-86 to have a 25, 7, and 1 TO game.  Only other big has been Griffin.

[the_Bird]

We saw last night what the potential is - a very nice, diverse offensive game, great passing, but weakness in the areas you typically look for out of your bigs (defense, rebounding).  Seven assists is excellent; five board, not so much.  It's a different skillset than what Sully possesses. 

I'm really interested to see what the offense looks like as Rondo works his way back into game shape and at KO develops confidence and earns some more playing time.  There were times last night when the offense looked beautiful.  Might be nice to have a good catch-and-shoot guy on the perimeter, because KO looks like a guy who'll be very good at kicking the ball back out to the open guy behind the arc.

I believe that KO will have a very nice jumper in time; I'm thinking that he and Rondo might have a few nice pick-and-pop plays in their future.  I know he hasn't shown much of anything with the jumper so far, but the form looks good.  Takes a little while for young guys to get their shots to start falling; we've seen it time and time again (AB was atrocious when he first started playing, even though he seemingly was hitting everything in practice).  I'm not worried about the jumper.

But, KO's got to get stronger.  If he and Sully are both going to be on the team long-term, KO's going to have to be able to defend some of the bigger guys.  I'm more optimistic about his ability to build up strength than gain quickness. 

Overall, though, a nice game, and showing that he's got some pretty interesting potential.  Not a perfect player by any means - a guy who's probably always going to struggle defensively - but he's beginning to show his interesting skillset.

[Bingbangbarros]

I've been pretty happy with Olynyk's rebounding. He gets a bad rap because he's slow, white and weak but his numbers are either better or equal to these guys in their careers: Rasheed, David West, Aldridge, Dirk, Mark Gasol, Bosh. Just a few that I looked up. He's averaging 8.5 rebounds per 36. That's not great but its promising. He battles on every play and that's encouraging. Hopefully he gets his body in better shape and his rebounding improves, along with everything else.

He knows how to play and he needs to play with other high bball IQ players in order to really flourish. And he needs to play alot more in order to develop and for Ainge to properly evaluate him.

[fairweatherfan]

Olynyk looked great last night, but he needs to bring up the level of his bad and mediocre games. 

He's shown more than enough promise for me to be optimistic about his future, though.  Especially with Rondo back on board.

[vinnie]

Perspective:

First, There is no way I am going to take anything away from him for this game because it was excellent. And, he is a very good passer for a big man.

Second -- He was guarded by Ryan Kelly most of the night who he outweighs by about 50 pounds. Honestly, Ryan Kelly could not guard anyone. And during parts of the game he was being guarded by 6-7 Wesley Johnson.

Third -- The Lakers right now are the worst defensive team in basketball, playing with a lot of D-league caliber players. Coming into last night they were giving up 117 points a game in January.

Fourth -- for most of the game his defense continued to be terrible, although he did do a good job on Gasol toward the end of the game.

I look at this as a confidence builder and hopefully he will continue to improve. But, he had one of these games about a month ago and then regressed back to what he had been doing before. I think he is a career second or third guy off the bench at best. Hope I am wrong.

[Snakehead]

Alright well I guess people just have insane expectations on rookies now.  Do people have short memories or is it just how we all work now?

Dirk's rookie numbers:

8.2 PPG, 3.4 REB, 1 AST, 20% 3 pt range, 41 % from the field at 20 MPG.

KO's right now:

6.8 PPG, 4.4 REB, 1.6 AST, 30 % from 3, 42% FG at 18 MPG.



Not even saying he will be just like Dirk, point being is that this is how a lot of rookies play.  It takes time for players to develop and careers aren't decided based on rookie years.

Also: players have weaknesses.  There are poor defenders that are widely considered top 10 players (Kevin Love and Steph Curry, for example... also Dirk isn't a defender).  Olynyk is only a rookie so that doesn't even matter yet though.  Sullinger was a pretty bad defender I thought most of his rookie year.

I think everyone should relax, have perspective, and realize not every rookie is LeBron.

The fact that we have a rookie that is doing something at an elite level is a very good thing, and we can wait and see how the rest comes along.  There is certainly a lot of potential and I think he is a player who will look better with more talent around him (Rondo will help).

[esel1000]

When Olynyk spotted up on that J in the fourth it showed a confidence in his shot he hasn't really shown before. It was great to see, if he stays confident the shots will start falling and we'll see more games like this. He's learning and it's a joy to watch the development

[SHAQATTACK]

I just remember all the whiners and haters making fun of  Sully to start his career.......he couldn't do nothing right according to some fans .   Nothing but negativity. And complaining ......wee. Wee. Wee.....moan moan moan .....


People expect every player to be James or MJ .......we have not been getting lottery picks lately.

Common sense comes with age .

People expect too much too soon.

[vinnie]

Alright well I guess people just have insane expectations on rookies now.  Do people have short memories or is it just how we all work now?

Dirk's rookie numbers:

8.2 PPG, 3.4 REB, 1 AST, 20% 3 pt range, 41 % from the field at 20 MPG.

KO's right now:

6.8 PPG, 4.4 REB, 1.6 AST, 30 % from 3, 42% FG at 18 MPG.



Not even saying he will be just like Dirk, point being is that this is how a lot of rookies play.  It takes time for players to develop and careers aren't decided based on rookie years.

Also: players have weaknesses.  There are poor defenders that are widely considered top 10 players (Kevin Love and Steph Curry, for example... also Dirk isn't a defender).  Olynyk is only a rookie so that doesn't even matter yet though.  Sullinger was a pretty bad defender I thought most of his rookie year.

I think everyone should relax, have perspective, and realize not every rookie is LeBron.

The fact that we have a rookie that is doing something at an elite level is a very good thing, and we can wait and see how the rest comes along.  There is certainly a lot of potential and I think he is a player who will look better with more talent around him (Rondo will help).

Nice job with the Dirk stats comparison. I think Dirk is far more athletic than Olynyk, but I guess that remains to be seen. Kelly has not been horrible this year, not by a long shot. I still think at best his career is a guy off the bench, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.