Sullinger continuing to slim down?

[clover]

As I've said before, even an "out of shape" Sully is a good and productive player. To me this is more about him taking the next step rather then being bad vs. good that is the opinion of most around here.

Not on defense which is half of the game.  Also his FG% stinks and he is not that efficient, he is productive, a good rebounder but good player is a total stretch.

I think you'll find that both Sully and Olynyk cope much better defensively with Amir Johnson out there. Sully's not a bad defender. He struggles against quickness but does very well against length for someone without too much length himself. He's a solid post defender in 1v1's and has spent most of his career trying to defend his player and Kelly Olynyk's player.

His FG% is bad because he's trying to become a 3 point shooter.
His 2 point FG% is 49.4% which is excellent. He's been our best rebounder and an excellent passer out of the post with some stretch ability.

He was picked at #20 or something, so I will never complain because he's completely outplayed/outperformed his draft spot.
In fact he's a top 6 or 7 player from his draft.

A sub-50% FG% from 2 is not good for a big man. KO's was .538 last year; Zeller's was .549.

[spikelovetheCelts]

Hard to forget that game @LAC last year... 

How embarrassing it was running a guy out there with such poor conditioning against Blake & DJ.  Those two literally were hardly sweating and there's Sully doubled over completely winded bonking out on the court. 

I don't really see it as a weight issue, 6'9 dudes are gonna be big...  Main issue IMO is improving his cardio to that of a professional athlete.

Charles Barkley did and we know how that turned out.

Very few 6'9" NBA players have the weight issues of Sully.

Barkley did and we know how that turned out. He may become a workout freak. I am hopeful.

[clover]

As I've said before, even an "out of shape" Sully is a good and productive player. To me this is more about him taking the next step rather then being bad vs. good that is the opinion of most around here.

Not on defense which is half of the game.  Also his FG% stinks and he is not that efficient, he is productive, a good rebounder but good player is a total stretch.

I think you'll find that both Sully and Olynyk cope much better defensively with Amir Johnson out there. Sully's not a bad defender. He struggles against quickness but does very well against length for someone without too much length himself. He's a solid post defender in 1v1's and has spent most of his career trying to defend his player and Kelly Olynyk's player.

His FG% is bad because he's trying to become a 3 point shooter.
His 2 point FG% is 49.4% which is excellent. He's been our best rebounder and an excellent passer out of the post with some stretch ability.

He was picked at #20 or something, so I will never complain because he's completely outplayed/outperformed his draft spot.
In fact he's a top 6 or 7 player from his draft.

Really?

A Davis, B Beal, D Lillard, A Drummond, K Middleton, D Green, T Jones, M Leonard, J Henson, M Plumlee, T Zeller, H Barnes, T Robinson, MKG, F Ezeli...

[clover]

Hard to forget that game @LAC last year... 

How embarrassing it was running a guy out there with such poor conditioning against Blake & DJ.  Those two literally were hardly sweating and there's Sully doubled over completely winded bonking out on the court. 

I don't really see it as a weight issue, 6'9 dudes are gonna be big...  Main issue IMO is improving his cardio to that of a professional athlete.

Charles Barkley did and we know how that turned out.

Very few 6'9" NBA players have the weight issues of Sully.

Barkley did and we know how that turned out. He may become a workout freak. I am hopeful.

You really want to compare Sully to Barkley?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/barklch01.html

[Boris Badenov]

Hard to forget that game @LAC last year... 

How embarrassing it was running a guy out there with such poor conditioning against Blake & DJ.  Those two literally were hardly sweating and there's Sully doubled over completely winded bonking out on the court. 

I don't really see it as a weight issue, 6'9 dudes are gonna be big...  Main issue IMO is improving his cardio to that of a professional athlete.

Very few 6'9" NBA players have the weight issues of Sully.

The number of actual NBA players with such issues is certainly dwarfed by the number of potential NBA players with such issues.

For every Barkley or Love story there are plenty of Big Baby, Mel Turpin, John Williams, and Oliver Miller stories.

[Celtics4ever]

And yet instead of leaving Sullinger in the bench, he started playing him including increasing minutes towards the end of the season, including increasing minutes during the playoffs. So... what DID Stevens actually mean by that quote? It certainly didn't mean that he wouldn't play Sullinger. And if you hold him to his word, and he actually began playing Sullinger more as we went on, does it mean that Stevens ACTUALLY saw some defensive value in Sullinger once he returned? Just working with your interpretation of course.

I think you remembered things the way you wanted too.    I call BS.   If you look at these game logs.   You will see that he only played him  a lot  in one game where he was playing well before the post season.  Also look in his stats in April, it had nothing to do with him playing well and an attempt to him ready for the post season. 

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/6624/jared-sullinger

No where he did anyone say that Sullinger they liked Sully defensive value.   He was desperate to avoid a sweep, so he played a decent offensive (when his shot is falling) player with defensive flaws.  It is as simple as that. 

So... what DID Stevens actually mean by that quote? It certainly didn't mean that he wouldn't play Sullinger. And if you hold him to his word, and he actually began playing Sullinger more as we went on, does it mean that Stevens ACTUALLY saw some defensive value in Sullinger once he returned? Just working with your interpretation of course.

It meant he was not going to tolerate his past antics.  Not running on D.  That is pretty obvious otherwise he would not have put that out there.  One does not simply make a comment for that when a player is coming back for no reason.  I think the above link pretty much demonstrates that your memory is faulty.  How about that for a fresh angle....

CLE was the perfect series for Sully, BTW, they play a lot of half court.  Mozgoz is slow and plodding which is perfect for Sully.  Sully, as I have said in other threads did not fold like some of the other guys and came to play.  We needed the size, Sully matched up decent.   I thought he played relatively well and some of our other guys quit.  But at the end of the day, we got swept, by a more talented team.  Thompson looked decent against Sully, but did not own him as is oft tossed about here.

I would be willing to bet you that Sullinger is not part of our long term plans, unless he knocks out of the park this year.  The fact, that we added Lee, Johnson and resigned Jonas, shows the Celtic Brass do not have as much faith in him as you do.  They are hedging their vets.

Barkley did and we know how that turned out. He may become a workout freak. I am hopeful.

  It is going to take a miracle of that ilk.   From the pro am game, I think there is considerable evidence that he is not a workout freak.   Also the linked photo at the beginning of this thread is one not in motion.   All the slim photos are still shots or him heavily clothed.

I wish him luck, he is going to need it to salvage his career.  Ainge took steps with acquistions to assure we are not as dependent on him this off season.