Are we truly in a DEVELOPMENT year?

[Smitty77]

How else do you explain playing RJ 20 minutes last night when he was playing terribly and had a 5.00 PER for the game and he has a 3.9 PER for the year.  How else do you explain Stevens playing Rozier 16 minutes despite him having a -1 PER for the game and a -5.7 PER for the year?

There is truly no other way to spin this.  I think I would be fine with that IF that is the direction we are going for this year.

What do you guys think?

If it was just one marginal rookie playing unearned minutes in an important game, it would be one thing, but it was two rookies playing minutes they truly don't deserve IF we are trying to WIN this year.

Thoughts?

Smitty77

[alldaboston]

PER is a stat I don't like at all. You can't judge based on just that.

That being said, I agree both rookies were playing too much last night. Rozier especially, he seems to be trying to do too much. I'm fine with RJ playing around 15 a night because he seems like a perfect fit for our offense, and he is probably our best shooter. We need shooting.

[2short]

PER is a stat I don't like at all. You can't judge based on just that.

That being said, I agree both rookies were playing too much last night. Rozier especially, he seems to be trying to do too much. I'm fine with RJ playing around 15 a night because he seems like a perfect fit for our offense, and he is probably our best shooter. We need shooting.

Agreed hunter spreads the floor and to me does soo much of the little things.  Defense has to stay with him on outside opens up passing and driving lanes (much like Kelly).  Rj defense passing and iq are all there.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Are we in contention right now to win a championship?  No

Are there any moves we could pull off in season that would make us a threat to win the championship? No

Then we're developing

[PhoSita]

Look at all the minutes they're giving to guys who most likely won't be here next year.  If it's a "development" year, they're not doing a very good job of making that the focus.

[Celtics18]

I was scratching my head a bit last night too at how much the rookies were playing in a close game.  I think part of it is that Brad's strategy is to be consistently unpredictable with the lineups this season.

That sounds weird, and it feels weird to me, but I think it's our only chance to be successful.  Depth is our one considerable advantage on a nightly basis.  That, and a coach who is supposed to be smarter than everyone else. 

I think he just has carte blanche to play the mad scientist at will.  That's what we saw last night.  It didn't quite work out in that game. 

[Nerf DPOY]

Couldn't it be as simple as Bradley was out last night and somebody had to play those minutes?

[Celtics18]

Couldn't it be as simple as Bradley was out last night and somebody had to play those minutes?

That too, and he didn't want to over do Marcus' minutes in his first game back. 

[alldaboston]

I just wanna see a good game where everyone is healthy and we finally have a set rotation. Almost there I feel.

[takeittotherim]

And I think it's becoming obvious that RJ is going to be in the rotation.

[trickybilly]

Also, I love David Lee. He obviously loves playing and rarely takes plays off, but he is an expiring contract, and has no hope of bouncing in to any team's starting lineup for the rest of his career. Best thing to do is to at least maintain his trade value (scoring, rebounding etc.) so that he can been thrown in as a clincher in a big deal.

KO continues to develop, and I think Sully is too.

Amir is kind of in the same boat as Lee.

Sully may be our future starting PF, but he will (or won't) prove that this year.

I know this thread is about the guards, but the big man rotation can be explained easily this way.

Zeller.. No idea what to think.

[Denis998]

over reliance on the per is what is at fault here. the rookies are playing fine.

[CelticPride2016]

Couldn't it be as simple as Bradley was out last night and somebody had to play those minutes?

Hunter looks smooth which is helping him avoid rookie calls. He should definitely be part of the arsenal.

Rozier looks amazing and should find some minutes as third string pg. It's too bad, but he appears to get the wrong end of the stick from the refs. We shall see.

Turner is one player I wanted traded. He became my personal scapegoat. But there is no denying if we want to win now, he has earned a pg role. Smart is getting better. It is unfortunate he is banged up. Haha, we should have kept Pressey.

Hopefully I'm wrong about Lee. I said put a fork in him. I've also been cynical about Sully.

He looked skinny a few games back. The last game he looked chunky again. I am not sure what the holdup is for him getting into shape.

Olynyk gets a raw deal.

Amir looks like damaged goods, just like Smart.

Zeller is healthy, so I am sure he will play and probably soon.

It is interesting. But this is not a "development" year.

Every year is a development year. Stevens is old-school start to finish development whatever the roster reality.

Stevens is not perfect. Once in a while I can see him being stubborn or overthinking with rotations.

But for the most part he is excellent at coaching and I would be a much worse coach. Our roster is built for a Stevens who is obviously scheming for wins. He is not sheep herding the squad for a potential lottery pick. He is in it to win it.

It seems people go on these emotional swings up and down based on each game.

We will probably beat Atlanta tonight. Then everyone will be back to projecting 50 wins in a month if we are well above .500 despite the early tough schedule.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Injuries, foul trouble, poor guard/SF play all around from our "vets" as it was. Probably played them a bit too long, but nothing really extravagant.

No need to read too much into it. I've always thought that rookies, if opportunities allow, should be given time on the court throughout the season. They shot poorly (as the game went along, they were respectable through much of it) but their defense was competent, and they didn't make any noticeable mistakes (turn the ball over).

As for Hunter, figure in that he had to take a shot at the last second of the shot clock from almost half court. You remove that and he was 2-4 for the game, so... Yeah, shooting poorly is a bit of overstatement.

He also played 19 minutes in the previous game and shot 3-5 in that particular game while grabbing 7 rebounds.

In all... yeah, whatever.

[Hemingway]

This post is rather silly. AB was out and MS was in his first game back. If we didn't play the rookies who would we play? I guess it depends on how you define a development year but Young and Mickey are not playing and Hunter and Rozier have had games where they didn't play. CBS is ok with playing a lot of guys and Hunter provides the shooting that we really need.

Also, I disagree with the statement that there are no moves we could make mid season that would make us a contender. If that is true then you could say there are no moves anyone could ever make to become a contender midseason. We certainly have a lot of assets and played really good ball for the end of last season.

Those stats are based on to small a sample size. I thought Hunter had a good game. If he didn't have to take that really long range buzzer beater he would have shot 50% for the night.