At What Point Will Stevens Start Playing Our Young Shooters?

[footey]

Hunter has been given opportunities, and has disappointed, shooting percentage-wise. What is he shooting from 3 point range? Has to be well under 30%.

Young has not been much better, although I would like to see him get more opportunity. Seems like when he is on the floor, the vets shut him out, don't try to get him the ball when he is open.

We do our best when we realize that we can only beat other teams when we "play together." Hero ball is going to sink us fast. Are you listening, Isaiah??

[LooseCannon]

i would like to see Turner's minutes go to Young, and have Stevens say to him: "if you don't take 15 shots tonight, you're benched tomorrow. And don't just shoot 3s. Go to the basket and get to the line." Then do that again and again.

The guy is clearly a capable scorer, but one who needs a little volume to gain his confidence. I think it's in the best interest of the Celts to do this. We're nearing the halfway point of his second season -- he's at risk of losing belief in himself, which would be a shame considering there's no reason why he couldn't become a legit bench chucker in the NBA.

I think the condition that Stevens should attach to Young's playing time is that it doesn't matter how well you shoot the ball, if you don't try hard on defense, you're benched.

[hwangjini_1]

He'll start playing them when winning is no longer a priority over player development. We'd stink if Young, RJ and Mickey were all getting significant minutes.

Right now we have the 3rd best point differential in the conference. Our record is worse than most of our team metrics would suggest, and even so we're 2.5 games out of the third seed.

I'm guessing that Stevens and Danny will spend the next third of the season playing to win. If we're on the brink of missing the playoffs he will play the young guys.

boris! you're back! or at least i have not seen your posts in a while. good to see here.

[hwangjini_1]

i would like to see Turner's minutes go to Young, and have Stevens say to him: "if you don't take 15 shots tonight, you're benched tomorrow. And don't just shoot 3s. Go to the basket and get to the line." Then do that again and again.

The guy is clearly a capable scorer, but one who needs a little volume to gain his confidence. I think it's in the best interest of the Celts to do this. We're nearing the halfway point of his second season -- he's at risk of losing belief in himself, which would be a shame considering there's no reason why he couldn't become a legit bench chucker in the NBA.

I think the condition that Stevens should attach to Young's playing time is that it doesn't matter how well you shoot the ball, if you don't try hard on defense, you're benched.

boy, cb would be howling if CBS ordered young to do that. the losses would add up in hurry. 

[Who]

(1) James Young = I think he is doing fine. Showing some defensive improvement but still a ways to go. I didn't expect much of a leap from him in his 2nd year. He was very raw and one-dimensional (scorer/shooter only) coming out of college. He was always going to take time to develop. I don't think he needs a lot of playing time (yet!). I think he is getting enough for now.

(2) Rozier = his PG skills were limited in college and he was always likely to struggle his first year in the NBA. He had some opportunities earlier in the season and he showed that he wasn't ready for them. I think very little of the D-League and believe it rarely improves players but Rozier is the rare kind of player who I think can benefit greatly from the D-League. The type of scoring combo guard who is developing his PG skills. The game time he can get there is more valuable than the NBA - for now.

(3) RJ Hunter = best NBA player of the trio. He has struggled with his shot but does a nice job in other areas of the game. Active on defense. Rebounds. Passes intelligently. Moves well without the ball. Clever player. I think RJ Hunter has got a decent amount of playing time so far and I hope that continues the rest of the season. He'll get more PT if he can make a few more shots.

[bdm860]

Stevens HAS been playing our young shooters.

That's the way it looks to me too, especially recently it seems like Hunter and/or Young have been regularly getting non-garbage time minutes.

C's have played 36 games, and there's been 19 games when either Young, Hunter, and/or Rozier has played more than 10 minutes, and at least one of them has played more than 5 minutes in 30 of the 36 games.

And for guys that are supposed to be able to hit the 3, they're shooting 25.5%, 20%, and 18.2% from deep.  When they're all being outshot by Jared Sullinger and 2 of the 3 by Marcus Smart, I don't know if you should be getting force fed more shots and minutes.

I'm okay with the speed they're being brought along.  To me Hunter has looked the best, and probably not surprisingly has also seen the most minutes of the bunch.  Sure I'd like to see some of the young guys play a little more, but I also like that the C's are winning for the most part.

[JohnBoy65]

Hunter has played well at times, and other times he's looked really bad. When Hunter is on the floor his only job is to play solid D and make open shots. Recently he has not made open shots.

Young still, to me, seems like a defensive liability, albeit he's not had a huge sample size of minutes for me to watch.

I think, finally, people are giving Bradley the credit he's deserved for some time. He's a HUGE part of this team. I am all for keeping Jerebko and Zeller out of the line up, but still can't see Mickey being the 4th big.

[PhoSita]

He'll start playing them when winning is no longer a priority over player development. We'd stink if Young, RJ and Mickey were all getting significant minutes.

Right now we have the 3rd best point differential in the conference. Our record is worse than most of our team metrics would suggest, and even so we're 2.5 games out of the third seed.

I'm guessing that Stevens and Danny will spend the next third of the season playing to win. If we're on the brink of missing the playoffs he will play the young guys.

I dont' disagree with the bolded sentiment.

My feeling is this: At the beginning of the season, I was willing to kind of wait things out and see if maybe the off-season moves to add a couple veterans and keep rolling with guys like Turner and Jerebko would really, as the statistical models suggested, turn the Celts into a 50+ win team with a shot at winning a playoff series, maybe more.

I'm past that now.  I don't think it's happening.

So yeah, I guess I really don't think winning is that important this year.  We're still rebuilding.  Player development should come first when your team is still in rebuild mode.  The Celts still need to figure out who's going to be here a few years from now. 

I am genuinely concerned that we have four roster spots taken up by young guys who aren't getting any meaningful playing time this season, and we have a bunch more draft picks coming in next year's draft.

You wanna talk about a team that stinks?  How about a team with as many as 7 or 8 roster spots taken up by guys who haven't played in the NBA outside of garbage time?

Using the rest of the season to figure out what we have in Young / Hunter / Mickey / Rozier, and get as much playing time as possible for Smart, as well, seems much more valuable to me than focusing on making the playoffs again just so we can get bulldozed by Cleveland, Chicago, Atlanta, or whoever.

[Csfan1984]

Think it's on DA to trade away a few guys and force the issue. Rondo exploded after West was dealt. Sometimes coaches need to be force to letting young guys get minutes via injuries or trade. A coaches 1st job is to win so it handcuffs them into playing vets.

[wdleehi]

Think it's on DA to trade away a few guys and force the issue. Rondo exploded after West was dealt. Sometimes coaches need to be force to letting young guys get minutes via injuries or trade. A coaches 1st job is to win so it handcuffs them into playing vets.

Except does he want to force the issue?


Or does he want to see the different pieces grow?   Does he want this team to compete to get in the playoffs?



I get the impression that Ainge is fine with how the team is being used and is looking to make trades that brings in better talent, not just moving other talent out of the way.

[PhoSita]

I get the impression that Ainge is fine with how the team is being used and is looking to make trades that brings in better talent, not just moving other talent out of the way.

Here's the thing though: Ainge has put together a ton of assets in the form of young players and draft picks.  He's gotten a lot of praise for doing that.

But young players and draft picks are like fruit.  They'll waste on the vine if you don't do something with 'em.

It's all good and well to put together all these assets and have everybody talk about how you've got all this ammo to make a big trade, but if that trade doesn't come along sooner rather than later, you've just got a whole bunch of young players who need playing time to develop.

Point being, Ainge has kind of put himself in a position where the team is mostly very young and inexperienced, but he's also trying to hold onto these veterans so that he has big expiring contracts and also so the team can be respectable and win games in the short term. 

If he doesn't make some major moves in the next 6 months to a year, though, something will have to give.  It might hurt the team's record this year to give a lot more time to the young guys currently on the roster, but the team will be A LOT worse next year if half the team is made up of guys with no meaningful experience.

The Celts have three first round draft picks in the 2016 draft.  Even if Ainge uses every single 2nd round pick on guys who will spend time overseas, that would still be 6 first and second year players on the team next year, plus James Young and Marcus Smart, who both still need a lot of time to develop.

[hpantazo]

Think it's on DA to trade away a few guys and force the issue. Rondo exploded after West was dealt. Sometimes coaches need to be force to letting young guys get minutes via injuries or trade. A coaches 1st job is to win so it handcuffs them into playing vets.

Well, Rondo exploded largely because we brought in two all-stars to add to our all-star, which was not Rondo. So basically, as an unknown pg playing with three future hall of farmers , he got a lot of space and opportunity from opposing defenses. If we can three all -stars to add to our young guys, then I'm sure Rozier, Mickey, and Young will look pretty good too.

[ChiCeltics]

I'm a big fan of Hunter:  he's really smart, is surprisingly active on D, has a quick release and unlimited range.  He is not, however, a very good shooter.  I was at the game yesterday, and even during the shoot arounds, Hunter would often miss by a large margin.  (KO's shot looked terrific by comparison.)  I assume he can figure this out and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets to be a 40+% 3pt shooter, but he's not there yet.

[wdleehi]

I get the impression that Ainge is fine with how the team is being used and is looking to make trades that brings in better talent, not just moving other talent out of the way.

Here's the thing though: Ainge has put together a ton of assets in the form of young players and draft picks.  He's gotten a lot of praise for doing that.

But young players and draft picks are like fruit.  They'll waste on the vine if you don't do something with 'em.

It's all good and well to put together all these assets and have everybody talk about how you've got all this ammo to make a big trade, but if that trade doesn't come along sooner rather than later, you've just got a whole bunch of young players who need playing time to develop.

Point being, Ainge has kind of put himself in a position where the team is mostly very young and inexperienced, but he's also trying to hold onto these veterans so that he has big expiring contracts and also so the team can be respectable and win games in the short term. 

If he doesn't make some major moves in the next 6 months to a year, though, something will have to give.  It might hurt the team's record this year to give a lot more time to the young guys currently on the roster, but the team will be A LOT worse next year if half the team is made up of guys with no meaningful experience.

The Celts have three first round draft picks in the 2016 draft.  Even if Ainge uses every single 2nd round pick on guys who will spend time overseas, that would still be 6 first and second year players on the team next year, plus James Young and Marcus Smart, who both still need a lot of time to develop.

I expect him to make moves.



I just not to sure we will see the important ones until after the season.   And non of them will be of the "get this guy out of here because the coach keeps playing him" type.  That is not a problem on the Celtics.  The pieces playing are either the best at the role they play or young growing players that have a specific role. 


If the coach was force feeding Lee minutes, I could see the issue. 

[PhoSita]

I just not to sure we will see the important ones until after the season.   And non of them will be of the "get this guy out of here because the coach keeps playing him" type.  That is not a problem on the Celtics.  The pieces playing are either the best at the role they play or young growing players that have a specific role. 


If the coach was force feeding Lee minutes, I could see the issue.

At the very least, I'd like to see Mickey start getting minutes that are currently going to Sullinger and Amir.

I'm just about done with Sullinger.  This was a show-me-something season for him and though he started out pretty well, he's tapered off.  I don't think he's a good bet.  Trade him for some marginal value and let somebody else pay him long term.  His rebounding is nice, but we can't afford to carry an undersized center who shoots 40% from the floor and has pretty major injury concerns.

As for Amir, I don't mind him, but I think he's very much on the decline despite that he's only 28, and I think Mickey could turn into a similar player (some day, not this year of course), only with a better jumper.

If Mickey really isn't ready for NBA minutes, then I'd say give minutes to Zeller.  He's not a "sexy" player (talking about his basketball ability, no commentary on his looks), but if I were gonna give a 4 or 5 year deal to somebody, I'd give the money to the seven footer with clearly defined skills and no significant injury history.  Guys like that are almost always positive trade assets.