Where I get to be depressed about Young, Hunter, and Rozier.

[kozlodoev]

If you expected them to be some sort of world beaters, about here and now is ok.

The truth is that players picked where those three were picked would be fortunate to have Jonas Jerebko's NBA career. We've just been a little spoiled with Ainge's track record.

[Tr1boy]

If you expected them to be some sort of world beaters, about here and now is ok.

The truth is that players picked where those three were picked would be fortunate to have Jonas Jerebko's NBA career. We've just been a little spoiled with Ainge's track record.

Exactly

We got Mickey out of this at least

Hunter and young lack of sure shooting has hurt their ability to get time. You curl around screens and are free, you need to make this. 8 out of 10 times. But they are missing more than half the time

Rozier is just a little wild right now. Not a true pg.  He just needs to learn his spots better.  Also learn how to drive and kick out

What concerns me about Rozier is that even during SL or preseason play he doesn't even understand the simple concept of when your got a 2 on 1 in transition, the open man scores.

[OhioGreen]

Jeesh, you guys are a hard audience!  These three rooks have hardly played!  Not because they have no talent, but because there are two or three vets in front of each of them.  Being that we're trying to win this year, they're gonna have to improve in practice, and practices are pretty rare during the season. 
Personally, I think D league only hurts players, as the quality of play there is really bad.  Think they p/u more bad habits than good.  The best way for someone to improve greatly at anything is to play with the best!
On any non playoff team(say put these guys on the Suns or Nets), these guys would be rotation players, and would have made great strides by this time of year, and on there way to becoming solid NBA players.
A year with us has been a wasted year, basically.  It has stunted their developement, and maybe destroyed whatever chance they had to be part of our future.  They will be relevant players in the NBA, but I very much doubt with the Celtics!

of course the best way is to play with the team, but you cant do that and still win games. The d league helps by giving the chance for players to work on their game. It also helps with their confidence. In an interview in the past, bradley said that playing in the d league boosted his confidence after it was shattered by his bad stints eith the team. He said playing in the d league reminded him on what he could do and improve without pressure. Some guys.like smart are better suited to the main team rather than d league, but guys like ab will benefit from the stint.

The C's problem is that instead of tanking the last couple of years and getting high level draft picks that might develope into stars that could take us to title contention, we just had to keep trying to win meaningless games, and in the process became a good team with no chance of winning championships.  Now, with a seemingly endless supply of draft pics, we have so many average to good veterans there are no places to play rookies!  I doubt if BSimmons were on this years team he'd be getting more than 8/10 minutes a game.
So we have one draft pic from last year, three from this year, and EIGHT more in this draft--total 12--with no shot at playing---unless we go back to being a bad team by getting rid of several of our current players.  Bring in a couple of FA's and bingo, you're right back in the same boat.
So what does DA do?  Nobody will trade with him, FA's don't want to come here(heck you'd think with all the recent buyouts some of those players would be clamoring to come to this very competetive team--but NO), and we'll have no room for 12 first,second, and third year players!
Kind of got ourselves in quite the predicament, eh?

[Evantime34]

Jeesh, you guys are a hard audience!  These three rooks have hardly played!  Not because they have no talent, but because there are two or three vets in front of each of them.  Being that we're trying to win this year, they're gonna have to improve in practice, and practices are pretty rare during the season. 
Personally, I think D league only hurts players, as the quality of play there is really bad.  Think they p/u more bad habits than good.  The best way for someone to improve greatly at anything is to play with the best!
On any non playoff team(say put these guys on the Suns or Nets), these guys would be rotation players, and would have made great strides by this time of year, and on there way to becoming solid NBA players.
A year with us has been a wasted year, basically.  It has stunted their developement, and maybe destroyed whatever chance they had to be part of our future.  They will be relevant players in the NBA, but I very much doubt with the Celtics!

of course the best way is to play with the team, but you cant do that and still win games. The d league helps by giving the chance for players to work on their game. It also helps with their confidence. In an interview in the past, bradley said that playing in the d league boosted his confidence after it was shattered by his bad stints eith the team. He said playing in the d league reminded him on what he could do and improve without pressure. Some guys.like smart are better suited to the main team rather than d league, but guys like ab will benefit from the stint.

The C's problem is that instead of tanking the last couple of years and getting high level draft picks that might develope into stars that could take us to title contention, we just had to keep trying to win meaningless games, and in the process became a good team with no chance of winning championships.  Now, with a seemingly endless supply of draft pics, we have so many average to good veterans there are no places to play rookies!  I doubt if BSimmons were on this years team he'd be getting more than 8/10 minutes a game.
So we have one draft pic from last year, three from this year, and EIGHT more in this draft--total 12--with no shot at playing---unless we go back to being a bad team by getting rid of several of our current players.  Bring in a couple of FA's and bingo, you're right back in the same boat.
So what does DA do?  Nobody will trade with him, FA's don't want to come here(heck you'd think with all the recent buyouts some of those players would be clamoring to come to this very competetive team--but NO), and we'll have no room for 12 first,second, and third year players!
Kind of got ourselves in quite the predicament, eh?

I prefer my young prospects to develop around quality veterans that always try hard rather than throw them to the wolves, and hope some develop.

The games they win aren't meaningless, they are a device by which we can recruit free agents. If we win enough games this year, maybe we can bring in Horford and Durant. Sure the chance of that happening is small, but it's not smaller than the chance we win the lottery by playing young players before they are ready.

We will see if anyone wants to come here in the offseason but we set ourselves up as the best option for a top tier free agent of any team in the east. Your assumptions about a free agent not coming here would have more weight had our season not go as well as it currently has.

If we get lucky and draft Simmons you best believe he will be in a better environment to grow than if we had just played the young guys regardless of if they were ready. I guarantee you that Simmons or Ingram are more likely to develop to their fullest potential on the Celtics than a team that does the strategy you advise like the Sixers.

I don't know how you can have this stance with how fun it has been to watch this team overachieve the past two years. You must not be able to derive any enjoyment out of these teams, and if you can't enjoy how the team has played the last two years idk why you would watch.

The predicament we are in is having a near 50 win team that is young and improving, with cap space to sign two max guys and a top 6 draft pick. I wouldn't call that a predicament, I'd call that the best situation of any rebuilding team in the league.

[walker834]

I think it's more a matter of age and playing time  and situation for these guys.  People used to criticize Doc for not playing younger players.  When you have a GM like Ainge it's just difficult to play everyone.  We got rid of Lee and have decided to go with Jerebko, Zeller and Mickey because we need size and versatility there.  We are loaded with guards.  Its nothing against these guys or that they were bad picks or bad players.  Shooters and guards need to get in a rhythm.  Especially young players.  We can't expect these guys to come in and be world beaters in the 5 minutes they get sporadically.

Rozier is going to be a good player I feel.  All of them are talented. Very young. Now is just not their time.

If this was Doc people would be blaming him for not playing guys.  It has nothing to do with that.  Doc played Perk and Rondo and developed the right guys they were trying to for that run. 

Doc went with Tony Allen, Big Baby, Leon Powe, Rondo, Perk etc. Those were just decisions the Celtics made.  Now we are seeing what guys like Bradley and Sully can do and guys like Smart etc.

Some of these guys take longer than others.  Rozier, Hunter and Young will get their day someday I hope.

[greece66]

I am impressed by RJ Hunter and Terry Rozier.

I didn't expect Rozier to make any impact his rookie year. I thought he'd be in the D-League or on the end of the bench eating pine. His PG skills were too limited in college to make him an NBA ready player. I do think he has a bright future though and can see him forcing his way into the Celtics team next season or the season after.

RJ Hunter was a much better all-round player than I had expected based on draft talk about him. A better team defender. A better rebounder. A much better passer and has a good handle. He has struggled with his shot but that happens with rookies. I think he has a good future in the NBA too.

James Young I am more on the fence on. Never high on J.Young due to limited all-round game in NCAA but he has some talent.

I had expected a slow and gradual development from J.Young rather than a quick one due all the various holes in his game. I had hoped J.Young would grow from a non-rotation player to a below average / poor rotation player this season. I think he might have made that leap but it's hard to tell because Celtics rotation is so strong that opportunities have been limited. I just wanted to see J.Young improve his defense enough from god-awful to below average. That was my only hope for him this season. He did improve his defense some but not sure if it was enough. So he might be on the curve or a bit behind the curve ... but it was always going to be a long slow growth process for someone so flawed so not that down on him yet. Next year will be more telling.

Great and insightful post as usual.

Only think I would add is that Young is two years younger than RJ and Rozier.

[oldtype]

Having seen the rookies in a bit of non-garbage minutes, I've revised my opinion upwards for Rozier. He still has a long, long way to go, but you can see the raw skills that make him enticing if he ever figures it out.

I'd say it's even money at this point that James Young won't even be on the team next year.

[TheTruthFot18]

To be fair when have these guys gotten real consistent non-garbage time minutes?

With a solid set rotation of IT, AB, Smart, Turner, Crowder, and JJ where do these three find minutes there unless an injury comes up to 1 or more guys?

They can show promise in practice but when it's game time they just won't see time.

[Tr1boy]

some coaches will risk the inexperience factor and give the players a try.  Maybe this reward will get them to work harder in the offseason etc

but CBS is not like that at all.   Looks to me like he has stolen or copied the Popovich game plan and unless you can hang with the vets,  it doesn't matter if you can dunk in their face, or blow by them a few times,  nail 3 consecutive threes.


The only time Mickey has got mins for example so far is when he faced Lyles.   Bc Lyles like Mickey is a 1st year guy , similar strength, inexperience factor.   CBS  is big on strength.   None which any of our rookies have

So on one hand you got the raptors coach, starting Norman Powell (2nd round pick) ,  Jazz coach starting Lyles , several other coaches playing inexperienced, avg strength rookies and you got CBS not playing you, unless you have the strength/understand plays to the tee.   

Just got to trust.  Though hard to see Zeller play so many min over mickey and Smart a 6'3 sg starting at the SF spot (strong or not)

[crimson_stallion]

Terry Rozier

I hated this pick when it was made and since then I've only grown to hate it more. Picking James Young is at least defensible in the sense that Ainge swung for a fences and missed. That's fine: you'll never get Giannis if you don't suffer through a few Fab Melos and James Youngs. Rozier was a projected second-rounder that nobody thought had a particularly high ceiling that we took a reach on based on... God knows what.

What's worse is that he plays a position where we already had massive redundancy, and this is particularly glaring when you consider that there were multiple serviceable players on the board who addressed our biggest need (wing depth.) RHJ is the obvious miss, but i find it hard to believe that Sam Dekker or Justin Anderson wouldn't be taking at least some of the "Jerebko at SF" or "Smart at SF" minutes if we had got them.

To be fair, the fact that he plays the same position as our best player, best prospect, and best sixth man means that he hasn't gotten as much chance to prove himself as Young or Hunter have. I don't think I've ever actually seen him playing non-garbage minutes. But it's concerning to me that he can't even get some Phil Pressey minutes when we consider that even Phil Pressey could get Phil Pressey minutes. Hell, we waived Phil Pressey because this guy was on the roster - in that sense, there's been an actual downgrade. We no longer have a quick-footed third PG who can come on and push the pace for 3~5 minutes when the opposition is tired.

Edit:  Just noticed your updated post about Rozier, you you can probably ignore much of the below haha

You are so very wrong about Rozier.

I'm going to put this out there right now - Rozier has more upside then Smart.  You're going to say I'm crazy and that I'm living in a dream world, but come back here 2-3 years from now and we will see who is the better player.

Rozier is a two-way guard with elite athleticism who can score in a variety of ways.  He can get to the basket almost at will, he can score from midrange and he can hit the three.  He's an exceptional rebounder for a small guard (think Rondo/Westbrook like) and he's actually a pretty solid ball handler - FAR better than Smart is. 

To add to that he is an exceptional defensive prospect, and was probably one of the top 2 or 3 defensive guards in the draft.

Then to add to all of that, he has a winners mentality and is a hardcore competitor with elite work ethic (much like Smart).

Smart is an exceptional defensive player who has great size, but his quickness is a little bit limiting and he might never develop into an above average offensive player - I can't see him ever averaging more than maybe 14-15 PPG. 

Rozier has the talent to be a 20 PPG scorer in this league. 

Imagine Isaiah Thomas' offensive skillset with Avery Bradley's size and defensive skill set and you basically have Rozier in a nutshell.

His potential is sky high, and he really doesn't have a major weakness to his game - there isn't really any aspect of his game where he isn't at least decent.

* In College Rozier was a 17 PPG scorer in his final year with a +18 net rating (108.3 OffRtg, 89.6 DefRtg). 

* In the D League he is averaging  19.4 points, 8.0 assists, 6.4 rebounds, 1.9 steals

* Today against Toronto he had 7 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists and 0 turnovers in 10 minutes on 3-4 shooting, so he's already starting to show SOME flashes of what he is capable of despite getting barely any opportunity

Brad Stevens has already gone on record saying that Rozier has been playing great in practice and has shown that he is ready to play on the NBA stage.

Don't underestimate this kid, he is going to be a hell of a player.

[alldaboston]

I don't wanna make a huge quote off of crimson's excellent point.

But I'm leaning towards that point of view. Rozier in limited minutes has already shown more talent and potential than smart. I wouldn't be surprised if Rozier is the full time backup pg next season. He's quicker, better shooter, better handler, smarter pg, than smart. Even on defense, smart is big and gets stuck in PnR, but Rozier has shown ability to defend PnR better than smart.

Wouldn't be surprised if Rozier has a better career than smart. He's really made me a believer. Looking more like a solid pick.

[oldtype]

Edit:  Just noticed your updated post about Rozier

Thanks. I think it's a bit of hyperbole to say that he has more potential than smart over about a half-hour of total play, but he's certainly not as useless as I thought.

On separate topic: you know what, we should just start Hunter, Young, or Clarke at SF. It is at possible at least in theory that they could guard players in the SF position. If they can't, at least they don't completely mess up our tactical structure like these weird permutations of lineups Brad is putting out.

If we start a kid at SF, maybe the starting lineup gets punished a bit against teams with good offensive options at that position. On the other hand, we get to keep the bench rotations the same and aren't forced into the frankenstein's monster lineups that kill our offense completely for three~four minute stretches throughout the game.

And who knows, maybe the minutes make it click for one of them and then we've got a huge windfall on our hands.

[alldaboston]

Edit:  Just noticed your updated post about Rozier

Thanks. I think it's a bit of hyperbole to say that he has more potential than smart over about a half-hour of total play, but he's certainly not as useless as I thought.

On separate topic: you know what, we should just start Hunter, Young, or Clarke at SF. It is at possible at least in theory that they could guard players in the SF position. If they can't, at least they don't completely mess up our tactical structure like these weird permutations of lineups Brad is putting out.

If we start a kid at SF, maybe the starting lineup gets punished a bit against teams with good offensive options at that position. On the other hand, we get to keep the bench rotations the same and aren't forced into the frankenstein's monster lineups that kill our offense completely for three~four minute stretches throughout the game.

And who knows, maybe the minutes make it click for one of them and then we've got a huge windfall on our hands.

I know I originally didn't want Clarke starting but now I might lean towards it. He can shoot it, and we need shooting. James hasn't really shown that, and RJ isn't strong enough yet and I see him as more a 2 than a 3.

[guava_wrench]

Terry Rozier

I hated this pick when it was made and since then I've only grown to hate it more. Picking James Young is at least defensible in the sense that Ainge swung for a fences and missed. That's fine: you'll never get Giannis if you don't suffer through a few Fab Melos and James Youngs. Rozier was a projected second-rounder that nobody thought had a particularly high ceiling that we took a reach on based on... God knows what.

What's worse is that he plays a position where we already had massive redundancy, and this is particularly glaring when you consider that there were multiple serviceable players on the board who addressed our biggest need (wing depth.) RHJ is the obvious miss, but i find it hard to believe that Sam Dekker or Justin Anderson wouldn't be taking at least some of the "Jerebko at SF" or "Smart at SF" minutes if we had got them.

To be fair, the fact that he plays the same position as our best player, best prospect, and best sixth man means that he hasn't gotten as much chance to prove himself as Young or Hunter have. I don't think I've ever actually seen him playing non-garbage minutes. But it's concerning to me that he can't even get some Phil Pressey minutes when we consider that even Phil Pressey could get Phil Pressey minutes. Hell, we waived Phil Pressey because this guy was on the roster - in that sense, there's been an actual downgrade. We no longer have a quick-footed third PG who can come on and push the pace for 3~5 minutes when the opposition is tired.

You are so very wrong about Rozier.

I'm going to put this out there right now - Rozier has more upside then Smart.  You're going to say I'm crazy and that I'm living in a dream world, but come back here 2-3 years from now and we will see who is the better player.

Rozier is a two-way guard with elite athleticism who can score in a variety of ways.  He can get to the basket almost at will, he can score from midrange and he can hit the three.  He's an exceptional rebounder for a small guard (think Rondo/Westbrook like) and he's actually a pretty solid ball handler - FAR better than Smart is. 

To add to that he is an exceptional defensive prospect, and was probably one of the top 2 or 3 defensive guards in the draft.

Then to add to all of that, he has a winners mentality and is a hardcore competitor with elite work ethic (much like Smart).

Smart is an exceptional defensive player who has great size, but his quickness is a little bit limiting and he might never develop into an above average offensive player - I can't see him ever averaging more than maybe 14-15 PPG. 

Rozier has the talent to be a 20 PPG scorer in this league. 

Imagine Isaiah Thomas' offensive skillset with Avery Bradley's size and defensive skill set and you basically have Rozier in a nutshell.

His potential is sky high, and he really doesn't have a major weakness to his game - there isn't really any aspect of his game where he isn't at least decent.

* In College Rozier was a 17 PPG scorer in his final year with a +18 net rating (108.3 OffRtg, 89.6 DefRtg). 

* In the D League he is averaging  19.4 points, 8.0 assists, 6.4 rebounds, 1.9 steals

* Today against Toronto he had 7 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists and 0 turnovers in 10 minutes on 3-4 shooting, so he's already starting to show SOME flashes of what he is capable of despite getting barely any opportunity

Brad Stevens has already gone on record saying that Rozier has been playing great in practice and has shown that he is ready to play on the NBA stage.

Don't underestimate this kid, he is going to be a hell of a player.

Edit:  Just noticed your updated post about Rozier

All the other guys you mentioned were so talented at what they do well that they all got plenty of minutes their rookie season. I'll wait a bit longer.

If Rozier is so wonderful, why is he shooting 24% on the season? How much has he shown in his limited minutes if he is shooting 24%? If Smart was better on defense from day one, is 24% Rozier's trump card?

Don't judge guys only after games when their shots drop.

BTW, Smart and Rozier are the exact same age, so if Rozier can improve from 24%, Smart can improve on his offense too.

I don't see how comparing Rozier to IT is defensible. Did you look at IT's rookie season stats before making that claim? Rozier is not in IT's league offensively.

It will be great if Rozier becomes a legitimate NBA player, but you are grossly overstating the case.

[guava_wrench]

Edit:  Just noticed your updated post about Rozier

Thanks. I think it's a bit of hyperbole to say that he has more potential than smart over about a half-hour of total play, but he's certainly not as useless as I thought.

On separate topic: you know what, we should just start Hunter, Young, or Clarke at SF. It is at possible at least in theory that they could guard players in the SF position. If they can't, at least they don't completely mess up our tactical structure like these weird permutations of lineups Brad is putting out.

If we start a kid at SF, maybe the starting lineup gets punished a bit against teams with good offensive options at that position. On the other hand, we get to keep the bench rotations the same and aren't forced into the frankenstein's monster lineups that kill our offense completely for three~four minute stretches throughout the game.

And who knows, maybe the minutes make it click for one of them and then we've got a huge windfall on our hands.

I doubt changing the rotation would cause as many problems as giving a lot of minutes to someone who is horrible.