People forget how down everyone was on Avery Bradley his first couple of years in the league, and he showed a lot less than Smart has up to this point. 

Smart has already proven to be a difference maker.  The team is usually far better with him on the court than it is without him, despite what the box score might say.

He's already proven he can be a good rotation player on a playoff team, which is more than a lot of 22 year olds can say (including Terry Rozier and R.J. Hunter).

Chris Forsberg has a good take on Smart's recent struggles this morning, see link below.

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4722575/missing-the-point-marcus-smart-making-impact-despite-shooting-woes

His point is that even as Smart has struggled shooting the ball of late, if you look at the advanced statistics he's clearly helping the team in other ways.

It always comes back to this for me: Even if he ends up as only as mediocre offensive player, he has a good chance to be as fixture on the all-defensive team for the bulk of his career. Hard to call that as disappointment, if you ask me.

Smart's return to poor shooting is definitely disappointing, but only in the sense of having to wait longer to see him become a consistent good shooter. No one should be permanently declaring him a bad shooter. His stretch of great shooting this season was not a random fluke. It was a clear demonstration of potential. He's still figuring things out. He'll get it soon enough.

I'm curious what qualifies for a "stretch of great shooting" in your mind. Marcus Smart make 40% from the field for a month. Heck, he is yet to shoot 45% in three consecutive games this season.... or any season, for that matter.

I'm guessing the "great stretch" is February, when he managed to simply be not completely awful from three (.327) -- yet somehow still stay below 40% from the field. Low bars, I guess.

People forget how down everyone was on Avery Bradley his first couple of years in the league, and he showed a lot less than Smart has up to this point.

That's your attempt at humor, right? Bradley only beat Ray Allen for a spot in the starting lineup and chased him out of town in his second season. Smart has "shown" that he's a one-trick pony that belongs firmly on the bench so far. So there's that.

I agree.  My agreement is not really based on statistical evidence, but rather on eye ball evidence.  The kid can shoot; I can tell by looking at his stroke. 

This makes me doubt your knowledge of a good stroke, I'm sorry.

His stroke is highly inconsistent, with way to many moving parts, with way to less lift from his legs, with to much of a backward/forward motion from his arms and to much movement from his back.

About once every 10 shots, I see a shot from Marcus that can be qualified as a technically/fundamentally solid shot. Now if you're talking about that one shot (out of every ten) then hey, you're right.

But because it only happens once every ten shots, I'm thinking the other 9 shots are his standard, and the "one" isn't.

What I'd give to be a shooting coach on this Celtics team. There would be so much work to do, there is so much room for improvement with a lot of these guys. Overall, spread over the team, you could gain 10%

Keeping that on mind, it's really unbelievable how this team and this coach have been performing.

Smart is still finding ways to contribute despite his awful offensive performance, which is encouraging.

The troubling thing is that Marcus has not been simply a mediocre offensive player so far in his career. He's been an absolutely horrible one. Guards with effective field goal percentage around 45 percent or below are hard to keep on the floor for too many minutes.  Smart has a long way to go, longer than I thought, to become decent enough offensively that he can be contemplated as a long term part of the rotation.

He needs to get better, period. Or he's headed for a career playing 15-20 minutes a night as a pure defensive specialist.

Quote from: Celtics18 on March 23, 2016, 11:01:44 AM

I agree.  My agreement is not really based on statistical evidence, but rather on eye ball evidence.  The kid can shoot; I can tell by looking at his stroke. 

This makes me doubt your knowledge of a good stroke, I'm sorry.

His stroke is highly inconsistent, with way to many moving parts, with way to less lift from his legs, with to much of a backward/forward motion from his arms and to much movement from his back.

About once every 10 shots, I see a shot from Marcus that can be qualified as a technically/fundamentally solid shot. Now if you're talking about that one shot (out of every ten) then hey, you're right.

But because it only happens once every ten shots, I'm thinking the other 9 shots are his standard, and the "one" isn't.

What I'd give to be a shooting coach on this Celtics team. There would be so much work to do, there is so much room for improvement with a lot of these guys. Overall, spread over the team, you could gain 10%

Keeping that on mind, it's really unbelievable how this team and this coach have been performing.

I'm not arguing with that, considering the fact that you have firm data to support your opinion.  I'm impressed.  It must have taken a ton of time, watching and analyzing every single shot that Marcus Smart takes, to carefully derive that 1 in 10 number that you came up with.

I guess that's why we are lucky to have professional shooting coaches like you around here as opposed to mere amateurs like me.