Will Kelly Olynyk ever be consistent?

[nickagneta]

Kelly Olynyk is and doez a lot of things: tall, good ballhandler, excellent passer, good shooter from distance, great effort. But he is also fragile and mind numbingly inconsistent. Many here think he should start. But as this year shows, his production is either great or poor.

I think its time to produce consistently or to move on from KO after the season or before the trade deadline. He is gonna want big money and I dont think with his injury history and inconsistency he should be a part of this teams future unless its for cheap and in a 7th man role.

[Kuberski33]

Consistency at the NBA level is a function of talent.  It is a talent to be consistent.  I would move on - and I suspect that Danny will.

[saltlover]

He had to take six months off due to shoulder surgery, and has had to play a lot of minutes quickly with Horford out.  It's going to take awhile to get back to full strength for him, unfortunately.

Remember how much Bradley struggled his season following shoulder surgery.  It was easily the worst season of his career (not counting his rookie year).  My hope is that KO picks up his play by the trade deadline.

That said, I do think KO is a 7th man on a championship contender, and not a starter.  But even 7th men/ 1st big off the bench get paid a lot now, so I'm not sure what your alternative is.  Ideally we will acquire that final starter via trade or free agency, and then keep Olynyk for his proper role.  Letting him go means we need to acquire that starter and replace him, which we're not going to be able to do nearly as easily.

[Tr1boy]

KO "defers" the ball too much.   His pg mentality has never changed since he 1st played ball

I think once Horford comesback he will play better/learn from an all star

If Horford comesback and KO is still inconsistent,  well say goodbye to a nice long term contract and

he might just have to accept the fact he is a bench player for life

[bdo3272]

My answer is maybe (COP OUT!!!  ) , but I dont think he will be an integral part of the Celtics success in the long run. If his only skill is going to be shooting from distance, it'll be hard for me to see him being a part of the core of this team. For a 7 footer, his rebounding is atrocious, his play in the paint (both offensively and defensively) leaves a lot to be desired and he is far too passive for being as good a shooter as he is. I understand coming back from the shoulder injury probably was a detriment to his ability to use the past summer to improve these aspects of his game, but Kelly is running out of time... and fast. Dont get me wrong, he'll have a place in this league as a stretch 4/5, but we as an organization, cant prioritize Kelly over the development and flexibility of this team and its salary cap moving forward.

[SHAQATTACK]

Allergic to rebounding

[Rosco917]

Kelly is just so unassertive in his play. And yes... Kelly does defer the ball too much, I think Kelly will never be much more than he is right now. He'll always be a guy you must put in the game and see what he'll give you tonight.

Some nights you'll get him to hit 3's and make some solid plays, and other times he'll give you 3 points and 2 rebounds. His defense is now passable, he plays ok positional D, it's his aggressiveness, and hunger to win that is invisible. 

[kraidstar]

He has no will to win.

He has skill and potential but no heart.

Unless that changes ASAP we need to let him go, can't have guys like that on a team that is trying to win a championship.

[tarheelsxxiii]

I took a stab at identifying predictors of his success on the court sometime last year but couldn't come up with a great outcome variable eg., points, EFF, Rpm. I've been interested in this though, any uggestions on how a goos outcome variable would be appreciated

[Ogaju]

whatever the answer to that question may be lets just hope it is answered while he is on a team other than the Celtics. Bad pick at that number, time to move on. Danny should have gone with his first instinct and picked the Nigerian ooops I mean the Greek Freak.

[hwangjini_1]

Allergic to rebounding

I wonder if the role given to him by CBS - remember, his role as outside shooting threat and passer - might be one factor in this?

[CelticsJG]

KOs is who is at this point .

[Smartacus]

I wish he was a bit bigger. KO is somewhat slow footed but makes up for it with solid deliberate footwork. If he can't improve his speed and explosiveness it'd be great if he could put on 10 - 20 pounds to help him box out. He wouldn't even need to be that much more explosive to grab boards or finish through contact at a higher rate if he could just carve out more space around the rim.

As much as any player I can recall KO seems to get pushed off his spots and offers them basically no physicality in return.

There was a thread last year that essentially paints him as a Doug McDermmot type, a slow footed, sweet shooting small forward and we should never expect him to be able to function as a true big man. I'm not willing to shut the door on the concept of KO as a stretch 4/5 but he wasn't young coming in to the league and it's fair to question how much more room he has to physically and skillfully develop.

[GreenWarrior]

Will Kelly Olynyk ever be consistent?

nope. he's always got a reason to not be 100%.

[hpantazo]

Olynyk has a lot of Jeff Green in him imo. A lot of talent but not the right personality to reach his potential. I think what we see is what we get with Olynyk, as it was with Jeff Green. He's a decent bench player. Wether or not its worth re-signing him and keeping him long term depends on who else we get and how much it would restrict us from getting the key starter or two that we lack currently.