That was another solid Rollie post. He is watching games and studying players from the perspective of an ex-player who played under Rollie Massimino. We are extremely lucky he is on this board.
Of course there are Celtics' values, RAAAAAAAANDY. McHale mentioned it when he did the game. It's always about the next guy. It's always about making teammates better. This isn't golf or tennis where it's on one person to win or lose.
It takes five guys at all times, not two or three stars plus filler.
Brad said in an interview that we are going nowhere without Jaylen Brown. We can say that about a lot of the team, but he meant if we want to be special. Stevens is gutting it out with Brown like Francona did with Pedroia. You can't teach talent.
Rozier is so bad that he won us a game? What games is this person watching? I am seeing much improvement in Jaylen's game including on defense. His solid improvement has taken away minutes from Gerald Green. Crowder has become amazing making it more difficult to play Brown. The Bradley injury has been a blessing in disguise, as it opened up minutes at shooting guard.
Brown looks like a shooting guard to me, maybe small forward if he gets stronger.
Crowder is more of a small forward to power forward despite being shorter. If the opposition goes small, we could do a lot worse that having Brown and Crowder play together.
James Young is the only scrub on this team. Mickey is also wading into dangerous waters where Danny might just give up on him. I think Young made it because of Celtics values. RJ was older and had one less year of service time with the C's. The Celtics plucked out James Young at age 18 or 19. He was literally a kid teenager. They did all they could for him from a moral standpoint.
Mickey looks undersized, a tweener. He seems to have better skills than Young and might eventually make the NBA, but it doesn't seem like it will happen. Young doesn't seem to think fast enough. Even with J. Brown having his rookie moments, Jaylen has the speed to make up for not having defense down pat like others. I don't know about Jackson. And Danny is really adding on talent with the stash maneuver. Amir, Zeller, and Jerebko have contracts running out. The team will definitely change, so I try to appreciate each year in itself.
The off-seasons are ending up as interesting as the actual playing seasons.
Rozier's problem is a basic number crunch. We have Isaiah, Avery and Smart clearly above him. When you have three solid guards with one in Smart who can play pg, there's just not much room for Rozier. But I am impressed with him. Young needed to make advances like Terry did.
If Smart had bombed at point guard, Rozier would have gotten a much better chance at a rotation job.
He is in the Zeller tier of next man up. If everyone is healthy, there is no need for those players. It's why Gerald is currently collecting splinters in his butt.