Daniel Theis - Done for the season

[Green-18]

It really sucks to lose Theis at this stage.  His athleticism and defensive timing was unique compared to the rest of the bigs on our roster.  He definitely would have helped in certain matchups come playoff time.

[CelticsElite]

The espn article says "likely out." its not conclusively saying he's out.

[celticsclay]

What a sucker punch. This season's going down the toilet all of a sudden. I'm SO SICK of all the injuries to this team. I don't ever wish injuries on anyone, but it just boggles my mind how teams like GS and CLE almost never have to adjust to injuries to their major players, but Boston gets hit year after year after year. Going back to KG's knee in '09, the Celtics just can't escape this crap.

To be fair Cleveland is actually really busted up at the moment with Thompson, Love, Osman and Hood all injured and Green battling a back injury that has made him unplayable.

[chiken Green]

Not sure why people think Monroe can replace What Theis gave us... They are two totally different players performing two totally different roles...

Monroe is a serious liability on Defense when pulled away from the basket.

[HomerSapien]

What a sucker punch. This season's going down the toilet all of a sudden. I'm SO SICK of all the injuries to this team. I don't ever wish injuries on anyone, but it just boggles my mind how teams like GS and CLE almost never have to adjust to injuries to their major players, but Boston gets hit year after year after year. Going back to KG's knee in '09, the Celtics just can't escape this crap.

I guess you did say "almost" never.   

Losing Theis sucks, but lets try to keep things in perspective.  We have a SEVEN game lead in the loss column on Cleveland with 15 to play.  We are a lock for the #2 seed, and have a month to get all our key players ready for the playoffs.  Theis's absence may limit how flexible our rotation can be in certain situations but it won't be the difference between winning and losing a series this season.  If Kyrie can't get healthy - that's the sucker punch.

[The Oracle]

It really sucks to lose Theis at this stage.  His athleticism and defensive timing was unique compared to the rest of the bigs on our roster.  He definitely would have helped in certain matchups come playoff time.

Pretty much this.  Right now the C's would be slated to play Miami in the 1st round.  Monroe is unplayable against their bigs, they will just draw him out to the perimeter and it will be a layup and wide open 3 drill.  The loss of Theis will be greatly missed come playoff time especially against certain matchups.

[CelticsElite]

With Hayward returning in the playoffs, theis would get a lot less minutes. Book it, Hayward is coming back for the ECF

[Erik]

Theis wasn't just a nice surprise, he'd become arguably our 2nd most important big. Effective in his role.

Not much argument needed... he was clearly 2nd best big. His production cannot be substituted because he was posting All NBA team levels of defense.

This will be a massive loss.

Oh no, just read that. 

Theis wasn't just a nice surprise, he'd become arguably our 2nd most important big. Effective in his role.

In spite of the nice record and performance this team has just been snakebit with the injuries. Hope it stops here.

Baynes is clearly more important.

Except he isn't.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1_hint=Daniel+Theis&player_id1_select=Daniel+Theis&y1=2018&player_id1=theisda01&idx=players&player_id2_hint=Aron+Baynes&player_id2_select=Aron+Baynes&y2=2018&player_id2=baynear01&idx=players

Pay close to VORP. It's a metric that is biased towards players with more minutes played to give an accurate representation of actual contribution instead of theoretical contribution. Theis plays less and has a much larger VORP. a 1.1 differential is quite large considering the highest score is 7.0, James. Al Horford is #20 with 3.1.

I understand that Theis isn't a flashy player, but he is a VERY good bench player because he's posting top 100 numbers. When you get top 100 stats contribution from your 15 minutes a night bench player, that's nuts.

Let's not pretend VORP for basketball means anything. It has Andre Drummond ranked 6th in the entire NBA (Curry is 8th and Durant is 12th). It's a box score estimate, so it's pretty much yet another inherently limited one-stop-shop measure of tangible player production.

I love this argument. Three questions:
1) I'd like to know if you think that Baynes played better than Theis this season (and you disagree with me), or if you're just doing your usual thing where you follow me around and try to contradict what I say because we don't get along on off topic stuff.
2) Which metric would you rather use to compare two players' current performance?
3) Since you're upset that Steph Curry is ranked lower in a metric that accounts for time played (and he's played 14 less games than Drummond), what do you make of the fact that Theis is ranked +1.1 vs Baynes on 20% less minutes?

Also, let's not forget that Drummond is having an absolute monster season and should have been on the initial all star team had we used a correct metric other than (see your answer for #2), so it's not like he's a bum. VORP doesn't know name value or any other theoretical value. It's the best pure statistical representation of how much worth a player has provided a team this year. There are always a few outliers (Klay Thompson is usually the most significant), but it's generally pretty good -- the voted allstar list and VORP are fairly similar. We could switch to BPM which doesn't account for time played if you'd like. Theis is still much better than Baynes, but by more. That would be a +4.7 Swing (which is nuts).

[PhoSita]

Not sure why people think Monroe can replace What Theis gave us... They are two totally different players performing two totally different roles...

Monroe is a serious liability on Defense when pulled away from the basket.

Agreed, one can defend the pick and roll at a high level, the other is a good rebounder and otherwise is at best net neutral defensively.  Would not really be playable against any quality small ball lineup.

[ozgod]

I feel for Daniel. I’ve torn my meniscus while surfing and while it’s not as bad as a cruciate ligament it’s still very difficult to do anything that requires articulation of the knee joint. He’s had a great year too considering that he came in with low expectations.

[Diggles]

Was just warming up to him getting a lot more minutes. 

[ozgod]

What a sucker punch. This season's going down the toilet all of a sudden. I'm SO SICK of all the injuries to this team. I don't ever wish injuries on anyone, but it just boggles my mind how teams like GS and CLE almost never have to adjust to injuries to their major players, but Boston gets hit year after year after year. Going back to KG's knee in '09, the Celtics just can't escape this crap.

Well to be fair to Cleveland they are missing Love, Thompson, Hood, Osman and Korver.

[Celtics4ever]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling.   This has been a season of adversity.    This means a good look at Monroe.

[kozlodoev]

I love this argument. Three questions:
1) I'd like to know if you think that Baynes played better than Theis this season (and you disagree with me), or if you're just doing your usual thing where you follow me around and try to contradict what I say because we don't get along on off topic stuff.
2) Which metric would you rather use to compare two players' current performance?
3) Since you're upset that Steph Curry is ranked lower in a metric that accounts for time played (and he's played 14 less games than Drummond), what do you make of the fact that Theis is ranked +1.1 vs Baynes on 20% less minutes?

Also, let's not forget that Drummond is having an absolute monster season and should have been on the initial all star team had we used a correct metric other than (see your answer for #2), so it's not like he's a bum. VORP doesn't know name value or any other theoretical value. It's the best pure statistical representation of how much worth a player has provided a team this year. There are always a few outliers (Klay Thompson is usually the most significant), but it's generally pretty good -- the voted allstar list and VORP are fairly similar. We could switch to BPM which doesn't account for time played if you'd like. Theis is still much better than Baynes, but by more. That would be a +4.7 Swing (which is nuts).

1. Baynes was absolutely better than Theis the first half of the season. After that, his stamina limits became clear, and Theis made himself not useless, hence things evened out. They're largely a wash right now, but to me having a rested Baynes is as important as having Theis, if not more.
2. I'd use any metric. Just have to understand its limitations. In the particular case of boxscore metrics, you have to realize that you're comparing points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, etc. that have been minced through some sort of fancy formula. Unsurprisingly, in the VORP that you presented is largely similar for two players that have, on average, largely similar measurable stats. And given that the theoretical "replacement" has a constant value of -2, VORP ends up by definition a function only of player stats.
3. I'm not upset. I just think everyone around here would rather have Kevin Durant or Stephen Curry over Andre Drummond. But perhaps I'm wrong.

[CelticsElite]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling.   This has been a season of adversity.    This means a good look at Monroe.

lol