CelticsStrong
Celtics Basketball => Celtics Talk => Topic started by: KG Living Legend on September 10, 2017, 03:13:22 PM
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The Definitive "Start Smart" Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/comments/6z8ypv/the_definitive_start_smart_post/
I don't agree with all of this. I'd rather start Brown, but he makes some decent points.
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It's going really depend on who had the better off season. Brown looked good in that one game of SL, but it's still SL and needs to get his handles tightened up. Smart has done that, but needs to get his 3pt shot consistent.
But with Smart losing 20lbs, and seeing some work out games on youtube, his shot looks good. IT's still only against some young pros and college kids, but this looks better, and tighter than it had. And if he has gotten more explosive, thats good to.
It really comes down to best off season, and who Stevens wants with the bench, either would be good.
I lean towards Brown, but would be fine if Stevens picked Smart.
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The Definitive "Start Smart" Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/comments/6z8ypv/the_definitive_start_smart_post/
I don't agree with all of this. I'd rather start Brown, but he makes some decent points.
http://www.hoopsinquirer.com/2017/09/the-case-for-starting-smart/
The link you give takes you the reddit repost.
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The Definitive "Start Smart" Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/comments/6z8ypv/the_definitive_start_smart_post/
I don't agree with all of this. I'd rather start Brown, but he makes some decent points.
http://www.hoopsinquirer.com/2017/09/the-case-for-starting-smart/
The link you give takes you the reddit repost.
TP .....you know my weakness for my fav. player .... ;D
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Whoever earns it in camp.
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One thing we can all be relatively sure of, Smart will be finishing the games.
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The Definitive "Start Smart" Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/comments/6z8ypv/the_definitive_start_smart_post/
I don't agree with all of this. I'd rather start Brown, but he makes some decent points.
http://www.hoopsinquirer.com/2017/09/the-case-for-starting-smart/
The link you give takes you the reddit repost.
The first video shows Smart abusing Kyrie Irving in the post - and then LeBron getting vehement with Irving for the blown coverage.
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The Definitive "Start Smart" Post
https://www.reddit.com/r/bostonceltics/comments/6z8ypv/the_definitive_start_smart_post/
I don't agree with all of this. I'd rather start Brown, but he makes some decent points.
http://www.hoopsinquirer.com/2017/09/the-case-for-starting-smart/
The link you give takes you the reddit repost.
The first video shows Smart abusing Kyrie Irving in the post - and then LeBron getting vehement with Irving for the blown coverage.
I'm glad someone else mentioned this so it wouldn't just be discounted as Kyrie hate. That first clip really speaks to Kyrie's physical limitations that affect his defense. If he kept up that effort with any consistency, I imagine he'd always be injured.
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Honestly, as soon as the Kyrie trade and people started talking about Brown (as if he was seemingly the obvious starter at SG) - the first thing that came to my mind is that I'd actually like to see Smart in that role.
There are two reasons for this.
1. While I like Brown's potential, I have yet to see anything from him YET that indicates he is good/ready enough to start for a top 2-3 seed playoff team. The closest things I've seen so far were a flashing of 3 or 4 nice plays over a 5 game ECF series, and a single dominant game against D-League fodder in the Summer League. Both promising signs, but not enough to convince me he's yet ready to take on the responsibility of a starting role.
2. While I feel Brown has extremely high defensive potential, he's still yet to show a whole lot of defensive consistency. There are flashes of strong defence sprinkled out among a stack of missed rotations and mishaps. He's shown clear progression and is definitely improving, and I think he's going to be excellent - but on a team with Kyrie and Hayward starting on the perimeter and NO rim protection whatsoever...I feel that we need a consistent, proven, hard nosed bulldog on defence.
Smart would bring toughness (both physical and emotional), energy, and outright tenacity on both ends of the court that I feel this current roster desperately needs in order to avoid being overly soft. Having Morris AND Smart out there, I would be content in knowing that this starting 5 isn't backing down from anybody.
That said I do have one concern - if Smart starts at SG, then our second unit becomes incredibly young and doesn't really have anything resembling a veteran leader. Aside from Baynes (who I don't really see as a leader type), our next most experienced bench player would be Terry Rozier - that's a bit of a worry. As much as I think our starting 5 would be strongest with Smart stating, I'm wondering if his veteran presence might bring more benefit if it's being used to provide leadership for the second unit. Brown is young, but at least as a starter he'd have four guys on the court to mentor him.
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Smart is enough of an "adventure" as a point guard, already, and people want to entrust that important role to Terry Rozier? Yikes. Fasten your seat belts.
Personally, I'd like to see Brown start. I'm still not there in terms of being a fan of this, but he proved last year that he's a decent spot-up shooter and he did play well with the starters during whichever month that was, plus he already has some good post moves. Can we at least have one post player in the starting five? Please? :laugh:
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Smart is enough of an "adventure" as a point guard, already, and people want to entrust that important role to Terry Rozier? Yikes. Fasten your seat belts.
Personally, I'd like to see Brown start. I'm still not there in terms of being a fan of this, but he proved last year that he's a decent spot-up shooter and he did play well with the starters during whichever month that was, plus he already has some good post moves. Can we at least have one post player in the starting five? Please? :laugh:
What's wrong with Rozier starting at PG? He lacks experience, but he's better equipped to play that position then Smart is IMHO. He's a comparable playmaker, a better ball handler, is far less turnover prone, and has superior natural quickness that allows him to match up better against quicker guards.
He just needs to show us that he can do all that with consistency (rather than in flashes).
Smart is (IMHO) more suited to the SG spot due to his size, less impressive ball handling skills, and his tendency to struggle at times with decision making. Maybe he'll improve his decision making and ball handling this year, hard to say though.
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Smart is enough of an "adventure" as a point guard, already, and people want to entrust that important role to Terry Rozier? Yikes. Fasten your seat belts.
Personally, I'd like to see Brown start. I'm still not there in terms of being a fan of this, but he proved last year that he's a decent spot-up shooter and he did play well with the starters during whichever month that was, plus he already has some good post moves. Can we at least have one post player in the starting five? Please? :laugh:
What's wrong with Rozier starting at PG? He lacks experience, but he's better equipped to play that position then Smart is IMHO. He's a comparable playmaker, a better ball handler, is far less turnover prone, and has superior natural quickness that allows him to match up better against quicker guards.
He just needs to show us that he can do all that with consistency (rather than in flashes).
Smart is (IMHO) more suited to the SG spot due to his size, less impressive ball handling skills, and his tendency to struggle at times with decision making. Maybe he'll improve his decision making and ball handling this year, hard to say though.
While I agree that he has better physical tools to play, and certainly defend, point guards, the guy is just not someone you want running the show, imo. A few passes aside, he largely has tunnel vision and plays completely out of control the vast majority of the time. You want stability from your backup point guard, right? Well, then Rozier is not the answer, imo. He does have some nice dribbling moves, yes, and he does rebound, but he just looks like the classic case of Ainge taking a guy who is really shooting guard in a point guard's body, not to mention the fact that neither he nor Smart have ever even shot 40% from the field. Yikes. Which one will finally break on through to other side and become a terrible, but not hopeless, if that makes any sense, outside shooter this season? Oh the drama! ::) Does this not bother anyone else? Aside from rebounding, this is a serious problem, imo. We could have gotten a better point guard in the second round this year for crying out loud. Ugh. I know that he's shot poorly during each of the last two years, even though I wouldn't call 19 games a season, but how about CJ Watson, who was released by the Magic? He's, again, more of a combo guard, but he has plenty of experience, is a good defender, iirc, and played well off the bench for the Nets and Pacers. I would have much rather gone with him than Shane Larkin, lol. Sigh. Captain Barbosa is still out there, too. Hey, maybe we should have gone after Jordan Crawford, hehe :laugh:. Always liked that guy, if only because he dunked on Lebron, haha, and he even dropped 21 on the Warriors last year, albeit in a blowout. That has to count for something, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKlHamWpRK4
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Smart is enough of an "adventure" as a point guard, already, and people want to entrust that important role to Terry Rozier? Yikes. Fasten your seat belts.
Personally, I'd like to see Brown start. I'm still not there in terms of being a fan of this, but he proved last year that he's a decent spot-up shooter and he did play well with the starters during whichever month that was, plus he already has some good post moves. Can we at least have one post player in the starting five? Please? :laugh:
What's wrong with Rozier starting at PG? He lacks experience, but he's better equipped to play that position then Smart is IMHO. He's a comparable playmaker, a better ball handler, is far less turnover prone, and has superior natural quickness that allows him to match up better against quicker guards.
He just needs to show us that he can do all that with consistency (rather than in flashes).
Smart is (IMHO) more suited to the SG spot due to his size, less impressive ball handling skills, and his tendency to struggle at times with decision making. Maybe he'll improve his decision making and ball handling this year, hard to say though.
While I agree that he has better physical tools to play, and certainly defend, point guards, the guy is just not someone you want running the show, imo. A few passes aside, he largely has tunnel vision and plays completely out of control the vast majority of the time. You want stability from your backup point guard, right? Well, then Rozier is not the answer, imo. He does have some nice dribbling moves, yes, and he does rebound, but he just looks like the classic case of Ainge taking a guy who is really shooting guard in a point guard's body, not to mention the fact that neither he nor Smart have ever even shot 40% from the field. Yikes. Which one will finally break on through to other side and become a terrible, but not hopeless, if that makes any sense, outside shooter this season? Oh the drama! ::) Does this not bother anyone else? Aside from rebounding, this is a serious problem, imo. We could have gotten a better point guard in the second round this year for crying out loud. Ugh. I know that he's shot poorly during each of the last two years, even though I wouldn't call 19 games a season, but how about CJ Watson, who was released by the Magic? He's, again, more of a combo guard, but he has plenty of experience, is a good defender, iirc, and played well off the bench for the Nets and Pacers. I would have much rather gone with him than Shane Larkin, lol. Sigh. Captain Barbosa is still out there, too. Hey, maybe we should have gone after Jordan Crawford, hehe :laugh:. Always liked that guy, if only because he dunked on Lebron, haha, and he even dropped 21 on the Warriors last year, albeit in a blowout. That has to count for something, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKlHamWpRK4
To be honest, I'm still cutting Terry Rozier quite a lot of slack right now (in terms of his comfort running the offense as well as his shooting percentages) based on the fact that he has played very few minutes over his career, and that his role and playing time have been quite honestly all over the place.
To put into perspective just how little Rozier has played as a Celtic, if you take ALL of his regular season minutes and all of his playoff minutes for the last two seasons, and add ALL of those minutes together, you get 1,950 minutes of total NBA experience.
Divide that by 82 and you a 23.78 - meaning if you took all of the minutes Rozier has played in two full regular seasons + two full playoffs and compress them all into a single regular season, he'd still only have averaged 23.8 MPG.
Do he same with Smart's and you get 81.64 - so Smart has literally about 4x the NBA experience Rozier has in addition to having the benefit of having very steady minutes (he's ever averaged < 27 MPG for a season) and a very steady role he's started or been a 6th man his entire career).
Also despite limited opportunity, Rozier has actually shot pretty well in the playoffs has tended to up his game in the Playoffs 12.5 Points Per 36 on 40% FG / 37% 3PT / 82% FT) which I think is pretty solid given his general lack of experience.
Perhaps even more impressive is his career playoff Assist:Turnover rate of 3.27 which is actually a VERY high number for an NBA PG. To put it in to perspective, Chris Paul has pretty much dominated that stat through his career, and has a career average of 1.4 AST:TO. Marcus Smart's career AST:TO rates are 2.3 in the regular season and 1.88 in the playoffs - which is closer to what is expected for a shoot-first PG or a combo guard. Rozier's playoff AST:TO rate of 3.27 is approaching elite for an NBA PG. Obviously it's a tiny sample size so we can't draw too much from it, but it's an encouraging figure none the less given he actually did play quite a bit in the playoffs last season.
He played some seriously nice defence against Wall and Beal in the Washington series too - when Wall was blowing by everybody else pretty much at will, Rozier took it on himself to accept that challenge - and wall was struggling immensely for much of that time.
He also has a career +1 Net Rating, +0.1 VORP and -0.6 Box Plus Minus in playoff games - all indications that he's actually been at least holding his own out there in the big moments, which I think is also a nice sign for a kid with such limited experience.
So watching how Rozier has stepped up in the playoffs gives me some genuine hope that he can really flourish into a special all round player given a consistent role and consistent minutes, which he will get this year as the full time backup at either the PG or SG spot. Hopefully he can show more of the same and prove that those playoff figures are more than just a fluke.
But anyhoot, the flashes I've seen from Rozier (even if they are only very brief flashes) give me more hope about his future as a PG then I get from Smart's 3 seasons so far.
Hopefully Smart can up his playmaking / ball handling ability and up his shooting ability and prove me wrong!
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One thing is for sure: Stevens will experiment with at least 5 or 6 different starting lineups.
Baynes, Tatum, Brown, Rozier will probably all see starting minutes this year
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Smart may or may not be the answer in the starting lineup but I found that piece wholly unconvincing. He mentions but never actually addresses one of the biggest reasons to have Smart come off the bench: so he can lead the second unit offense. He then spends most of the piece explaining that Smart is best as a PG, not a SG even though the premise of the piece is supposed to be why Smart should play his minutes alongside Kyrie Irving... a PG.
The whole thing seems confused. The reason Smart should start at SG is because he's so good at playing PG?
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Smart may or may not be the answer in the starting lineup...
I agree.
The whole thing seems confused. The reason Smart should start at SG is because he's so good at playing PG?
Smart played almost all his minutes last season with either Thomas or Rozier, allowing those two to play off the ball. Creating offense is hard work! They keep bumping you! In addition, Rozier is no great shakes as a playmaker; his future may be 3-and-D point guard, so he's best with someone else creating the offense. Now that Boston has more shot-creators, Terry can fill some slots off the ball.
So Brother Marcus was playing "two guard", nominally, even though he had the ball a lot and was creating shots for the team. The old rigid 1-5 hierarchy was never a comfortable fit for the pro game, but nowadays it's more uncomfortable than ever.
But if Kyrie has the ball, Smart's poor outside shooting is an issue. I'm leaning Brown as the starter.
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One thing is for sure: Stevens will experiment with at least 5 or 6 different starting lineups.
Baynes, Tatum, Brown, Rozier will probably all see starting minutes this year
You didn't include Smart in your list...
Just sayin.
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Smart may or may not be the answer in the starting lineup...
I agree.
The whole thing seems confused. The reason Smart should start at SG is because he's so good at playing PG?
Smart played almost all his minutes last season with either Thomas or Rozier, allowing those two to play off the ball. Creating offense is hard work! They keep bumping you! In addition, Rozier is no great shakes as a playmaker; his future may be 3-and-D point guard, so he's best with someone else creating the offense. Now that Boston has more shot-creators, Terry can fill some slots off the ball.
So Brother Marcus was playing "two guard", nominally, even though he had the ball a lot and was creating shots for the team. The old rigid 1-5 hierarchy was never a comfortable fit for the pro game, but nowadays it's more uncomfortable than ever.
But if Kyrie has the ball, Smart's poor outside shooting is an issue. I'm leaning Brown as the starter.
I agree with all of that.
The article posted above seems to make the same case, that Smart is better with the ball in his hands, but then concludes that Smart should start alongside Kyrie which will force Smart to play off the ball more. I don't get it.
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I'd start Smart to replace Bradley's rebounding. Also he'd replace Bradley's minutes defending PGs.
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Smart may or may not be the answer in the starting lineup...
I agree.
The whole thing seems confused. The reason Smart should start at SG is because he's so good at playing PG?
Smart played almost all his minutes last season with either Thomas or Rozier, allowing those two to play off the ball. Creating offense is hard work! They keep bumping you! In addition, Rozier is no great shakes as a playmaker; his future may be 3-and-D point guard, so he's best with someone else creating the offense. Now that Boston has more shot-creators, Terry can fill some slots off the ball.
So Brother Marcus was playing "two guard", nominally, even though he had the ball a lot and was creating shots for the team. The old rigid 1-5 hierarchy was never a comfortable fit for the pro game, but nowadays it's more uncomfortable than ever.
But if Kyrie has the ball, Smart's poor outside shooting is an issue. I'm leaning Brown as the starter.
I agree with all of that.
The article posted above seems to make the same case, that Smart is better with the ball in his hands, but then concludes that Smart should start alongside Kyrie which will force Smart to play off the ball more. I don't get it.
Yes. If the choice is to give the ball to Kyrie or Marcus, you take Kyrie. Marcus has a role to play - maybe exactly what he did last year - not as a starter.
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I believe that Smart will start and will play starter's minutes. I would be thrilled if Brown was able to beat him out and earn the starting role. It would mean that Brown had progressed significantly.
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To be honest, I'm still cutting Terry Rozier quite a lot of slack right now (in terms of his comfort running the offense as well as his shooting percentages) based on the fact that he has played very few minutes over his career, and that his role and playing time have been quite honestly all over the place.
To put into perspective just how little Rozier has played as a Celtic, if you take ALL of his regular season minutes and all of his playoff minutes for the last two seasons, and add ALL of those minutes together, you get 1,950 minutes of total NBA experience.
Divide that by 82 and you a 23.78 - meaning if you took all of the minutes Rozier has played in two full regular seasons + two full playoffs and compress them all into a single regular season, he'd still only have averaged 23.8 MPG.
Do he same with Smart's and you get 81.64 - so Smart has literally about 4x the NBA experience Rozier has in addition to having the benefit of having very steady minutes (he's ever averaged < 27 MPG for a season) and a very steady role he's started or been a 6th man his entire career).
Also despite limited opportunity, Rozier has actually shot pretty well in the playoffs has tended to up his game in the Playoffs 12.5 Points Per 36 on 40% FG / 37% 3PT / 82% FT) which I think is pretty solid given his general lack of experience.
Perhaps even more impressive is his career playoff Assist:Turnover rate of 3.27 which is actually a VERY high number for an NBA PG. To put it in to perspective, Chris Paul has pretty much dominated that stat through his career, and has a career average of 1.4 AST:TO. Marcus Smart's career AST:TO rates are 2.3 in the regular season and 1.88 in the playoffs - which is closer to what is expected for a shoot-first PG or a combo guard. Rozier's playoff AST:TO rate of 3.27 is approaching elite for an NBA PG. Obviously it's a tiny sample size so we can't draw too much from it, but it's an encouraging figure none the less given he actually did play quite a bit in the playoffs last season.
He played some seriously nice defence against Wall and Beal in the Washington series too - when Wall was blowing by everybody else pretty much at will, Rozier took it on himself to accept that challenge - and wall was struggling immensely for much of that time.
He also has a career +1 Net Rating, +0.1 VORP and -0.6 Box Plus Minus in playoff games - all indications that he's actually been at least holding his own out there in the big moments, which I think is also a nice sign for a kid with such limited experience.
So watching how Rozier has stepped up in the playoffs gives me some genuine hope that he can really flourish into a special all round player given a consistent role and consistent minutes, which he will get this year as the full time backup at either the PG or SG spot. Hopefully he can show more of the same and prove that those playoff figures are more than just a fluke.
But anyhoot, the flashes I've seen from Rozier (even if they are only very brief flashes) give me more hope about his future as a PG then I get from Smart's 3 seasons so far.
Hopefully Smart can up his playmaking / ball handling ability and up his shooting ability and prove me wrong!
Okay, first of all, you and I write way too much on here, lol :laugh:.
Anyway, despite his relative inexperience, yes, his postseason play has, honestly, been pretty impressive - getting involved with Brandon Jennings notwithstanding - but he still looks like the same player to me - a pretty athletic shooting guard in a point guard's body who leaves too much to be desired in terms of decision making - a "the lights are on but nobody's home" type, I guess :-\ - who also has poor shooting percentages, but then again that was his mo at Louisville, too, so it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise, I suppose :-\.
Meh, I'm just not getting my hopes up. He certainly has all of the tools but has yet to figure out how to put it all together, and, I know that no one will agree with me on this, but one of the reasons why I think he has performed so much better in the postseason is because, from my standpoint, there's so much emotion in the playoffs that most guys either can't think or stop thinking altogether, which is pathetic, imo, but also perfectly suited for Rozier, lol. Everyone's all charged up and in fight-or-flight mode, and here he comes like it's second nature to him, imo, but yeah, when he has to think, he reminds me of, well, this :laugh:
(https://cdn1.tnwcdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/Fembots-error.gif)
I guess what I'm trying to say, here, is that the game has yet to "slow down" for him, which doesn't exactly inspire much confidence if he's going to be running the show out there, but hopefully I'm wrong.
As for Smart, yeah...:laugh:. He's like a smaller, worse offensive version of the artist formerly known as Ron Artest. I can't stand his incessant flopping, putrid shot selection, horrible decision making, and almost incomprehensibly poor offensive let's say "ability" ::). How was he ever a 6th pick in any NBA Draft? I mean, if we wanted a great athletic, defensive, and outstanding, imo, rebounding point guard who can't shoot but can really pass, we should have gotten Gary Payton II. We'd even be better off with Wayne Selden. Smart is like the watered-down version of that guy, lol :laugh:. Ugh.