Author Topic: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er  (Read 5865 times)

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Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #15 on: April 18, 2014, 06:03:18 PM »

Offline Vox_Populi

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Per-36 numbers seem to suggest that Sully and Oly are about even rebounders.

Kelly seems to be significantly better offensively.  Better finisher.  More range on his shot.  Better ball-handler.  More moves.

Neither is an impact defender.
Yeah, but Sully is still pretty much better in any facet. His ORB% of 12.6 was top 5 in the NBA. He was over 1.4% better than Kelly in REB% and DRB%. You're right about the offensive part though. And while neither is good defensively, Sully is noticeably better. He was second on the team in DefRtg. We were outscored 3 more points per100 with him off. Not a huge difference, but the largest on the team.

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #16 on: April 18, 2014, 06:21:50 PM »

Offline Celtics4ever

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I think Oly has more upside than Sully.   Better passer, bigger with more platform to build strength on.  Also, Oly is a better three point shooter, Sully shot .26% for the year and Kelly shot .35%  Sully is a fair to above average player, same could be said of Olynyk, right now neither is a great player and their upside might be limited to a good player at best.   In that case, if stats are similiar you take the bigger guy.

All this SF talk is a riot to me, Oly could not cover SF in his wildest dreams.

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #17 on: April 18, 2014, 06:30:57 PM »

Offline Tr1boy

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First I'll say: I love Kelly Olynyk's progress this year. I'm admittedly pro-tank, but no one enjoyed Kelly Olynyk's (average) 18-25 minutes of much deserved play over the past month or so than I (and no one was more disappointed when he was snatched from each game by Stevens to keep the tank going). Whether you think Olynyk or Sullinger is better, it's clear that the two of them are special offensive talents and we're lucky enough to say that the two of them are so smart and so dedicated that they can be taught good team defense.

That being said, I feel like CelticsBloggers have gotten caught up in Klynyk's end of season tear. No doubt it's been impressive and satisfying to see Klynyk finally break out. But I think we have to remind ourselves that these past five games in which he's averaged about 19/8 have been the norm for large periods of Sullinger's season. Jared averaged 18/8 over the entire (half-) month of April as well. When teams were actually trying against the Cs back in February, Sullinger dominated the field and posted 15/11 over that month-long span.

Sullinger also fell victim to the tank. As the team's best player for half the season and its second best player for the other half, Sullinger averaged 30 minutes a game over monthly splits just twice. In fact, Stevens used him as a bench player in the second half of the season. Imagine if he was showcased as he should have been (if not for the tank, which I support... I know, us tankers want to have our cake and eat it too)? Sullinger could have made a strong push for the All-Star team this season a la Lance Stephenson.

Most importantly, Olynyk is 11 months older than Jared Sullinger. Next year, Sullinger will start the season as a 22-year old, only one month older than October 2K13-Kelly Olynyk. That's very important. It's why Adreian Payne isn't a lottery pick. It means that next year, with an improved supporting cast, playing with less weight (by design), playing at his natural position, playing without the persistent injuries that nagged him all season, and playing under a coach that has a refocused approach to winning (how's that for a good PR quote?), Jared Sullinger will make a push for the All-Star team at the same age as rookie Kelly Olynyk.

Thoughts? Who is better, Sully or Klynyk? Will we eventually have to trade one of the two? What could either of the two fetch in return as individuals? As part of a package deal?

Olynyk is better. He is taller, quicker and imo has a slightly higher iq/more skills. Sully is a beast though.  Better rebounder for now. If i had to choose one to start or keep is KO

Unless Danny gets a FA or trades for a legit C, these two are likely to start next season. Ford called them super skilled pair. Which is true

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #18 on: April 18, 2014, 06:32:03 PM »

Offline Endless Paradise

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I agree with the basic premise of your thread, but the idea of Sullinger being a near-All Star seems a bit too out there for me.  Guys like Greg Monroe and Nikola Vucevic don't even get consideration for that; there's no way I could see Sullinger beating both of them out at this point.  I mean, you're even suggesting that he could've beaten out Andre Drummond for a spot this season.

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #19 on: April 18, 2014, 06:46:01 PM »

Offline SHAQATTACK

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For both of these guys to break out ,  they need a legit top NBA center on court .

Now that the lottery coin flip has not gone favorable......means also no KLove .....no top three pick to trade....so other none young assets need to go to get a center.
 I see Rondo getting traded for A center .

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #20 on: April 18, 2014, 06:59:44 PM »

Offline BballTim

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Per 36:

Sully: 17.3 points, 10.6 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.6 steals, 0.9 blocks, .427/.269/.778   
Oly:   15.6 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.7 blocks, .466/.351/.811

Oly gets benefit of the doubt, because it was his rookie season.

I think what people got excited about was Oly's stats the final 2 months:

March:  20.6 minutes 9.6 points, 5.5 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.3 blocks, 0.7 steals .515/.458/.833     
April:  25.8 minutes, 16.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 0.4 blocks, 0.3 steals .547/.429/.800

Kelly is clearly a vastly superior offensive player.  His shooting percentages over the past two months were ELITE.

His final 3 games, he got the start and a boost in minutes... and didn't see a decline in his efficiency.  Granted, end-of-season play has to be taken with a MASSIVE grain of salt... but those final 3 games showed hockey-stick shaped spikes on Oly's growth chart.

Game 1:  39 mins 25 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists  .478/.400/.1000   
Game 2:  35 mins 28 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists .526/.667/.857 
Game 3 ... 30 mins 24 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists .625/.000/.800

On the flip side, Sully's shooting percentages show a rather pedestrian offensive player... and he lacks the size to be much of an impact defensively. 

It will be entertaining seeing which of these 2 guys ends up having a future as a starter in this league.   Oly is 23.  Sully is 22.  I'm not sure which has a higher ceiling.  Neither probably has star potential.  Both are probably trade chips.

   Olynyk was a rookie but he's older than Sully, who's shooting took a pretty big hit with his hand injury. KO played well and I hope it continues, but it's worth pointing out that he played the same number of minutes over those two months than Bradley did during April/2012 and you spent quite a bit of time chuckling about people getting excited about his numbers.

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #21 on: April 18, 2014, 07:12:12 PM »

Offline D.o.s.

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If we're going by Per-36 then Sullinger is an infinitely better player based solely on the fact that he doesn't foul out when you scale his stats to 36 minutes.
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Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #22 on: April 18, 2014, 07:35:49 PM »

Offline BballTim

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If we're going by Per-36 then Sullinger is an infinitely better player based solely on the fact that he doesn't foul out when you scale his stats to 36 minutes.

  Sadly, Olynyk does.

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #23 on: April 18, 2014, 07:44:44 PM »

Offline apc

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One thing they both have in common...they need this summer to get in shape.
I would love to see how Sullinger plays with a few less pounds and KO with some extra muscles on him.

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #24 on: April 18, 2014, 07:49:42 PM »

Offline mmmmm

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I'll respond with general points because I've seen a lot of stuff I've disagreed with. Keeping it short and sweet though:

- Important to note that Sullinger didn't have any chance to really put in work on his game last offseason. After his back surgery did we really expect him to come into training camp in tip top shape? I'll withhold my judgments on his weight/body shape until he has that offseason and Danny/Brad tell him that he'll be able to spend the majority of his minutes at PF in 2014-15.

- Responding to LarBird33's comments about Sullinger's poor shooting position: Again, playing out of position, playing with limited preparation heading into the season, playing with extra weight (without being able to help it; again, back surgery!) will do that to your shot.

- For concerns about injury: I sound like a broken record, but extra weight and playing out of position can have that effect on a player, especially if he's playing up (PF====>C vs. PF====>SF).

- For future concerns about size/body shape: NBA scouts have moved away from judging big men on height, heavily weighing figures such as wingspan and standing reach. Yes, you could argue that Sullinger is undersized by a measly inch at PF (6'10" is ideal for PF; was Perk undersized by an inch or two at center? Cs fans seemed to love him), but two years ago, his wingspan was 7'1.25" and his standing reach was 8'9.5". Those numbers are better than Blake Griffin's draft measurements. By comparison, Kelly's wingspan at draft workouts last year was 6'9.75" and his standing reach was 9'0". How much more does Kelly's size really bother offensive assignments than Sully's size? I doubt it's as some as many here seem to think. We certainly know that Kelly isn't the rebounder Sullinger is, either.

Per-36 numbers seem to suggest that Sully and Oly are about even rebounders.

Kelly seems to be significantly better offensively.  Better finisher.  More range on his shot.  Better ball-handler.  More moves.

Neither is an impact defender.

I think that Kelly has proven he's a much better rebounder in the NBA than a lot of folks predicted.

That said, I don't think he's quite up with Sullinger in the rebounding department.  At least not yet.

Sully ended up averaging more mpg this season and as a result, according to NBA Stats Player Tracking (stats.nba.com/playertracking), Sullinger had 13.3 "rebounding opportunities" per game compared to just 9.7 for Olynyk.

Normalized to per-36, those end up nearly identical.  Sully averaged 17.22 'opportunities' per 36 and Kelly averaged 17.28.

So this indicates that Stevens tended to use them in very similar ways.  Both spent time both in the 'out' position in the 4-1 motion set, but mostly both spent a lot of time as the 'in' big, in the low post.

Now, in NBA Stats Player Tracking's definition, a "rebounding opportunity" is when the player is within 3.5 feet of a rebound.  And if another player is within 3.5 feet, it is a 'contested' opportunity.

This metric is a more player-accurate measure than normal 'DRB%/ORB%' because it does not penalize a player for not grabbing a rebound on the other side of the court.    The latter are useful though, as measuring a player's contribution to the team rebounding efficiency.

At any rate, given the nearly identical opportunities that each had, Sullinger grabbed 60.9% of his rebound chances while Kelly grabbed 53.6%.

A larger percentage (45.8%) of Sullinger's rebounds were "contested" compared to those of Kelly's (38.1%).

Of the regular rotation front court players on our team, Sullinger's rebounding percentage was tops, with Bass (60.8%) and Green (59.3%) right behind him.   However, his share of contested rebounds was way above anyone else other than Faverani (43.0%), whose sample size is small.   While both Green and Bass were efficient at grabbing their opportunities, they both had fewer opportunities and fewer of them were contested.  Not surprising since they play farther from the basket.

Since I expect folks are curious, Humphries had the second most opportunities per game at 10.5 per game, grabbing 56.6%, of which 38.6% were contested.   Prorated to 36 minutes, Kris was in position to contest for 18.8 rebound opportunities per 36!  Hump knows how to get in his spots for rebounding!

Aside: Rondo was sorta amazing in this category, getting in position for 10.0 opportunities per game, grabbing 54.5% of them, though only 14% of his were contested.  Basically, Rondo is a vacuum for long rebounds away from the post.

It is my experience that rebounding is something that young big men tend to get better at fairly progressively for the first few years of their careers.   This is due to better understanding of positioning in the game as well as improved strength and speed as their bodies mature in their mid-20s.

So I expect both Sullinger and Olynyk to show even more improvement as rebounders going forward.
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Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #25 on: April 18, 2014, 07:51:13 PM »

Offline Celtics18

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If we're going by Per-36 then Sullinger is an infinitely better player based solely on the fact that he doesn't foul out when you scale his stats to 36 minutes.

Sully averaged 6.2 fouls per 36 during his rookie season.  Whether it's because rookies have a hard time adjusting to playing defense without fouling or because they get the rookie treatment by the refs or a combination of the two, a high personal foul rate is pretty much par for the course for rookie bigs. 

I wouldn't read too much into that stat. 
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C:    N. Vucevic/K. Olynyk/E. Davis/C. Jefferson

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #26 on: April 18, 2014, 08:20:44 PM »

Offline jambr380

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For both of these guys to break out ,  they need a legit top NBA center on court .

Now that the lottery coin flip has not gone favorable......means also no KLove .....no top three pick to trade....so other none young assets need to go to get a center.
 I see Rondo getting traded for A center .

Their chance at a top three pick remain almost identical to Utah (the Jazz have a .3% higher chance when combining percentages). I get that they now stand a chance to fall one spot lower than Utah in the 4-8 range, but that is assuming that neither team jumps into the top 3, which is farily unlikely.

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #27 on: April 18, 2014, 09:17:59 PM »

Offline Eddie20

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When comparing the two, lets not overlook games played. Olynyk redshirted 11-12, played 32 games last year, and 70 games this year. So he hasn't played that much basketball over the last few seasons.

By comparison, Sullinger played in 74 games during his 2 years at Ohio State, and an additional 119 games in his 2 NBA seasons.

Huge difference!

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #28 on: April 18, 2014, 10:42:28 PM »

Offline Boston Garden Leprechaun

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sully is a BEAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LET'S GO CELTICS!

Re: Kelly Olynyk is "legit," Jared Sullinger is legit-er
« Reply #29 on: April 18, 2014, 11:38:58 PM »

Offline crimson_stallion

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Per 36:

Sully: 17.3 points, 10.6 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.6 steals, 0.9 blocks, .427/.269/.778   
Oly:   15.6 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.7 blocks, .466/.351/.811

Oly gets benefit of the doubt, because it was his rookie season.

I think what people got excited about was Oly's stats the final 2 months:

March:  20.6 minutes 9.6 points, 5.5 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.3 blocks, 0.7 steals .515/.458/.833     
April:  25.8 minutes, 16.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 0.4 blocks, 0.3 steals .547/.429/.800

Kelly is clearly a vastly superior offensive player.  His shooting percentages over the past two months were ELITE.

His final 3 games, he got the start and a boost in minutes... and didn't see a decline in his efficiency.  Granted, end-of-season play has to be taken with a MASSIVE grain of salt... but those final 3 games showed hockey-stick shaped spikes on Oly's growth chart.

Game 1:  39 mins 25 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists  .478/.400/.1000   
Game 2:  35 mins 28 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists .526/.667/.857 
Game 3 ... 30 mins 24 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists .625/.000/.800

On the flip side, Sully's shooting percentages show a rather pedestrian offensive player... and he lacks the size to be much of an impact defensively. 

It will be entertaining seeing which of these 2 guys ends up having a future as a starter in this league.   Oly is 23.  Sully is 22.  I'm not sure which has a higher ceiling.  Neither probably has star potential.  Both are probably trade chips.

I agree with you 100%.

Sully is a very skilled player, but the thing that I think will hold him back from ever becoming a star player is that he doesn't really have an elite skill ay his position. 

Low Post Scoring
He's skilled and capable, but his lack of size and athleticism causes him to struggle against length to the point where you can't depend on him to score in the post on a nightly basis.

Midrange Jumpshot
Sully has a decent midrange jumper, but he's certainly no KG or Brandon Bass.  His shot is not yet consistent enough to the point where you can really depend on him to take that last, game winning shot.

Three Point shooting
Sully has shown he is capable of making the three, but he's certainly not good at it by any stretch of the imagination.  Until he can reach the level where he can hit three's at a rate of at least 33% or so, his outside shot is pretty much a liability.

Perimeter Defense
Sully lacks the pure footspeed to be an above average perimeter defender.  He's a solid positional defender (in that he takes quite a few charges, etc) but lacks the lateral quickness to play good 1-on-1 defense on the perimeter.

Post Defense
Sully is a solid post defender in 1-on-1 situations because he uses his weight well to bump and grind and make life difficult for opposings bigs.  That said, he doesn't have superior length or vertical leap and that causes him to struggle defensively against long / tall bigs.

Passing
Sully is a good passer for a big man, no doubt about it.  He has good visions and awareness and usually knows where his teammates are all the time.  Still though, he's only averaged 1.9 assists per 36 minutes over the first two seasons of his career.  Great big man passers like Demarcus Cousins, Josh Smith and Pau Gasol have all averaged around 3 assist per 36 minutes over the course of their careers.  Kevin Garnett (a truly elite passing big man) has averaged 4 assists per 36 over his career.  Sully is an above average passer for a big, but he has a long ways to go before you could label him 'elite'. 

Rebounding
Sullinger's greatest talent is probably his rebounding ability and eye for the ball.  Even in this regard, he is 'very good' rather than 'elite'.  Sullinger has averaged 7.3 rebounds per game and 10.6 rebounds per 36 minutes over his first two seasons.  Those are nice numbers, but it's no match for the PER36 numbers put up by the truly elite rebounders out there like Kevin Love (13.5), Andre Drummond (14.2), Dwight Howard (12.9), Omer Asik (13.3).  Or even just the 'great' rebounders like Demarcus Cousins (12.1) and Deandre Jordan (11.6).  Finding guys who put up 10 rebounds per 36 is really not that rare in this league - even Olynyk (who was not expected to be a good rebounder) is not far off that at around 9.5 RP36.

So unfortunately this lack of an 'elite' skill/talent is I think what will hold Sully back from ever becoming any more than just a really nice starter.  He really is a 'jack of all trades' player who does a little bit of a lot of different things, rather than a star who really dominates the game in any one way...and due to his mediocre physical abilities, he has limited ability to improve beyond that.

Sully just finished his second year and lets be honest - he's shown few (if any) obvious improvements over his rookie year.  Hasn't really developed any new skills, and aside from his pure scoring output (17 PP36 vs 10 PP36) his other per minute stats have been absolutely identical.  Even when it comes to those PPG numbers it's debatable of how much oft that is actually good, given that his FG% has dropped just as dramatically as his scoring has increased (49.3% down to 42.7%).

Looking at Olynyk, he had limited playing time over the majority of the season, an being a rookie took some time to adjust to the pro game.  So yes, it took him a little while to really flash his potential.  In the last two months of the season however his shooting (53% FG, 44% 3PT, 82% FT) has been elite and he's put up outstanding scoring numbers (19.5 PTS PER36)  over that stretch.  His passing for a big man (2.8 assists per 36 minutes) has been elite all season long. 

While Olynyk certainly has some weaknesses (defense needs work, needs to add bulk) it's also important to note that this is his still his rookie season, so nobody knows how much he might potentially improve next season after a season of experience under his belt.

Right now though, IMHO, Olynyk has shown far greater star potential because he has shown flashes of an elite offensive skill set (three point game, midrange game, post game, ability to put it on the floor, elite passing skills) and has done so over a pretty significant stretch of time. He also has greater physical potential I think.  At the PF spot his 7-foot frame gives him the ability to shoot straight over opponents, and at the center spot his mobility and ball handling ability would allow him to blow right past past most opponents.  All he really needs to do is add a bit of muscle to make him self an absolute matchup nightmare.

Despite that potential he isn't really significantly worse than Sully on the boards (9.5 rebounds per 36) or on defense.

Everyone kinda loves Sully and sleeps on Olynyk, but I think Kelly has a far greater potential to one day become a star...while Sully's ceiling to me is just a really good complementary starter.