He'll be a back up for Kyrie, Smart, and Larkin.
He's not a PG, he's small for a SG. He still has some upside, and at times shows well.
Showcase him to the 76ers.
He is a better player then Larkin, and I would also say that he has more talent/potential then Smart.
Whether we see that talent/potential on a consistent basis this year is going to be what determines his role, but he played solid in the playoffs last year (12.5 PTS, 5.7 REB, 4.2 AST, 1.4 STL, 1.3 TO Per-36 on 40%/37%/80% shooting) in only his second NBA season, and he played pretty well yesterday (7 PTS, 2 REB, 1 AST, 3 STL, 0 TO in 19 mins) as well.
We should really cut Rozier some slack given that he has played about as many minutes so far across his entire career (1,950) as Marcus Smart did in his rookie year alone (1,898). Rozier has had very little opportunity to fit in to the team system given that he spent much of his first season in the D-League, and most of his second season buried deep on the bench.
This is really the first time he is in the position to get some consistent playing time in a consistent role, and his play should benefit from that in a big way.
You earn minutes in practice, and games, they're not given to you.
It's all in what the team needs, Larkin is a true point guard. T. Ro is a tweener, he's not a PG, and not really a shooting guard.
You may feel he has more talent than Smart, but he's 6-1, while Smart is 6-4 and can defend 3 positions. Defensive versatility is a talent.
He's a good kid, and should be giving a chance to develop, at this point he remains unreliable.
Draft combine measurements show that Rozier is actually 6'2" (Refer:
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Terry-Rozier-58730) and Smart is actually 6'3" (Refer:
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Marcus-Smart-6284/).
Rozier's height, wingspan and standing reach are all within 1" of Marcus Smart's own measurements....so in reality, the difference in height / length between Smart and Rozier is highly negligable.
The key difference between the two is athletically - Smart clearly has far superior strength, while Rozier is clearly much faster end-to-end, quicker at changing directions, and a more explosive leaper. This is why Smart spends much of his time splitting between the SG/SF spots defensively (as he is better at matching up against more powerfully built guards and forwards) while Rozier tends to cover the PG/SG (as he can better match up against quicker/faster guards).
You point about earning minutes is something I would normally agree with, but it's not really valid in the case of Rozier vs Smart.
Smart came into the league when the Celtics were a lottery team with no starting calibre PG (Rondo recovery from major injury, no suitable backup) so Smart was given a starting role and starting minutes at the PG spot by default - he never had to earn the minutes or the role. It's easy to find your rythym when you are playing 28-30 minutes a night every night.
By comparison Rozier came in to the league when the Celtics were coming off a playoff year, and when they already had a perimeter rotation consisting of Isaiah Thomas (32 MPG), Marcus Smart (27 MPG), Evan Turner (28 MPG), Avery Bradley (33 MPG) and Jae Crowder (31 MPG). Five well established players who already had their roles locked in. That's 151/144 possible minutes (because Crowder played some PF) taken up by players who already had pre-established roles. Rozier never had a chance to break that rotation no matter how much he impressed in practice or in the D-League (and he did impress in both) because there just weren't enough minutes to go around. He spent much of his time in the D-League for that reason, and when he did get spot NBA minutes it was typically in garbage time at the end of games.
In his second year Rozier did get a permanent roster spot and more consistent playing time, but even then he was battling with Thomas (34 MPG), Bradley (33 MPG) and Smart (30 MPG) - and those three guys accounted for 97 minutes per game. Simple math will tell you that there are only 96 minutes available in total at the guard spots (48 at PG, 48 at SG) so the only reason Rozier got any minutes at all was because of the combination of injuries, plus the fact that Smart played a solid portion of his minutes at the SF spot. Even when he did play his minutes fluctuated pretty wildly from 25 minutes on some nights to as little as 6 minutes on others, and he was always playing with different combinations of players. That makes it very difficult to get a rhythm, especially for a second year guy who practically did not play a meaningful minute in his entire first season.
And while you might have a valid point about Larkin being more of a true PG, you're missing two key points here:
1. The fact that Larkin (at 5'11" with a 5'10 wingspan and 7'5" standing reach) is a major defensive liability, while Rozier (at 6'2" with a 6'8" wingspan and 8'2" standing reach) is not. In fact Rozier has shown flashes of potential as a lock down defender (e.g. against John Wall in the playoffs).
2. The fact that the NBA no longer depends on pure point guards the way it once did - in fact there are very few of them left in the NBA, having been replaced almost entirely by modern day shoot-first point guards and combo guards. Isaiah wasn't a pure PG. Kyrie isn't a pure PG. Smart isn't a pure PG. Damian Lillard isn't a true PG. In the league today, the PG position is no longer defined by a player's ability to distribute the ball and generate plays for other guys. As long as you can bring the ball up the court under pressure without bouncing it off your own foot, and can complete a simple pass to a teammate without throwing it in to the crowd, then you can pretty much play the PG spot in today's NBA. And Rozier can do both of those things just fine - in fact he is the only Celtic who finished top 6 on the team in both AST% and TO% - a feat he managed to achieve in both the regular season and the playoffs. So while he may not be a pure, traditional, past-first PG, he's perfectly capable of playing the PG spot effectively in today's NBA.
They key point with Rozier is going to be consistency. In each of his first two seasons, he struggled with horrible inconsistency during the regular season, only to step things up in a big way come playoff time. He needs to come out and prove that he can play like "Playoff Rozier" (TM) during the regular season as well...because having one nice game in every 5 or 6 isn't going to cut it. Given a move consistent role and more consistent minutes I'm confident that he can do that, but time will tell.