STUDS AND DUDS: AVERY BRADLEY, CELTICS COME UP SHORT IN INDIANA

WEEI

By Ben Rohrbach

It was not the prettiest evening of basketball Indiana’s ever seen, but the Celtics gave themselves a shot.

That shot was soon swallowed by a stifling defense that left Isaiah Thomas and Avery Bradley no breathing room on the final possession. Bradley’s 3-point attempt fell well short, and the C’s lost, 100-98. They dropped to 1-3 on the season with a brutal stretch over their next six games: Wizards, at Bucks, Pacers, Hawks, at Thunder and at Rockets.

Thomas led the C’s with 27 points and seven assists, and Bradley added 21 points despite an injured right index finger. Joe Crowder (12 points), Evan Turner (11 points) and David Lee (10 points) also reached double figures. Paul George led the Celtics with 26 points, 10 rebounds and a wide-open 3 that broke a 93-93 tie with 2:13 remaining.

STUD OF THE NIGHT: Isaiah Thomas.

In the second quarter alone, Thomas scored 14 points on seven shots — including seven of the C’s final nine points of the half — to keep the anemic Celtics‘ offense alive enough to avoid a double-digit deficit at the break. Starting at point guard for the first time in his Celtics tenure, Thomas acted as a playmaker in place of the injured Marcus Smart (big toe sprain), carving through the defense and finding shooters on the wings and cutters in the lane.

DUD OF THE NIGHT: Amir Johnson.

It’s a tough call between Kelly Olynyk, Terry Rozier, Tyler Zeller and Amir Johnson, who finished a combined 0-for-13, but we’ll go with Johnson. In his first start of the season, Johnson missed both of his shots and committed a pair of turnovers while grabbing four boards in 20 minutes. I’m a big proponent of Johnson starting because of his rim-protecting and floor-spacing ability, and there may be a reason he struggled against the Pacers. Johnson favored his left leg limping to the bench early, and while he returned for a bit, he didn’t play the final 15-plus minutes.

R.J. Hunter got the first action of his NBA career, and dad Ron Hunter wasn’t happy his son got the rookie treatment on this call. Hunter knocked down the first shot of his young career, and while he committed four fouls in 12:41, he played solid defense. Good things seemed to happen when Hunter was on the floor, and he finished a plus-eight.

WHINE OF THE NIGHT: Depth perception.

Stevens played all 12 of his available players in the first two quarters, and as Tommy Heinsohn mentioned at halftime, the Celtics seemed disjointed as a result. Only after Stevens cut the rotation down did the C’s find a rhythm. And all of this came with Smart sidelined. Stevens has some tough calls to make, but sooner or later he’s going to have decide which bigs and which guards he wants to use in a regular rotation — and stick with them.

STAT OF THE NIGHT: 21 offensive rebounds.

The Pacers grabbed 21 offensive boards on 46 missed shots, a big reason they were able to score 100 points and beat the Celtics while shooting just 38.5 percent from the field. Throw in 19 turnovers by the C’s, leading to 22 Pacers points, and Indiana had a total of 40 extra possessions. It’s actually amazing the C’s only lost by two points.
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WEEI

A. SHERROD BLAKLEY

Celtics lose hard-fought game with Pacers, 100-98


Shots weren’t falling, turnovers were racking up at a ridiculous rate and well, things didn’t look good for the Boston Celtics most of the night.

And there they were, with the ball and a chance to tie the game or force overtime.

Brad Stevens has gained quite the reputation for his out-of-time-out plays near the end of games.

But just like the team’s ball-handling and shot-making in the first half, things down the stretch didn’t go as they were drawn up as the Celtics lost a hard-fought 100-98 game to the Pacers.

Indiana’s Paul George had 26 points and Jordan Hill had a double-double of 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Pacers.

Avery Bradley’s last-second 3-point attempt barely grazed the rim as Indiana’s Lavoy Allen corralled the loose ball as time expired.

It was an exciting finish to a game that few would have envisioned playing out as it did after a lackluster start by both teams.

After a horrific shooting first half by both teams, both Boston and Indiana found their shooting groove in the third and fourth quarters.

Boston spent most of the game trailing, but managed to take a 79-78 lead following a 3-pointer by Isaiah Thomas.

Thomas, making the start for an injured Marcus Smart (toe), led all scorers with 27 points in addition to tallying seven assists.

Indiana, which had controlled the boards most of the night, soon went back ahead only for the Celtics to score five straight to tie the game at 98 with 1:05 to play following a pull-up jumper by Avery Bradley.

Bradley finished with 21 points, a surprising total considering he was a game-time decision due to a right (shooting) hand injury.

Following a Pacers time-out, Indiana’s Paul George had the ball in an isolation situation with Bradley. Despite the five-inch height advantage for George, Bradley was able to contest the shot enough to force a miss which was rebounded by Boston’s Jae Crowder.

Boston called a time-out of its own and got a great look at the basket for Isaiah Thomas, the team’s leading scorer this season. But Thomas’ shot was off the mark, rebounded by Indiana and they did – what else? – called a time-out with 25.6 seconds to play.

Indiana’s Monta Ellis only had two free throws, but they couldn’t have come at a better time.

Ellis drew a foul against Bradley with 13.7 seconds to play, free throws that turned out to be the final points scored of the night. He finished with 13 points, eight assists and five rebounds.

112288

One big problem for the Celtic.................WE ARE NOT PLAYING EURO LEAGUE TEAMS!

VERY DISAPPOINTING!

112288

YUP STEVE.........IF ONLY!

TANKING ANYONE...............JUST KIDDING!

112288

it was good to see Brad change up the starting big men this game. We still need more scoring from the starters and Sully in their is a good first step.

Bradley has been attempting to step up into the role of go-to scorer on the first team and its' good to see.

I still think the best starting lineup (and the one Brad will settle on) will be Zeller, Sully, Turner, Bradley and Smart.

I keep Zeller in the lineup because he is the only center on our roster and he will get out of his playing funk, especially with Turner an extra ball handler in.

right now the bench rotation should be:
IT
Crowder
Amir
Jerebko
Hunter

Lee and Kelly have played themselves out of minutes at this point to me. and will have to EARN playing time from this point on or hope one of the players above them craps out.

Rozier is deep bench only right now.

Hi,
IMHO, Celtics had 2 major problems last night: a) being sloppy, unfocused at times and, b) too much time for IT holding the ball.
On the bright side - Nets are still perfect.

AK

steve3344 wrote:"Paul George led the Celtics with 26 points, 10 rebounds and a wide-open 3 that broke a 93-93 tie with 2:13 remaining."   ???

If only...

steve,

That's because he was guarded by "Joe" Crowder. So much for editing.


bob


.

is it me or does it look like Zeller and KO have regressed so far?

Very good small ball beat good small ball, but not by much. I don't know what the line on last night's game was but home court is usually worth 3 points. If that's the case, we are neck-and-neck early in the season, against a team that is much better than last year with the return of Paul George and the addition of Monta Ellis, if nothing else.

CJ Miles and Ian Mahinmi were out for them, however, they were on the 2nd night of a back-to-back against Detroit (so, not much travel there).  Furthermore, they had lost their first two home games of the season and were determined not to start off 0-3.  We've had off since Sunday but were missing Smart and on the road.  

A cold start for both teams again.  30% for us after 1, with Indy only slightly better with 36%.  Bradley with 10 of our 16 first quarter points.  An awful 2-9 from 3.  That probably explains why Rozier came in early, for some energy.  Tyler Zeller 0-2 from 4' in the first quarter.  We had 5 TOs after 1, a lot of them coming on overly aggressive leading passes on fast break attempts.  They cost us, but I like the idea of looking up and passing up.

1.  Rozier is not afraid, that's for sure.  Maybe a little too unafraid, he repeatedly dribbled into traffic.  0-4 shooting, 0 assists and 2 TOs.  One of his turnovers happened because he jumped and then tried to pass.  Don't jump and pass, kid, unless you already know you can complete the pass.  He did get 5 rebounds, one of them an offensive rebound off his own bad shot, but that's not what he's out there for.  Oh well, he has now played a total of 8 NBA minutes, he's not expected to be good already.  Point guard has the longest learning curve in the NBA.  

2.  The early entrance of Rozier and the absence of Smart heralded the arrival of the new love of BobC's life, RJ Hunter, soon after.  A nice jump shot but he was tortured a bit on defense, getting hit with a bunch of rookie calls.  Rodney Stuckey flopped and got a charging foul on RJ.  He showed off his quick hands with some deflections.  I thought he had one steal, when he reached in and poked the ball away from a Pacer, but it's not showing on the boxscore.  Smart's absence meant we were short a ball handler, ergo the early minutes for Rozier, and also short a big guard.  I think that might be what it will take for them to get court time.  Rozier is in a slightly better position since he can defend like Bradley and ball handle maybe even better than Smart (although there's more to ball handling than just dribbling.  You have to make good decisions with the ball and Smart is more advanced than Rozier there at least as evidenced by last night) while RJ needs a shooter to go down.  I can't see him guarding small guards and I don't see him playing SF neither.

3.  What does it say about Jae Crowder's night when the highlight was a 94' bank shot from out of bounds under our basket?  His man, Paul George, lit us up.  Yeah, I know he does that to everybody but you're not special when you give up 26.  George's first 3 shots were some of the worst bricks I've seen in a while.  Ok, I take that back, Evan Turner threw up a 3 that damn near broke the backboard, but George's were still pretty bad.  Then he settled down and killed us.

4.  Jordan Hill outplayed Sully.  Flat out.  He was going over Sully for offensive rebounds and +1s.  He was taking, and hitting, open foul line jumpers.  Sully was 3-10.  He rebounded well, 11 including 6 offensive, but Hill was doing whatever he wanted.  6 offensive rebounds, and he still had only 3fgm?  At some point you have to look at the volume shooters and ask "is their fg% worth keeping them on the floor or not?".  Through 4 games Sully is shooting a very nice 48.5% but those numbers were significantly bolstered by 3-3 shooting vs Toronto and 6-8 vs San Antonio.  The other 3 games are 3-9, 4-12 and last night's 3-10.  In other words, when he's shooting a lot, he's killing us.  The same question comes to IT too, in spades.  If he's shooting 4-18 he's killing us unless he's living at the line, which he does a lot.  Even so, poor fg% wastes good team offense and movement.  The whole point behind movement is to get open shots but it's not enough to get them, you have to hit them.  That's what Paul George did last night, after his initial 3, and that's why he's an All-Star.

5.  David Lee finally had a decent night.  Not great, but ok.  10 points on 4-6 and 6 rebounds in 18 minutes.  That's 20 and 12 /36mpg and those are all-star numbers.  Give me a couple more games with /minute production like that, David, and we can talk about moving you back into the starting line.  Especially if Sully keeps shooting 3-10.  Lee isn't our future, obviously, but there's this too:  if we are losing, no GM will want to trade for any of our players, including the young ones.  We need Ws, if for no other reason than to give other GMs reasons to watch us and consider the possibilities.  Losing, but playing our kiddies a lot, just makes us losers.  Who would want to trade a high-value player/all-star/all-league for losers?  We need to win.

6.  Evan Turner and IT should not be on the floor together.  Neither of them do well "off the ball".  They are both ME-ballers, the biggest difference between the two being that Thomas is vastly superior shooter.  And there's another problem we have identified.  If IT comes off the bench, which I presume he will when Smart returns, then it's IT and Turner off the bench.  Should Crowder be moved back to the bench and Turner moved up?  I know what Sam would say about that.  I'm fine with that.  I'm fine with Turner feeding Smart rather than Smart feeding Turner.  Turner feeding IT?  That would require IT to move without the ball.  Same problem going the other way.  I do not want Turner jumpshooting from outside, he's not that good.  He hits mid-range shots, especially off the dribble, that's his game, but catch-and-shoot is not.  Ellis was getting a lot of open corner 3s because his man, Isaiah Thomas, kept losing him.

7.  They went at Jerebko on every possession.  It was strange, Brad's system is based upon flexibility and the ability to defend multiple positions and they used that "tweener-ness" against Jonas.  Hmm.

8.  Zeller didn't play much.  That's because you can't play if you don't show up.  He didn't show up and only played 3 minutes. 0-2, with both shots four feet and in. Kelly showed up, he just couldn't shoot.  At least Kelly was working hard, taking shots, he was just getting harassed by George Hill and the rest of the very quick, very active Pacer defenders every time he put the ball on the floor.  He did get two blocks including one straight-up-one-on-one-in-the-low-blocks one against 6'9", 255# Lavoy Allen.  For a guy with alligator arms and slow lateral movement he's averaging 1.0 block/game in 13.3 minutes.  I know you cannot extrapolate from 13mpg to 36mpg without losing some reliability, but 1.0 in 13mpg is still not bad.  How good is "not bad"?  Sacto's back up center, Kostas Koufos, is playing 25.6mpg, almost double what Kelly is, and he's only averaging 1.2 blocks/game.  Sacto's other big man, highly touted defender Willie Cauley-Stein, is playing 22.2mpg and is only averaging 1.2 blocks/game too.  The Pistons' back up for Drummond, Aron Baynes, is playing 10.3mpg (very close to Kelly) and is only .3 blocks/game.  Mason Plumlee, playing 26.8mpg for Portland with only 1.0 blocks/game.  Noah Vonleh, Portland's young defensive PF, is playing 14.8mpg (also very close to Kelly's minutes) and he's averaging .2 blocks/game. My point?  Just because Kelly doesn't swat them into the 4th row (giving the ball back to the offense), nor comes flying out of nowhere to do it in spectacular SportCenter fashion, doesn't mean he isn't getting the job done.

9. Bradley scored 10 of our 16 first quarter points. He was the only one who stepped out onto the court "ready". He has turned into a big moment player. He made some tough shots all game. Not a good ball handler (the worst in the back court, to be honest) and not a good passer but he has elevated his game in just about every other area. He is full of confidence now, and that's important. Despite all that, his assists/36mpg are up more than 50% from last year, his rebounding/36mpg is up sharply from last year and he's shooting a very nice 35% from 3. Any All-Star coming this way in a trade will almost certainly mean that he is gone since he is the most valuable asset we have. Not the most talented, maybe not the one with the highest ceiling, but the most proven performer.

10. Stat round up: 19 TOs. We did such a good job last year taking care of the ball and we suck at that this year. 83 fgas sucks, even more so when you only shoot 42% for the game. Jae Crowder 5-8 of out total 22ftas. Gotta hit the easy ones, Jae, and they don't get easier than when you don't have to move, rush or worry about defensive pressure. Zero steals by the bench. Zero.

A competitive game. Our shooting is unbelievable, as in unbelievably bad. We are getting shots, we're just missing them.


A tough 8-9 days coming up. Washington tomorrow on the road, Milwaukee on the road on Tuesday and then we get to see if we can win at home vs Indiana on the 2nd of a back-to-back on Wednesday and then host Atlanta a week from tomorrow after a single day off.

November's a bitch. 6-13 would be a reasonable record by 11/30, given the quality of our opponents.


bob


.

Cow

We are only 4 games in so the struggles with both Zeller and KO may work themselves out.

The biggest problem that this team has is related to the bottleneck of front line players.   There are too many of them trying to get in the mix.  Brad is using a short leash so there appears to be little tolerance for below average play.

KO is trying to do too much and is making some bad decisions out there.  He is basically a player with limited athletic ability.  Now he is trying to drive more but he is having problems getting by his man.  head fakes can only go so far.  teams watch film and they can pretty much figure out how to check a player of Kelly's ability.  

Poor Kelly is shooting 22% and is only playing 13.3 MPG.  in 2 of the 3 games that he played he has gone scoreless.  He is really a much better player than he has shown thus far.

Zeller averaged 10.2 PPG and 5.7 rebounds last year while playing ONLY 21 MPG. I would wager that David Lee could not be any more productive given those minutes.

There is plenty of games left to figure out what is going to work but my gut feeling is telling me that this is going to be a big problem.

I will therefore raise these questions.

Where is the real value of adding both lee and Johnson to a team that is in a rebuilding mode?
A team that is not even close to contention?  

How can anyone really distinguish the quality of so many forwards when they appear to have little separation between them?  

How does the development of guys like Zeller, Kelly and Sullinger and the rookie Mickey continue if minutes are sliced and diced to a point where there abilities are marginalized?

Did DA add Lee and Johnson via free agency because he just needed to do something?

What will be the long term impact on players that really should be getting minutes but are not?  Can any of them accept not playing even though they know they are at least as good as the next guy.?

If Boston intends to package a bunch of guys to make a trade will the value of those players be undermined because their development has been stunted?

Did DA need to resign both Jerebko and Crowder?

I think that the addition of Lee and Johnson would be excellent additions to a team that is already built and just looking for some solid veterans to round out the roster.  I do not think that DA should have signed both of them.

I also would not have resigned both Crowder and Jerebko.  I would have leaned more towards Crowder because of the physical element that he brings to the game.

dboss

dboss

Even if they do work out, how much upside does either player have? I don't think Zeller can play better than he did last year, seeing him get abused by Okafor, a college sophomore in his first game showed me enough.....and thats our starting center? Wilt the Stilt is rolling in his grave feeling sorry for us, good move not giving him an extention. KO will improve minimally, but he'll never be near as good as Raef Lafrentz was and I couldn't wait for us to get rid of him.

David Lee might be serviceable for this year, one passable game every 4 games is not gonna cut it. I could see Amir being a good role player going forward and Sully could be a very good PF if only he didn't have to play the 5. Ofcourse want to see Mickey develop, he has rim protecting skills the team needs.

Jerebko and Crowder are role players, get nothing but disappointment if you expect anything else from them, we need a star in the making.

at least we didn't pass up on Prozingis, Okafor and Winslow for D'Angelo Russell.

Here's some more KO stats I cherry-picked:

In addition to his great rate of blocked shots, he's also 2nd on the team in steals per 36 minutes, even ahead of Smart. Crowder leads with 3steals/36, KO is 2nd at 2.7/36, and Smart has 2.5/36, with IT4 at 2.4. Avery Bradley has a mere 1.1 steals/36 minutes. Sully at 2.1/36.

Rebounding per 36 KO is 3rd on the team with 9.9/36, behind Sully and Lee, and ahead of Amir's 9.2/36.

KO is far and away shooting more 3s per 36 than even IT4, with 9 compared to IT's 6.6, but KO is only shooting 10%.

Only Derrick Favors and Porzingis are getting more steals per 36 than Olynyk, as far as guys who have played more than a few total minutes.

But 12 guys are blocking shots at a higher rate.

cowens/oldschool wrote:dboss

Even if they do work out, how much upside does either player have? I don't think Zeller can play better than he did last year, seeing him get abused by Okafor, a college sophomore in his first game showed me enough.....and thats our starting center? Wilt the Stilt is rolling in his grave feeling sorry for us, good move not giving him an extention. KO will improve minimally, but he'll never be near as good as Raef Lafrentz was and I couldn't wait for us to get rid of him.

David Lee might be serviceable for this year, one passable game every 4 games is not gonna cut it. I could see Amir being a good role player going forward and Sully could be a very good PF if only he didn't have to play the 5. Ofcourse want to see Mickey develop, he has rim protecting skills the team needs.

Jerebko and Crowder are role players, get nothing but disappointment if you expect anything else from them, we need a star in the making.

Cow,

Do yourself a favor and forget Kelly is 7'0".  It makes you think of him as a center.  Think of him as 6'10" (which, with his arms, he might as well be).  A 6'10" PF, the position Danny explicitly said he was drafted to be, with his range, ball handling, and passing skills.   Did anybody in Dallas ever look at 7' Dirk and think "what a crappy center he is"?  No.  Why?  Because he always played his true position, PF.  Kelly plays center for the same reason Sully does.  Is Sully a crappy center, or is he a PF playing out of position because Danny hasn't filled that hole yet?


bob


.

cowens/oldschool wrote:dboss

Even if they do work out, how much upside does either player have? I don't think Zeller can play better than he did last year, seeing him get abused by Okafor, a college sophomore in his first game showed me enough.....and thats our starting center? Wilt the Stilt is rolling in his grave feeling sorry for us, good move not giving him an extention. KO will improve minimally, but he'll never be near as good as Raef Lafrentz was and I couldn't wait for us to get rid of him.

David Lee might be serviceable for this year, one passable game every 4 games is not gonna cut it. I could see Amir being a good role player going forward and Sully could be a very good PF if only he didn't have to play the 5. Ofcourse want to see Mickey develop, he has rim protecting skills the team needs.

Jerebko and Crowder are role players, get nothing but disappointment if you expect anything else from them, we need a star in the making.

Cow  

We do not have a really good player in the front court.  Yes we need a stud and I was disappointed that we were not able to leverage our opportunity of cap space and picks to get one.  I do agree that upside appears limited.

Stevens has a challenge to make this work.  He is a smart guy and should be able to figure some things out but DA has yet to provide him with a collective level of talent that is above average.

If this team continues to lose I think things could implode as players become unhappy with their role on the team.  But brad needs some time to figure this out so I expect to see multiple changes in the starting lineup.

dboss

Role players are key in the pace-and-space system. Golden State relies heavily on numerous "no name" role players for their success -- Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston, Mo Speights, Leandro Barbosa, and Festus Ezeli.

Yes, the Celtics need a couple of stars (or just one if he can be transcendent like Steph Curry), but dismissing so-called role players just because they aren't stars is short sighted.

bobheckler wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:dboss

Even if they do work out, how much upside does either player have? I don't think Zeller can play better than he did last year, seeing him get abused by Okafor, a college sophomore in his first game showed me enough.....and thats our starting center? Wilt the Stilt is rolling in his grave feeling sorry for us, good move not giving him an extention. KO will improve minimally, but he'll never be near as good as Raef Lafrentz was and I couldn't wait for us to get rid of him.

David Lee might be serviceable for this year, one passable game every 4 games is not gonna cut it. I could see Amir being a good role player going forward and Sully could be a very good PF if only he didn't have to play the 5. Ofcourse want to see Mickey develop, he has rim protecting skills the team needs.

Jerebko and Crowder are role players, get nothing but disappointment if you expect anything else from them, we need a star in the making.

Cow,

Do yourself a favor and forget Kelly is 7'0".  It makes you think of him as a center.  Think of him as 6'10" (which, with his arms, he might as well be).  A 6'10" PF, the position Danny explicitly said he was drafted to be, with his range, ball handling, and passing skills.   Did anybody in Dallas ever look at 7' Dirk and think "what a crappy center he is"?  No.  Why?  Because he always played his true position, PF.  Kelly plays center for the same reason Sully does.  Is Sully a crappy center, or is he a PF playing out of position because Danny hasn't filled that hole yet?


bob


.

bob you pitbull, I never did mention position, I won't even try to embarrass the kid by comparing his 3rd year stats to Dirks 3rd year stats, hes a big, a big can be a PF or C and you need to get some level of scoring, rebounding and defense from either position. Dirks offensive game speaks for itself, put him next to a Tyson Chandler type defender, his offensive game more than makes up for his just passable defense in contributing and carrying a team, I've yet to see signs of KO's offense take off either, if were relying on him for steals, that stat is not gonna carry us far either....

KO couldn't carry Dirks jockstrap, hes not even gonna be near Lafrentz, who had a few good years with double-doubles, and who was terrible. Kelly can't distance himself from the pack of bigs we have and none is all star caliber, you can cherry pick his stats all you want, hes never gonna be a Dave Cowens/KG type defender, thats obvious. He was drafted for his offense, but at this level he can't get his shot off and when open, his stroke is inconsistent at best, well right now the stats say his stroke sucks, but its early, he should turn that around....I hope.

Outside wrote:Role players are key in the pace-and-space system. Golden State relies heavily on numerous "no name" role players for their success -- Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston, Mo Speights, Leandro Barbosa, and Festus Ezeli.

Yes, the Celtics need a couple of stars (or just one if he can be transcendent like Steph Curry), but dismissing so-called role players just because they aren't stars is short sighted.

outside I love role players, Paul Silas and Perk being 2 of my all time favorites, agreed you need complimentary role players to help the stars and hopefully the stars can make the role players better.

by the way outside just wanted to say LOVE that pic of Sam and Sally on your
profile

KO's in a shooting slump, in irregular minutes, much like the rest of the roster.

Let's not pretend that all these guys are this bad of shooters, not after the great season they all put together last year.

KO in his first two seasons shot something like 34% and 34%, or something similar. That's the definition of consistent.

KO is a point guard in a center's body. He probably didn't even want to shoot all those 3 pointers. And even though his shot is way off, he's still finding ways to make an impact in his limited minutes.

For a guy who is supposed to be a horrible defender and rebounder based on "the eye test", the least you guys could do is acknowledge that he's made real progress in those areas.

And let's not let shattered tank dreams convince us that this team is as terrible as they're playing right now.

Thanks, Cow, though I obviously just took it from someone who posted it after he passed. It's one of the few regrets I have in life that I never got to meet him and Sally in person. I changed my avatar to that photo as soon as I saw it, and I particularly like that it includes Sally since he talked about them together so much as if they were a single unit.

I hope others don't mind me having that photo as an avatar. If anyone does, particularly Sam's family or the person who took the photo, please send me a private message. (I should've asked permission, but his passing hit me hard, and using it was an immediate emotional reaction when I was otherwise at a loss for words.)

For now, I can't help it, but I'm still dealing with the sadness of it all. But as time passes, I hope that I'll look on it fondly, as I do the photo of Jeb that BobH has as his avatar. I look forward to that day.

steve3344 wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:

bobheckler wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:dboss

Even if they do work out, how much upside does either player have? I don't think Zeller can play better than he did last year, seeing him get abused by Okafor, a college sophomore in his first game showed me enough.....and thats our starting center? Wilt the Stilt is rolling in his grave feeling sorry for us, good move not giving him an extention. KO will improve minimally, but he'll never be near as good as Raef Lafrentz was and I couldn't wait for us to get rid of him.

David Lee might be serviceable for this year, one passable game every 4 games is not gonna cut it. I could see Amir being a good role player going forward and Sully could be a very good PF if only he didn't have to play the 5. Ofcourse want to see Mickey develop, he has rim protecting skills the team needs.

Jerebko and Crowder are role players, get nothing but disappointment if you expect anything else from them, we need a star in the making.

Cow,

Do yourself a favor and forget Kelly is 7'0".  It makes you think of him as a center.  Think of him as 6'10" (which, with his arms, he might as well be).  A 6'10" PF, the position Danny explicitly said he was drafted to be, with his range, ball handling, and passing skills.   Did anybody in Dallas ever look at 7' Dirk and think "what a crappy center he is"?  No.  Why?  Because he always played his true position, PF.  Kelly plays center for the same reason Sully does.  Is Sully a crappy center, or is he a PF playing out of position because Danny hasn't filled that hole yet?


bob


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bob you pitbull, I never did mention position, I won't even try to embarrass the kid by comparing his 3rd year stats to Dirks 3rd year stats, hes a big, a big can be a PF or C and you need to get some level of scoring, rebounding and defense from either position. Dirks offensive game speaks for itself, put him next to a Tyson Chandler type defender, his offensive game more than makes up for his just passable defense in contributing and carrying a team, I've yet to see signs of KO's offense take off either, if were relying on him for steals, that stat is not gonna carry us far either....

So I'll do it.  Dirk's third year stats:  21.8 and 9.2 (with 39% three point shooting).  His SECOND year stats were 17.5 and 6.5 when some people on here (one who predicted 55 wins for this season) were still saying Kelly could be like Dirk.  I don't hear that kind of talk much anymore.   Kelly is a shocking 3.7 and 3.7 this year.  Granted it's on only 13 1/2 minutes per game but if he was playing better his playing time would go way up.

steve and cowens,

Just to be clear, I am not saying Kelly is Dirk, Dirk is going into the HOF, what I'm saying is he is "Dirk-like" because he is one of the new breed of stretch 4s.  Dirk is not a center, nor is Kelly. In Kelly's 2nd year he averaged 7.7 rebs/36mpg and Dirk averaged 6.5 rebs/36mpg in his 2nd year. This year, only a few games in, Kelly is averaging 9.9 rebs/36mpg and Dirk averaged 8.7 rebs/36mpg. In his 2nd year Kelly scored 16.6 points/36mpg and Dirk averaged 17.6 points/36mpg. Kelly's numbers this year suck, it is true, but as stated it is still early on. A couple of good games and his numbers will come up sharply because it's such a small number of games.

Dirk was also a #9 pick, and that's despite being playing no ball in the US prior to the draft. If he had played for any NCAA Division 1 program he would have gone even higher, just from the extra visibility. I'm not a big fan of stretch 4s in general, but I know that's where the league is going. If you listened to as many opposing team's broadcasters as I do (I'm thrilled if I get Mike and Tommy 50% of the time) you'd hear every one of them talk about how Kelly is the future of the NBA. Remember Joe Johnson? Chauncey Billups? A little patience, which we did not have in sufficient supply with them, might pay off here.

So, if Danny can get us a Tyson Chandler-like defender that would make a difference?  Works for me, let's get one. Maybe this one, thanks to Brooklyn and the giver of all goodness, Billy King.

Brad is futzin' around with the lineups so much who knows who will continue to get minutes and who will sit more?  Lee was going to play a lot, now he's coming off the bench.  Amir was coming off the bench, now he's starting. Brad had less volatility with his lineups last year than he has had so far this year, and his roster hasn't changed a bit.



bob


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