CELTICS' CEILING-TO-FLOOR PROFILES: AN AWARD-WINNING SUMMER FOR ROZIER?

http://www.csnne.com/boston-celtics/boston-celtics-ceiling-to-floor-profiles-terry-rozier-continues-to-emerge








CELTICS' CEILING-TO-FLOOR PROFILES: AN AWARD-WINNING SUMMER FOR ROZIER?



By A. Sherrod Blakely



August 24, 2016 11:40 AM



Every weekday until Sept. 7, we'll take a look at each player at the Celtics roster: Their strengths and their weaknesses, their ceiling and their floor. We continue today with Terry Rozier. For a look at the other profiles, click here.



BOSTON -- Terry Rozier has every reason to feel good about himself after this year's Summer League, where he was clearly the Boston Celtics’ best player.

But what does Summer League success really mean in the grand scheme of things?

This isn’t the Olympics, where a good couple of weeks in the summer can lead to sudden endorsement opportunities. And a bad summer, on or off the court, won’t necessarily result in your personal stock taking a Ryan Lochte-like dip, either.

For Rozier, the summer has been a continuation of his emergence during the playoffs last season against the Atlanta Hawks, when his numbers were significantly better across the board in comparison to what he did during the regular season.

And while his role at this point remains uncertain, there’s a growing sense that what we saw in the summer was more than just Rozier making the most of his opportunity to play.

It was the 6-foot-2 guard playing with the kind of confidence and overall swagger that Boston hopes to see more of in this upcoming season.  
 

The Ceiling for Rozier: Most Improved Player, Sixth Man candidate

Rozier never wanted to see teammate Avery Bradley suffer a hamstring injury in Game 1 of Boston’s first-round series with Atlanta last season. But he knows if not for that injury, he wouldn't have played as much as he did, nor would he be viewed as someone who could seriously compete for minutes this season.

That injury afforded Rozier playing time he had not seen in the 39 regular-season games he appeared in, when he averaged 8.0 minutes per contest.

In the playoffs, Rozier saw his playing time increase to 19.8 minutes per game, which naturally led to a rise in all of his statistics.

It did more than help the Celtics compete with the Hawks. It provided a huge confidence boost for Rozier this past summer and will do the same going into training camp, where he believes he will be better-equipped to compete for playing time.

Rozier already plays above-average defense for the Celtics. The big question mark for him has been whether he can knock down shots consistently. It certainly didn’t look that way during the regular season, when he shot 22.2 percent on 3s and just 27.4 percent from the field.

Although the sample size is much smaller, he was able to shoot 39.1 percent from the field and 36.4 percent on 3s in the five playoff games he appeared in this past spring.

So both Rozier and the Celtics feel good about the fact that his game in key areas such as shooting and assists are trending in the right direction.

And if that continues he'll solidify a spot high atop the second unit, which could translate into him having a shot at garnering some Most Improved Player recognition.


The Floor for Rozier: Active roster

While his minutes may not improve significantly from a year ago, Rozier will likely enter training camp with a spot in Boston’s regular playing rotation.

On most nights the Celtics are likely to play at least four guards: Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart and Rozier.

Look for him to get most of the minutes left behind by Evan Turner, who was signed by Portland to a four-year, $70 million deal this summer.

Of course, Rozier’s minutes will be impacted in some way by how those ahead of him perform. But Rozier can’t consume himself with such thoughts.

He has to force the Celtics’ coaches to keep him on the floor, And the only way to do that is to play well and contribute to the team’s success in a meaningful way.

While his shooting has improved, Rozier is at his best when he lets his defense dictate his play offensively.

In the playoffs last season, Rozier averaged 1.2 fast-break points per game, which was fifth on the team.

Just to put that in perspective, Rozier averaged 19.8 minutes in the postseason. The four players ahead of him (Bradley, Thomas, Turner and Smart) each averaged more than 32 minutes of court time per night.

While it’s too soon to tell where Rozier fits into the rotation this season, his play this summer and overall body of work dating back to the playoffs last season makes it difficult to envision him not being on the active roster for most, if not all, of this season.



bob
MY NOTE:  I don't see either of these scenarios as likely.  To be in the running for "Most Improved Player" you almost have to make the jump from the bench to starter, so your numbers can take an eye-popping jump up.  Many people do not look at /minute efficiency, they just look at pure numbers.  So a player who averaged 8 points in 8 mpg last year but scores 20 points in 32 mpg this year (potential all-star numbers) will get the nod even though he is less efficient.  CJ McCollum, of Portland, is a great example as I think of this.  He averaged 6.8 ppg in 2014-2015 and 20.8 ppg in 2015-2016 and won Most Improved Player,  but he only played 15.7 mpg in 2014-2015 and 34.8 mpg in 2015-2016.  As a result, his points/36 mpg went from 15.7 to 21.6.  Is that a nice jump up per minute?  Sure, it comes out to .43 points per minute going up to .62 points per minute, a 44% increase, but it's not as impressive as 6.8 to 20.8 which is over 300%.  Furthermore, Rozier's calling card is his defense and defense doesn't get much credit in these awards because it is not as easily quantifiable.  

Having said all this, I do think that Rozier is going to get more minutes this year than the 8 mpg he averaged last year.  He looked good in the playoffs, real good.  Coaches want to see players work hard in practice and then go out on the floor and do it again for real and Rozier showed he could do that and do that under very stressful conditions.  He also looked like one of the best players in summer league.  Summer league doesn't mean much, the competition level is SO inferior, but returning players need to show they can dominate first year players and he did that, just as Marcus Smart did last year (to highlight the difference in competition quality, Smart played point very well last summer, was one of the most dominating players in Utah and Vegas, but could not play NBA point last season against real NBAers).  James Young, despite being in his 3rd year, did not.

There were one or two board members who were high on Rozier when he got picked (NYCelt?) but most of us were "huh?".  He's looking like he could work out nicely.


.