Interesting Article on Williams

Williams can do one thing at this point in his career, one thing, block shots.

He can't shoot.  In fact, because everybody wants to throw a lob to him he's disrupting Brad's offensive schemes and flow.  Not his fault, it's Kyrie and all the passers who are obsessing on throwing lobs to him, but we don't see that with anybody but him and he is NOT the only Celtic that can do alley oops.  Call it the "Williams Effect".  He can't pass.  He regularly blows defensive rotations.  His assist-to-turnover ratio per minute, which is the same as overall of course, is not good (.9:1.4 = .64).  

He isn't just "undeveloped", he's raw.  He was an absolute steal at #27, perhaps the best late first rounder we've had, but he isn't there yet.  Watch him closely, as I have.  Watch how many times he's not in a good position to rotate on a penetration.  This is why he spends so much time in Maine.  That's learnable stuff, but you don't want it to be OJT when we're fighting for a home court playoff seed.  Do we really want to face Philly in the 1st round with them having the home court advantage just because we were in a rush to develop a player that is still years away?

He can learn spacing in Maine.  He can spend hours in the gym, with a coach, working on his shot so he can pnp (which he can't do now because he can't shoot outside of 3'. His fg% 3-10' is 40%. That's not good for a big at all).  If he is with the Celtics he won't get that hands-on training like he will in Maine because the coaches have other things they need to do and there's lots of travel time eating into every day.  We've all heard Brad and others bemoan how hard it is to schedule a full-blown non-game specific practice during the season, but that's exactly what Robert Williams needs.  He needs basic, not game film related practice.  ALL the Red Claw coaches have to do is teach their kids how to play.  

If the NBA is now a wing-driven perimeter-oriented game, Robert Williams is neither.  That doesn't mean he has no value, but it does mean he's not a key cog until he learns how to contribute at the perimeter and, if he's not a key cog, then he's not worth stressing over.  I agree with dboss, Al Horford's health is far, far more important than Robert Williams' development this year.  Might playing Williams more now take some of the stress off Al's body until Baynes comes back?  Sure, and that might be a legit reason to give him minutes and just accept the limitations he brings as the price for saving Al's body, but otherwise?  Robert Williams is a carny sideshow, he's not the main act under the Big Top and nor is he likely to be for a few years.


bob


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