Celtic Defensive Surprise

Ok, here's a variation on the other poll.

This is an opportunity to vote for the Celtic that you think opened your eyes the most this year. They may or may not also be your Celtic DPOY, they may just be the one you never saw coming. The one who blossomed. The one you didn't start off the year with much confidence in but showed you something. The one who showed up mid-season and got the job done. Whatever.

I went with Steamer on this one as at the start of the year I had no idea who he was. I went with AB for the more traditional DPOY poll.

I'm with bobc here, the Steamboat came out of nowhere, who even had him on a list of possible free agent signees this past off-season?

Now many want him to sign on for next year and beyond, me included.

Stiemsma.

We were told Bradley could defend and we saw some evidence of it during his single year of D1 ball.

Stiemsma was a nice player for Wisconsin a few years back, but showed no indication of being able to play at this level.

well, i aint sure who to vote for. steimsma was supposed to be pretty good on defense... bradley i had no idea was such a pest on d though.. but... ah heck.

maybe i'll vote for dooling just for S & G's.. i dunno

I voted for Stiemsma. He never averaged 12mpg in 4 years of college. He never was a standout for any of his European teams. He was an end-of-bencher, #4 on the depth chart at 5 when the season started. Greg who?

And now he's #2 on the depth chart, #2 in the league in blocks/minute and helping to anchor the defense on the 2nd unit.

Bradley had at least some rep as a good defender already. I had no idea he would be this good (for Pete's Sake, he got 2 votes for league DPOY!) but he didn't start from zero like the Steamboat.

bob


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I voted for Pavlovic.

Avery was known as a good defender; his offense has been the biggest surprise to me. Similarly, what little was known about Stiemsma was as a defensive presence in the D-league, and way back at the start of the season, someone posted video of him blocking some NBA star's shot (Blake Griffin?) in (I think) a summer league game. I also knew Pietrus was a good defender from the Orlando-LA finals in 2009, when he did a good job on Kobe.

I didn't know much about Pavlovic, and my vague impression from his time with Cleveland was as a three-point shooter, and I had no impression of him as a defender. He's certainly not the best defensive player on the Celtics, but I have been surprised on numerous occasions with his play at that end of the court. Maybe my surprise results mostly from my ignorance at what he could do, but when your expectations are on the order of Vlad Romanovic, showing any capability on the defensive end is darn near shocking.

Outside

Matty wrote:well, i aint sure who to vote for. steimsma was supposed to be pretty good on defense... bradley i had no idea was such a pest on d though.. but... ah heck.

maybe i'll vote for dooling just for S & G's.. i dunno

You know I didn't care much for Dooling much of the year, ugly shot and all, but he did hit some big shot thru out the year. The other thing is he worked very hard on the defensive end all year. He hustled as much as AB did i think. Just wasn't as effective.