How has Boston’s Aaron Nesmith improved his game this offseason?

https://sports.yahoo.com/watch-boston-aaron-nesmith-improved-151844447.html



How has Boston’s Aaron Nesmith improved his game this offseason?


Justin Quinn

Sun, August 22, 2021, 8:18 AM·1 min read



The Boston Celtics need one of their recently drafted players to develop into a solid, reliable role player if they are to chase banners in all seriousness again. And with the growth we are seeing from second-year small forward Aaron Nesmith in Las Vegas Summer League, they may be on their way to seeing the South Carolina native fit that bill.

The summer Celtics’ leading scorer and most consistent player of Las Vegas Summer League, Nesmith managed to add some new wrinkles to his game while competing for hardware in the Sin City exhibition series, reflecting the level of potential Boston took him No. 14 overall in the 2020 NBA draft.

This growth caught the attention of the hosts of the CLNS Media podcasts “The A-List,” with A. Sherrod Blakely and Kwani A. Lunis discussing the Vanderbilt product’s steps forward as a player in their most recent podcast.



Watch the video embedded above to hear their takes on one of the Celtics’ more promising young players.


Bob
MY NOTE:  A. Sherrod Blakely in that video described Nesmith, among other things, as a player out of the "Khris Middleton template" and that's who Nesmith should be modeling himself after.  He's 2" inches shorter than Middleton, which would make him at 6'5" more of a SG than a SF, but otherwise?  I can see it.  To say the least I would be ecstatic if a #14 pick was even a bordline All-Star (Middleton is a 2X All-Star), or a candidate for NBA 6th Man.  6th Man is almost always a shooter, an absolutely conscienceless gunner like Lou Williams and Jamal Crawford (Montrezl Harris 2 years ago was an outlier).  With time within the league and Ime's system, and growing confidence, that could easily be Aaron Nesmith.  It might also describe Payton Pritchard, he's not shy neither.

An improving Nesmith would make Romeo superfluous in my opinion.  He's about the same size, as good a ballhandler (i.e. mediocre) and a significantly better and more versatile scorer.  If he can elevate his defense up to near Romeo's level (and Romeo's pretty good) then we can say farewell to Romeo (“Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.”) without a second thought.  Nesmith vastly outplayed Romeo in Summer League.  It was the first SL for both of them, their total NBA minutes are about the same due to Romeo's injuries wiping out so much of his career-to-date, and Nesmith was one of the best players in SL and Romeo was not.  AN averaged 17.4ppg on 50% fg% and 6.5rpg in SL.


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Bobh

I am pretty confident that AN will be  big contributor as long as he gets consistent rotation minutes.

However, I do not think he makes Romeo expendable.  At least not this year.

Josh Richardson is on a $11.6 million expiring contract.  You would expect that he will put forth a great effort because his next contract will depend on it.  As of today, we do not know for certain if the Celtics will retain him.  He is coming off of B2B years where his 3 point shooting was dreadful but he can handle the ball some and is a solid defender.  We have bird rights.

If he leaves, AN probably moves up a notch and if Boston goes with a 3 wing lineup AN could step right into that position.  RL could become the first guard/wing player off the bench.

With JR, DS and KD all potential bridge year players, keeping RL actually may not be a bad move.  If Richardson resigned with the Celtics it would further limit rotation minutes for Langford.

The Celtics have at least one more year to decide if RL is a keeper. I am not putting the barrels down until trash day.

Damn - if AN ends up approaching Khris Middleton-type contributions, the Celtics will be set up as contenders for half-a-decade. Middleton is a great player.

Shamrock1000 wrote:Damn - if AN ends up approaching Khris Middleton-type contributions, the Celtics will be set up as contenders for half-a-decade. Middleton is a great player.

I think he needs a year or two. Middleton took a few years before he hit the 18 PPG mark. Year 4 I believe.

Frank Ramsey, the first 6th man.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/ramsefr01.html