Former late first-rounder now deemed ‘best-kept secret’ on Boston Celtics

https://hardwoodhoudini.com/2022/08/19/best-kept-secret-boston-celtics/



Former late first-rounder now deemed ‘best-kept secret’ on Boston Celtics


by Mark Nilon
2 days ago


When it comes to the Boston Celtics, everyone familiar with the team knows just how great their talent pool is.

With star headliners such as Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to their recently acquired top-notch role players in Malcolm Brogdon and Danilo Gallinari, the shamrocks are blasting towards the 2022-23 campaign in the driver’s seat to take home the Larry O’Brien Trophy and a major reason why is due to their immaculate rotation.


However, even with all the known commodities on board, there is still some mystery to this Boston ball club that consists of quite a number of unknowns, and, according to the folks at Bleacher Report, they believe that one of their biggest enigmas comes in the form of power forward, Grant Williams.

Citing his incredibly efficient defensive play despite his undersize 6-5 build, coupled with his savvy shooting stroke, writer Zach Buckley believes that the 22nd pick from the 2019 draft is the “best-kept secret” the Boston Celtics possess:

You could argue that last season spilled the beans on Grant Williams being Boston’s best-kept secret. He essentially engineered across-the-board improvement, leading to substantial spikes in floor time (24.4 minutes per game) and perimeter shooting (106 triples on 41.1 percent shooting).

On a team littered with do-it-all stoppers, Williams graded the highest in BBall-Index.com’s defensive versatility. His three-ball and improved mobility gave him extra juice away from the basket, but he can still muscle up in the frontcourt to bang with bigs. He has played everywhere but point guard during his first three seasons with the Shamrocks.

Still, it feels like he has another level to reach, one higher than most fans might think. He’s still working on consistency—he had a rough go in the Finals—and hasn’t dabbled much with shot creation. If he fine-tunes his established strengths and develops more, look out.

Throughout his three-year career, Grant Williams has managed to up his on-court production with every passing season and, in 2021-22, he went on to establish himself as a staple within head coach Ime Udoka’s newly established scheme.

Seeing career highs all across the board, the 23-year-old posted impressive averages of 7.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, and just shy of a block per game whilst serving as one of the team’s most trusty long-range snipers, converting on a second-best 41 percent of his 3-point attempts on the year (of those who played in 50 or more games) for the Boston Celtics.

Now heading into year four, perhaps there’s another level to his game that could be found and, should this happen, Buckley believes that something of a breakout could be in store for the quasi-big man.


Bob
MY NOTE:  Our two young, developing roster players (as opposed to young, developing non-roster players like Begarin, Madar and Davison) are Grant Williams and Payton Pritchard.  I think Grant's upside is higher than Pritchard's.  

1.  Due to his size Pritchard can only defend one position.  Grant can, and has, defended multiple positions.
2.  Pritchard's calling card, and edge over Grant, was his shooting.  Now that both are shooting 41% from 3 that edge is gone and their ceilings on that skill are effectively reached.  The article says that Grant had the "2nd best" 3pt average.  He shot 41.1% last season.  Pritchard shot 41.2%.
3.  Both need to improve their floor generalship, however, Grant's defender will be at more of a disadvantage because they will be too big or too slow while Pritchard's defender will be more right-sized.
4.  With the addition of White last year and Brogdon to the back court this year, but only the addition of 34 year old Gallinari to the front court, here is less depth ahead of Grant than Pritchard.  Grant will have his chances to play.  Pritchard may not.


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This is a very positive article on Grant Williams.

I am not so sure that Grants' upside is higher than PP. Grant had a really solid year while playing 24 MPG. He had YOY improvements in points and rebounds however they were what I would call nominal, PP experienced a rather sharp decline in MPG (19.2 to 14.1) Finding minutes for him this year will probably be even more difficult. We have 3 starting quality PG ahead of him.

We simply cannot know how many minutes Grant will play this year. I expect to see him play less minutes this year because Gallinari is a proven double digit scorer (every year) and he logged around 25 MPG with the Hawks last year. PP is probably not going to see a lot of court time.

Grant has an advantage over him on defense but offensively Gallinari is a proven scorer with more diversity in his offensive arsenal.

With the additions of both Brogdon and Gallinari, Grant and PP get pushed down the lineup card to 9th and 10th.

The depth on this team reminds me of the 2018-19 team.

How Ime utilizes his expanded roster will likely be an on going topic of discussion.