Roster Reset

Bob


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People are talking as if the Stevens signing is a regular contract and not a camp contract.   Don't know about if it's guaranteed.

6'6", 230#, 6'9" wingspan.  26 years old.  3 year veteran,  all with Cleveland,  which was a VERY good defensive team.  This guy's claim is on defense.








Bob


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Celtics blog has the story but still no info on what type of contract it is. This puts some of those guys on partial guaranteed contracts on notice that they have to show what they can do or be gone. Luke is a partial guarantee. Interesting move as it seems as if this is a defensive specialist with little offensive skill. Kind of puzzling unless it is not a full contract

Excellent signing.

We happen to be down here in State College where Stevens played his college ball. Big football game tomorrow, the annual White Out. 110,000 crazed fans, dressed in white, in the 2nd biggest stadium in the nation. Penn State is ready to take on Iowa in this year’s game. CBS, 7:30pm kickoff.

Stevens was a lockdown defender here at PSU, and has been just as strong in Cleveland. He’s not going to contribute much on offense, but that’s not what they brought him in for. Good defensive addition.

Non -guaranteed. Camp will be interesting

Good signing, he's a proven commodity on the defensive end. I like having Walsh, Brisett, and now Stevens to fight for rotation spots. Some nights Joe may need defense and need one of these guys. Sam is going to have to step up his D as well, if he wants the 8-9 spot.

I am hoping that Sam takes a big step forward offensively as well as defensively. It looked like he was learning alot from White last year, he had a few blocks from the backside, the way DWhite does it, this would be huge for his value to the team.

The scouting reports I've seen on this kid say he is a bruising defender.  Lamar has 2634 NBA minutes under his belt.  He has started 38 games, 25 last year alone, on a Cleveland team that gave up the fewest points per game last year @ 106.9ppg.  No other team was really close.  #2 was Miami @ 109.8ppg and a 2.9ppg differential is huge.  The Celtics were 5th @ 111.4, and we thought we were good with that.  The difference between #1 and #2 was 2.9ppg and the difference between #2 and #5 was 1.6ppg.  That's how much better Cleveland's defense was last year.   He played 62 games last season and, as I said, started 25 of them.  25 starts has to be more than just "injuries" on a team that ended up with 51 wins.  His Offensive Rating last season was 109, the highest of his career.  His Defensive Rating was 111, so his Net Rating was a -2.  Not what we want, of course, but if he's a defensive replacement for Smart how does he match up?  Smart's Defensive Rating last year was 112.  His Offensive Rating was 111, so a -1 NetRtg, but the Celtics were a MUCH better offensive team than the Cavaliers, which had the 6th worst ppg in the league.  Boston had the 4th best ppg, and Marcus' time on the floor benefited from that.  In summary Lamar is coming from an elite defensive, but inept offensive, environment and his role here will focus around being a lockdown defender.  He should not be expected to replace Marcus wholly.  Smart was a point guard/floor general as well as a defender.

He might not have the footspeed of the lighter Jordan Walsh (228# vs 205#), nor the height (6'6" vs 6'7"), nor the reach (6'9" vs 7'2") but those 228-230# will make it hard to just overpower him.  I've been a fan of Jordan Walsh for for as long as he's been on the roster and I had a chance to watch some film and his SL play, but Lamar is more of a sure thing.  I think Jordan has the physical gifts to be an excellent defender, as well as having the prerequisite mindset, but the undeniable fact is that he has yet to lace up an NBA sneaker.  

Nobody, and nothing, will stop the ache in my heart from the departure of Marcus.  Maybe that's what drew me to Jordan so quickly, he gives me hope because he's a devoted defender but so is Lamar, and he's coming from the #1 defensive team last year.  That's pedigree.  Who's gonna be the "new dawg" this year with Marcus and Grant gone?  Maybe Lamar.

In his first year Lamar Stevens only played 449 minutes.  This is to be expected for an undrafted player.  Unless you're The Worm they're not going to give an undrafted player a ton of rookie minutes.  In his 2nd year, however, he played 1015 minutes and he played 1120 minutes in his 3rd year.  So, more minutes after proving himself year over year.  That's a good sign since Cleveland has been an improving team over the past few years.  They finished 51-31 last season, good for 4th in the East and a home court series.  They were not a bad team last year.  He's not injured, why did they let him go?  Did they really have "too many defenders"?   Isaac Okoro is another 6'5" lockdown defender for Cleveland, played 1652 minutes, with a better offense.  They might just have seen Lamar as more depth than they needed and decided to use his roster spot for shooter Max Strus to help their anemic offense.  We might have just gotten lucky from another team's "numbers problem".


Bob


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Gary Washburn @GwashburnGlobe
about 1 hour ago
Brad Stevens tells the Globe Malcolm Brogdon is healthy and ready to go for #Celtics training camp. Kristaps Porzingis is also a go.


Bob


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bobheckler wrote:Gary Washburn @GwashburnGlobe
about 1 hour ago
Brad Stevens tells the Globe Malcolm Brogdon is healthy and ready to go for #Celtics training camp. Kristaps Porzingis is also a go.


Bob


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Now that is good news!

Didn’t want to start a thread over a hypothetical so I included it here on the roster reset thread. ESPN Bobby Marks on how a Lillard to Boston trade could work.

http://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/38499081

Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach
3 minutes ago
Per source, Kristaps Porzingis took part in his first scrimmage Wednesday since being shut down due to his foot injury. He looked good and had no issues.


Bob
MY NOTE:  It's good that he had no issues yesterday (obviously!) but I want to know how he feels today.  The good news is that our first b2b doesn't come until 11/10-11/11, but we still don't want him pushing his feet beyond their abilities even if there are days off between games.  Having said all that it appears that the guidance provided to us by Brad over the past 4-6 weeks on Z's plantar fasciitis rehab has been accurate.  That makes him more honest than Danny.  


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Why did the Boston Celtics sign and cut Jordan Schakel, Brandon Slater, and Taylor Funk?

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/why-did-boston-celtics-sign-163234102.html

Justin Quinn
Fri, September 29, 2023 at 12:32 PM EDT·1 min read

The Boston Celtics have made a flurry of moves to strengthen their G League roster by signing Jordan Schakel, Brandon Slater, and Taylor Funk — and then cutting them. If you are confused, this is part of the team’s strategy to develop role players within their system, similar to what they’ve done with other players in the past.

Schakel, Funk, and Slater are a trio of wings who fit the profile of the sort of player Boston has been looking for in recent years, and the move to sign the three to camp deals and then waive them is to set them up to join the Maine Celtics as affiliate players for the G League season to come.

The hosts of the CLNS Media “How Bout Them Celtics!” podcast recently took a deep dive into this new approach by the Celtics to develop future role players.

Take a look at the clip embedded above to hear what they had to say about this strategy and how it might pay off.

My comment: They don't even get a camp invitation? And the money that goes with it?

Do not stop at camp, go directly to Maine. Do not collect $200.

Ayah!

Jayson Tatum
Jaylen Brown
Derrick White
Al Horford
Kristaps Porzingis
Sam Hauser
Payton Pritchard
Luke Kornet


Looking at it from another perspective, here it is by position (more or less, given today's positionless NBA, but not necessarily in order):

Bigs - Zinger, Al, Luke
Wings - Jayson, Jaylen, Sam, Oshae, Svi, Walsh
Guards - Derrick, Jrue, Payton, Lamar, Dalano

With two players going out and only one coming in we are now back down to 14.

Looks like we need another big now.


Bob


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Guaranteed:

Holiday, Porzingis, Tatum, Brown, White, Horford, Pritchard, Brissett, Hauser and Walsh.

That's 10 players.

Non-Guaranteed:

Luke, Svi, Dalano.

That's 3 players, with Luke most likely being upgraded to guaranteed.

That's 11 players.  Brad still has some work to do.


https://www.spotrac.com/nba/boston-celtics/cap/

something tells me Malcolm wanted out

2022-2023 Ending Roster vs 2023-2024 Beginning Roster


This is my take, only.


2022-2023

Bigs - Al, RWill, Luke, Blake, Grant (small ball 5), Moose Muscala
Wings - Jaylen, Jayson, Sam, Champagnie
Guards - Smart, Derrick, Brogdon, Payton


2023-2024

Bigs - Zinger, Al, Luke
Wings - Jayson, Jaylen, Sam, Oshae, Svi, Walsh
Guards - Derrick, Jrue, Payton, Lamar, Dalano


Bigs

Added Z, lost RWill, Grant and the short-timer Moose.

Analysis:  Added quality, lost depth and rim protection.  Added a player who has a history of injuries, but was pretty healthy last year, and lost a player who has a history of injuries and has never seemed to overcome them.  Luke progressed last year, so he's a net + year over year.  The loss of Grant is big, no pun intended.  A healthy front court during the playoffs this year is better than last year's, but we are not deep at all. Quite the opposite.


Wings

Lost nobody, really.  Added Oshae, Svi and Walsh.

Analysis:  The Js will be better this year.  I think we will see a year-over-year improvement over the best pair of wings in the league.  Sam has more experience, and that is good.  He has also been scouted more, and that is bad.  Oshae can provide us with defensive flexibility at the wings and big position, so a partial replacement for Grant there, but isn't close to replacing Grant on offense.  Svi is a shooter.  I see him as a bigger Evan Fournier.  I'm not quite happy with that because I was never a fan of the Frenchman's defense.  Statistically it's hard to get a good handle on Svi's defense since he really has never been on a good defensive team and defense is a team effort.  Jordan Walsh is an unknown.  An intriguing unknown, but a rookie unknown.  Overall we are a lot deeper at wing this season.


Guards

Lost Smart, Brogdon.  Added Jrue, Lamar, Dalano.

Analysis:  We went from having the deepest back court in the league to...?  We lost two quality point guards, starter Smart and 6th Man Brogdon and added 1 1/2 in Jrue and Dalano.  Derrick showed us what we got for Romeo and Josh and we're happy as Hell with that deal.  I expect marginal improvement in Derrick year-over-year just because he was pretty good by season end last year.  

A key comparison is Jrue for Marcus.  Jrue could be a replacement for Smart.  He's a dawg, which we needed.  He's tough on defense like Smart (112 DefRtg vs 111 for Smart, and Smart was on a better defensive team overall), he's a better 3pt shooter (38.4%), better offensively overall (118 OffRtg vs 111 for Smart.  Jrue averaged 19.2ppg last year vs 11.2 for Smart.  A net +7ppg on offense while only losing 1 point on defense) and a comparable floor general (8.2ast/36 and 3.2TO/36 = 2.54:1 for Jrue; 7ast/36 and 2.6TO/36 = 2.69:1 for Smart.  More assists for Jrue, as well as more turnovers).  Jrue played played 2183 minutes in 67 games, Marcus played 1957 minutes in 61 games.  I know that 33 is a dangerous age range for guards but last year Jrue was more reliable than Marcus.  More games, more minutes.

Payton is Payton.  I expect him to shoot, I do not expect him to pass.  He's a 2 in a 1's body.  I like him, but I believe point guards are born, not taught, and I don't think Payton is a born point guard.  Lamar will provide whatever muscle on defense not provided by Jrue.  Physically, they're not going to bully our back court.  I have concerns with staying in front of the speed merchants, especially now that Dame is in the EC, but our guards can post up anybody.  Dalano is a 6 month old Golden Retriever.  He's just happy as Hell to be here.  I'm hoping he doesn't swipe the table clean with his tail just because he can't settle down.  I see him as another Jordan Walsh, but without the clear NBA skill set that Jordan has.  There's always a place on an NBA team for a fully-committed defender and/or a lights out shooter.  Jordan is such a defender, albeit without the experience.  Banton is neither an elite defender nor shooter.  My expectations for him, therefore, are quite limited.


Overall

We're better, but God Help us if Porzingis is injured.  We have virtually no quality depth behind The Unicorn.  We've got depth, quality depth, at wing and guard.  We're not quite as deep in the back court as last year since we had White, Smart and Brogdon and now we only have White and Brogdon, but we're still pretty well set there now.

I begged for a veteran ballhandler.  I got one.  I didn't think I'd have to give up one of our quality ballhandlers to get him.  This was classic "be careful what you ask for".

We are down to 14 players.  Now we need a replacement for RWill.  A shot blocker.  A baseline defender.  We have Queta on a two-way.  It will be interesting to see what happens with that.  Does he get an upgrade now?  Will this trade change Blake's mind about retiring?

Brad and Wyc must have been extremely unhappy with last year's roster for them to turn a team that was one game away from the Championship round upside down.


Bob


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Bob,

We only have 10 players with guaranteed contracts. Add Luke, because he has some skills and is a coach's delight. LOL

Our bench is week and Brad needs to fill in the new gaps. Some of the non-guaranteed players may not make opening night.

More to come? I hope so.

Before the Dame trade the Celtics were ranked #1 in the East.  After the Dame trade we dropped to 2nd.  Now, post-Jrue trade, we're projected by Vegas to win #18.

Celtics 15:4
Bucks 4:1
Nuggets 11:2
Suns 11:2
Lakers 12:1





Bob


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just tell me, how many slots are open here? One, two???? They sent out 2 got one back. And there was still a slot open before the trade, am I right? Blake still pondering retirement but Brad has said the door is always open for him to return if he decides to. But? is he the answer, or are we already searching for another Big

Aaron Baynes just put up a 20-20 game in the down-under league. Worth a look? 12 minutes a night of hard nosed center play with some skill; 20 minutes when they play Golden State.