Blakely: Celtics Should Start Johnson

http://www.csnne.com/blog/celtics-talk/blakely-celtics-should-start-johnson







These are dark times for the Boston Celtics (15-32) with the losses and the frustration levels continuing to rise.

They're a bad team.

We've known this in our heart of hearts, all along.

There's no crime against that. After all, NBA teams will all bottom out to some degree, at some point.

But there is a bright light for Boston that lately seems to shine game after game, even in defeat.

We know him as Chris Johnson who despite being on a second, 10-day contract with Boston, has done enough to warrant his first career start.

If this season for Boston is truly about evaluating different players in different roles, throwing Johnson in with the first group only makes sense.

In just a short period of time, Johnson has out-played just about every single Celtics player when given a chance to get on the floor.

He runs the floor harder than any of them, Jeff Green included.

Johnson is the only healthy player on this team who can raise up for a 3-point shot and doesn't get a collective cringe from Celtics Nation on the release.

He's not Avery Bradley 2.0 defensively, but he fights throw picks as good or better than any of his brethren with guaranteed deals, and for the most part he has done a decent job of keeping guys in front of him.

Of course, there are legitimate concerns about getting too excited about a player who comes on the scene out of nowhere the way Johnson has.

Because he's on a second, 10-day deal, the sample size of his work is relatively small.

But at this point, that doesn't matter.

This is a team that's rebuilding which means opportunities are plentiful for anyone who is hungry enough to take advantage of them.

And that hunger is what Johnson's coaches and his Celtics teammates respect the most about him.

"He's been unbelievable," Boston's Captain Rajon Rondo told reporters after Tuesday's loss to New York. "He's doing everything coach (Brad Stevens) asks of him. I'm rooting for him."

So is Brandon Bass who admits he has become a fan of Johnson's game.

"I wish him the best," Bass said to reporters. "Each night he plays with us, practices with us, he shows a lot of heart. Hopefully we sign him for the whole year."

In a year where the Celtics are counting every penny spent to avoid being a repeat luxury tax offender, whether Johnson stays beyond his second, 10-day contract remains to be seen.

But for that kind of commitment, the Celtics need to see him thrive in as many different situations on the floor as possible - including as a starter.

Now don't me wrong.

By no means is Johnson a basketball savior or anything like that.

He has been good, but not THAT good.

And that's why starting him would be a logical next step in the evaluation process to see what his role would be now, and going forward.

As much as he has proven himself worthy of at least being on an NBA roster, you have to wonder if there's another level or two to his game that hasn't been reached yet because he hasn't been given that opportunity.

Putting him with the first group would indeed be a "sink-or-swim" situation for him, the kind of situation that he has seemingly been at his best thus far.

Remember, his first game for the Celtics was against the two-time defending NBA champion Miami Heat on Jan. 21. He scored 11 points, five coming in the fourth quarter as the Celtics kept it close before ultimately losing 93-86.

Maybe even more significant was that he played all but 18 seconds in the fourth quarter, more than any other Celtics player.

He was effective both as a scorer and a defender that night which is why Stevens opted to stick with him.

The easiest transition to making Johnson a starter would be to have him replace Gerald Wallace at shooting guard, although a few - OK, quite a few of you - would probably prefer seeing him on the floor in place of Jeff Green who continues to struggle shooting the ball.

Regardless of who's place he takes, Johnson is the only player on this team right now not named Rajon Rondo that is improving tangibly before our eyes.

"He's playing like one of our best players right now," Stevens told reporters after Boston's 114-88 loss to New York. "I gotta figure out a way to find more time for him."

The easiest way to do that, is put him in the starting lineup coach.



bob



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Sounds like part of my recent rant. I'd love to see him starting.

Sam

Give him a contract. He's a keeper.



KJ

On the other hand, why even play him if they're just going to ignore him all alone in the corner on possession after possession?

If you're going to play him, whether or not he's a starter, involve him.

Sam

A. Sherrod Blakely missed the English class that described Basic Paragraph Structure.  

"In many languages, the fundamental unit of composition is the paragraph.  A paragraph consists of several sentences that are grouped together.  This group of sentences together discuss one main subject.   In U.S. formal academic English, paragraphs have three principal parts.  These three parts are the topic sentence, body sentences, and the concluding sentence."

I'm sorry, but this has bugged me for a couple years now.  He just separates each sentence like it is a paragraph on its own.  It is harder to read and actually looks like a series of "tweets".  Is this a trend in the written media in general, or is it a Blakely thing?  To me, it comes off as lazy journalism.

He wants to be taken seriously, but oftentimes he just throws "stuff" at the wall, hoping that some of it sticks.  He takes Rondo's "I'm rooting for him", then adds Bass's ". . . he shows a lot of heart. Hopefully we sign him for the whole year", then mixes in Steven's "I gotta figure out a way to find more time for him" and comes up with " . . . put him in the starting lineup coach"?  That's illogical, none of the quotes even hint at a stint as a starter.  I am just glad that Blakely wasn't around when Brad Lohaus or Conner Henry first made the scene in a Celtic uniform.  I cannot imagine what he would have come up as a conclusion for their careers.

gyso

Gyso,

I've never been impressed with Blakely ever since he came over from (I think it was) Detroit. My gripes are more focused on his constant regurgitation of things we already know and his pretty constant failure to break stories or delve into material in an in-depth manner. I've always regarded those transgressions as lazy journalism, which fits right in with your stylistic criticism.

I have a feeling that he separates sentences in an effort to make each sentence more substantive than it is. I would know if that's indicative of some journalistic trend (although I suspect it's not).

I believe the quality of journalistic prose in general has pretty much gone the same way as the quality of NBA basketball. We all make occasional gaffes in our grammar, spelling or word usage; but most of today's media types seem to do it with a vengeance.

Sam

Let me put it to you another way.. Blakely sucks!

dboss

I have a feeling.

Blakely writes for impact instead of content.

He does that by trying to create one-line eye candy.

As dboss has already noted.

As opposed to putting a complete thought together, thoughts that hang together and should be kept together.  Blakely is no fool and he has already figured out that he needs to fill up a minimum number of page-inches and that hitting the return button more often will accomplish that with less actual work.  As a staff writer, not a free-lancer, he is probably not paid by the word.  So, fewer words means less work, less work means more $/hour of work which also frees him up to hobnob with Danny and Brad etal.

Of course, I could be wrong.

But I doubt it.

Really.

Really, really.


bob


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He could use a bigger font, too.

Then he'd have the complete skillset of the average teenager trying to satisfy the demand of producing a paper with a certain number of pages.

Outside wrote:He could use a bigger font, too.

Then he'd have the complete skillset of the average teenager trying to satisfy the demand of producing a paper with a certain number of pages.

Ha!

Dboss