Thornton Shoots To Wow Celtics

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/celtics_nba/boston_celtics/2014/10/marcus_thornton_shoots_to_wow_celtics_again



Marcus Thornton shoots to wow Celtics again



Thursday, October 2, 2014
By:  Mark Murphy



It was March 16, 2012, and the Celtics were wedged into Sacramento’s infamously narrow visitor’s locker room.

Then C’s coach Rivers had a trivia question that night.

“Can anyone name me the Kings’ leading scorer?” he asked, getting shrugs and blank stares from everyone.

Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and the whiz kid himself, Rajon Rondo, were all stumped.

“It’s Marcus Thornton,” Rivers said.

Roughly three hours later, River announced with something of a sneer, “I’ll bet they know who he is now.”

Thornton, now in training camp with the Celtics, remembers the reason quite vividly.

“Thirty-six points,” the 27-year-old guard said with quiet pride this week.

“That’s the first thing they said to me when I got here. Now I’ll be doing that for y’all against other teams.”

He can certainly score at a rate that was generally foreign to the Celtics last season once they traded away Jordan Crawford. Thornton has twice scored a career-high of 42 points, against Golden State and Indiana.

On a playoff team, he would be sixth man material.

On a rebuilding lottery unit such as the Celtics, he could fill a significant scoring void that became a little too obvious over the second half of last year’s 25-win season.

“I’ve known about Marcus and his game for quite awhile,” Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said yesterday. “We’ve always had a lot of guards, but not really. He’s just a guy who came available and became a good opportunity for us. He can score some points off the bench and we can use his scoring experience.”

But the Celtics also have a lot of youth to develop, which doesn’t necessarily work ideally for a player whose abilities might be of greater service in a more seasoned setting.

But Thornton is glad for the chance. He’s spent most of his career off the NBA radar in Sacramento, historically a place where players go unnoticed. Witness the collective ignorance of his scoring prowess by the 2011-12 Celtics.

“We didn’t have too many televised games, so people didn’t know us,” he said. “But I liked that. As underdogs, you never know what you’re going to get until it’s too late. But I’ve been like that all my life. I don’t expect anything to be different now.”

He was traded to Brooklyn at midseason last year, and he enjoyed the added exposure on a veteran team that quickly stumbled in the playoffs. But it was a group that Thornton admittedly would have liked to see stay together.

“Brooklyn was fun with KG and Paul,” Thornton said of his brief time with the two former Celtics. “Guys were in my ear every day and that was great, but I’m in Boston now. With those guys, it would have been great to stay together. With those guys it was fun. They knew what it took to win. But now we have to go on from here.”

Here’s another benefit from his brief time with Garnett and Pierce: Thornton didn’t know it at the time, but he was being prepared for the summer trade that brought him to Boston.

“They told me a lot of stories about here when I was there,” Thornton said. “(Pierce) told me about his days here and how the fans are. You play your heart out and the fans love you. I definitely am anxious to see that for myself. I’m ready to play right now.”

His shooting considered, Thornton certainly has the right tools to make a splash with the TD Garden crowd.

“I thank God for it every day, to have this skill that not too many other people have,” he said. “I’ve been around a lot of young guys before, so I know what it takes to lead, and to help the team and help myself get better, so it’s going to be fun.”




bob
MY NOTE:  Pierce and KG are the best ambassadors we could possibly have.  They filled Thornton's ears with stories about Boston and the Celtics while they were in Brooklyn.


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"On a playoff team, he would be sixth man material."  Okay, Mark Murphy, admit it.  You absolutely stole that from comments I've made no fewer than a dozen times this off-season.  And I don't believe his sixth man potential would have to be limited to a playoff team.

There are offensive sixth men and defensive sixth men.  Obviously, Thornton would fall into the former category, which emphasizes scoring in bunches.

Please, Mark, get your own material.  LOL.

Sam