Summer/Off-Season Individual Improvent Plans

As much as I love the regular season and playoff games, I always find it interesting to learn what the coaching staff and players have identified as individual areas to improve during the off-season.   You know that the Celtics coaches have such a list and that it has already been conveyed to each player.

Here are some of my thoughts for the guys that are still under contract for 2015-2016.          Please add yours

Marcus Smart---three point shot, drive and finish at the hoop

Evan Turner---develop something to use as a counter to driving down the lane on the right (develop left hand drive), pass better out of double teams near the basket

Kelly Olynyk---increase physical strength, improve lateral quickness

Tyler Zeller---add 10-15 pounds of muscle bulk

Jared Sullenger---get the weight down to 250, body fat to 10-12% and increase endurance so that he can play 33 minutes without having to 'rest' for 6 of those 33 on-the-court minutes

Avery Bradley---increase dribbling proficiency in crowded areas (especially with the left hand), become more consistent from the three point line

James Young---learn to learn more about your game,  get much stronger, play at least marginal defense by October

Paul Pressey---got to improve the shot to continue to have a roster spot

I will not mention the guys who are currently free agents until they get re-signed (Jerebko, Bass, etc)

Boy, this turned out to be a wasted use of thread space.  Wonder who started it?

All these young guys are going to get better. Most of them, noticeably so. Pretty exciting, and a good forum topic.

Bradley has spent the past few summers imitating Ray Allen's practice habits with his 3 point shot.

But this summer, I expect him to expand his game, and really work on his dribble drives. We saw a few times in the Cleveland series where he got more aggressive driving to the hoop, with good results.

He is one of the quickest players in the game. We see this on defense every night, but he has the ability to be just as athletically dominant on offense, especially since most other guards aren't half the defenders that he is.

All he needs is more practice, and more confidence. He'll also continue to get stronger physically, which will help with his confidence as well.

He'll never be Kyrie Irving with the ball in his hands, but he does have superior quickness to Kyrie and he'll be able to improve his game and our team by attacking the rim more aggressively.

One of the biggest problems with our offense this year was the starting unit, and the go-to play for that starting unit was Bradley taking a long, often fadeaway two point jumper coming off a screen.

That's like the lowest quality shot in basketball, and yet that was the staple of our starting unit all season.

With both Bradley and Smart attacking the rim more aggressively, and earlier in the game, our offense will get noticeably better, and more open jump shots will be created.

With Smart we saw him too start attacking the rim more aggressively in the playoffs, with great results.

It's just a matter of another offseason worth of practice, and with an offseason emphasis on dribble driving for Bradley and Smart. We saw how much Smart's 3 point shot improved in one year devoted to it. Smart was actually elite at attacking the rim for two years in college, and he will really emerge this coming year as a major scoring weapon off the dribble.

Preferences:

Kelly Olynyk and Jared Sullinger - swap 15#

James Young and Gerald Wallace - swap defenses

Kelly Olynyk and Brandon Bass - swap arms

Brandon Bass and Tyler Zeller - swap inside games

Avery Bradley and Phil Pressey - swap dribbling skills

Marcus Smart and James Young - swap shooting skills

Kelly Olynyk and Gigi Datome - swap haircare products and styling tips.



Likelihoods:

Kelly puts on 5-8#.  His arms are still a Frankensteinian graft from a T-Rex.

Sully drops 15#.  Then puts 5-8 back on.

Marcus Smart's shot doesn't change because his problem is in his mechanics.

Tyler Zeller still dunks only when he is all alone and not in traffic.

James Young learns how to spell 'defense', but that's it.

Kelly Olynyk and Gigi Datome swap haircare products and styling tips.



Possibilities:

Kelly doesn't get bulled over as much anymore because of his extra weight/muscle and becomes more aggressive with shooting the ball and creating an offense.

Sully gets religion about his weight or is traded.

Smart attacks the basket more.

Bradley continues his play, just doesn't disappear in the playoffs, but his ball handling skills stay the same.  First Doc, now Brad have tried to elevate that part of his game to no avail.

James Young improves his ball handling skills to where he can play a 6'6" SG.

Kelly Olynyk and Gigi Datome swap haircare products and styling tips.



bob



.

Bob,

Your preferences sound like a M.A.S.H. unit to me.

Sam