Summer Quandaries 28: The Final Jeopardy Answer is: 4368, 342, 3920

http://celticsgreen.blogspot.com/2015/08/sq28-final-jeopardy-answer-is-4368-342.html



SQ28 The Final Jeopardy Answer Is: 4368, 342, 3920

By Lee Lauderdale









Tick, tock, tick, tock, . . . and your answer (in question form of course) is?

Well consider that there are 16 players under contract. And that the most probable positions assignments are:
PG Smart, Thomas, Rozier
SG Bradley, Young, Hunter
SF Crowder, Turner, Jerebko, Jones
PF Sullinger, Lee, Mickey
C Zeller, Johnson, Olynyk
And that with Brad and Danny's penchant for multi-tooled players, you could consider the possible position assignments as:
PG Smart, Thomas, Rozier, Turner
SG Bradley, Young, Hunter, Turner, Crowder, Smart, Rozier
SF Crowder, Turner, Jerebko, Jones, Young
PF Sullinger, Lee, Mickey, Jerebko, Jones, Olynyk, Johnson
C Zeller, Johnson, Olynyk, Lee

Got your final jeopardy answer/question yet? And the right answer is “What are the number of combinations possible for Stevens to try in camp, the number of at-likely-positions combinations, and the number of at-possible-positions combinations?”

Now I will admit that I did not account for the overlap factor in that last number (i.e. Turner cannot play PG, SG, and SF at the same time). Hey I spent enough time poring over math sites refreshing my freshman Elementary Analysis course, which was pert near a half century ago. If someone more obsessive, and math nerd inclined, than I wants to correct that last figure, I welcome the input. I've just peaked out at summoning up the n! / ((n-r)! (r!)) for the first one and the “rule of productive” for the second two.

To get to the point, and there probably should be one, Brad Stevens has his work cut out for him if he expects to explore the various combinations available from the evenly distributed talent Danny has provided him this year. Just taking the smallest number (342) of possible combinations with most-likely positions, and given the total amount of (totally made up) 2-hr practices (20), the resulting (OMG, more math, Yikes!) utilization of 400 hours (24,000 minutes) to try out all the combinations, yields just 70 minutes for each of the combinations. If you are just masochistically curious, the minutes-per-combination for the larger numbers are 5.5 (4368) and 6.1 (3920); yeah probably not enough time for much polishing. Just in passing I would like to point out the relatively minuscule difference between the “all possible” and “possible position assignments) number of combinations.

Alas, with a third of the team new on the scene, there will probably some needed time to put in an offense and defense. And then there is at least a hat-tip to warm ups, conditioning, positioning, defensive and offensive fundamentals, individual instruction; not to mention identifying and correction individual flaws, honing individual strengths, adding new individual skills, and introducing new players and roles. And somewhere in there will be putting in (and perhaps even practicing) some type of game plan for seven pre-season games.

I think it is safe to say that time limits will force Brad Stevens to exclude some combinations, although considering his exhaustive preparations, I think he has already drawn up lists for definitely try, don't bother, and maybe. It is more than a little bit intimidating to contemplate that the most obsessive of we bloggers make a hardly-worth-noticing effort compared to the coaching staff. Makes our pontificating about some thought we actually had, kind of pathetic and ridiculous—but then, what's there for the little grey cells to do in the off season?

Only 38 days to camp.



bob



.

I am sure that Stevens and his staff have already had some great staff meetings to discuss this very topic, but I do not see them able to do anything more than just make guesses at this point just like the rest of us.

There are so many variables yet to reveal themselves for pretty much any type of a line up configuration at this time to include just some of the following factors:  long term injuries, possible trades, development of the three rookies, improvement of the returning players and how the new guys are going to fit in and where they may fit in.

This was our only topic last Friday morning at our Celtics breakfast meeting.  The topic got heated (like most of our topics) but also had lots of great thought provoking discussion.

I for one think that Jones may be a very important player this year for the team as he most definitely needs to have a successful season to keep him in the league's thoughts.  I see him as very motivated to perform much like some of his stats when replacing Durant for a spell last season at OKC. I can picture him as a 15 and 7 guy playing mostly at the small forward spot.