I don’t. With Kemba out, Theis and Thompson are among our five best players. And when managing egos, it’s a lot easier to ask a rookie to come off the bench than sit a guy who played well for you as a starter last year (Theis) or your big FA signing (Thompson).
It stinks, but they don't have a bunch of options.
I want at least 3 usable (and cheap) Centers because they seem to get injured (esp TL) quite often. I don't see Danny dealing any one of them. Eventually, Brad will start rotating Tristan and Theis in the starting lineup but use the 2-big lineup to match up against certain teams/units.
Kemba will score if he's healthy, he'll get 20 a game if he plays, but will he hold up is the major question.
if 1 & 2 doesn't come together. What kind of wing do you want? I'd like a defense-first bigger wing and I suspect Danny will add one from a team that disappoints. PJ Tucker makes sense if it goes bad in Houston.
I would take any wing, like almost any wing, that's just a veteran pro that knows what he's doing. If he could be an average defender and outside shooter, I'd take him. Anything more would be a bonus.
I know he is not a wing per se but there has been chatter all along, including right before the season, that Bjelcia might be available until the Kings fully guaranteed his contract. I completely agree with your take that the play-in games will constrain the supply of available players so Sacramento may not want to deal him (they look really good with Fox and Haliburton showing polish but maybe with Jabari coming back, they see value in value in dangling Nemanja since he is a UFA). Regardless but he'd help add a bucket getter to put with the second unit. His defense is eye-test below average but he grades out ok using some metrics for whatever its worth. At the very least, he fits between the MBPC bull market for bigs and the evolving axiom that you can't have enough wing-y length as well as snipers.
BTW, on one of the broadcasts, Scal said that Romeo was working hard on his game - even participating in every practice - just doing everything left-handed. He'll get minutes because of his defense and I;m sure he'll score too because he's so gifted. He just has to stay healthy.
It's great that he can defend, but the kid really needs to learn how to shoot. His lost development on developing his shot is huge to me. He just doesn't seem to be athletic enough to get to the rim consistently at this level. Solid defender...it's everything else that worries me unless he magically learned to shoot without his dominant hand. Seems like a good kid though so I hope he figures it out.
He looked like a good athlete from what I remember but I only remember him a bit.
I just don't recall him with much explosiveness getting to the rim. Fine for a guy like Tatum who can shoot from half court, but less so for a guy like Langford. I'm going off memory too so I might be off.
And as a bonus, Ariza could spell Brown whenever Jaylen has to take a game off, with no dropoff in production.
Yes. There is plenty of room for improvement in Tatum's game right now, but a lot of it is in achievable things. He showed some solid passing ability in the playoffs last year. He can work on his handle and on finishing at the rim. He's improved a ton since his rookie year already, I don;t see any rason to think that's going to stop.
I think he's a better athlete - if a less flashy one - than he gets credit for. There's more to athleticism than Jaylen Brown stuff.
I think if you watch his highlights you will see tat he does make those plays, so the potential is there. Many of his assists are better than just swinging the ball to an open shooter.
One of Romeo's strengths coming out of college was his ability to finish at the rim. He may not jump out of the building but his combination of size, quickness, and leaping ability makes him plenty of athletic for NBA. I don't if this is accurate but one website last spring said that the Cs staff told them Romeo was the best on-ball defender BOS had last year. And from the highlights above, he can certainly score at the rim and off the PnR.
No question, and certainly didn't suggest otherwise. However, if you look at the guys described for all-NBA teams at wing spots would you argue that all-in he is equal athletically? I just dont' think that's defensible. He is in the range where skills matter more, because he's a good enough athlete...and, he will not be Kawhi or Lebron or that kind of athlete either.
Couldn't agree more.
He's taking a playful jab at a post mcpickl made in the Jaylen Brown contract thread last year saying Jaylen's most likely outcome was Trevor Ariza or Danny Green. To be fair, there were others saying it was an overpay as well, which is hilarious in retrospect.
If we add the "bad pick" crowd to the "bad contract" crowd it would be a lot of posters! Jaylen has really impressed with his ability to grow and improve, and at this point I think it would be a big mistake to assume that will suddenly stop. Kudos to him.
People are really sleeping on his future improvement. He still has scary upside.
I've always been a Jaylen guy (receipts in the thread on his contract extension among other places), so I'm consistently baffled by the bearish takes. I'm sure someone will chime in and say we're overreacting to a small sample here, and obviously I don't think Jaylen is going to score 28 a game and shoot 60 percent from two, but still. He's still growing and it's thrilling to see.
Exactly. We call this "analysis". The confusion arises because its not in response to data but actual traumatic events. In other words, we use the term in the psychological sense.
At one point, I recall a discussion around the fact that Jaylen's Brown consensus upside was that of a poor man's Jae Crowder. My argument was that outcome would be a huge disappointment for a #3 pick; fortunately, that "consensus" appears to be wrong.
to be fair, there was a poster or two who thought Jae Crowder was better than Paul George. There are some takes on this board.
I recall getting spit-roasted after his rookie year when I took a closer look at his /min production and then compared it to the same numbers from Paul George’s and Jimmy Butler’s rookie campaigns and concluding that I’d been wrong about Brown and that he could be a quality player going forward. It wasn’t until the calendar flipped to 2018 that other skeptics began coming around on him.
I like him as a player, and I wanted him at the trade deadline last year, but he wouldn't be a priority for me now just because of the roster changes.
no, I agree. I mentioned I wanted the all drafted team to play. If TL was a little better I think it could be good.
I think that might regularly be the closing lineup, but I think wiser to keep Theis as the starter for now. First, minutes and closing matter most. Second, TW has to prove he is reliable night-to-night and we want him to do so before he becomes a "starter". Third, I actually think TW coming in to change energy level is valuable as you sub out Brown/Tatum and thus good to soak up some early minutes with the more vanilla Theis.
Would it be insane to want to keep that lineup and have Kemba be our own Lou Williams?
Yeah I couldn't agree more. Theis has a higher floor against starting bigs and is more reliable right now on defense. And TL bringing hops off the bench is gold.
For sure when he returns, maybe indefinitely. Brilliant idea.
I guess it doesn't matter much if he starts but I'd like to see him get closer to 25-30 minutes a game assuming he can play with the same energy level and health/fouls aren't an issue. He's like the best of TT and Theis in one. TT is hitting 53.1% of his shots but given his role and shot selection, that's actually terrible. In the early going, Theis has been shooting 3's at a much higher volume but they haven't been dropping. If he's not much of a deep threat, I'm not sure what he has over TL.
Its intriguing but think this lineup has a chance to be below average defensively. PP seems like a smart player and I’d guess he’ll have the typical sophomore year defensive leap. Maybe he gets it late this season though we can hope. As much as I’ve enjoyed TL’s recent progression he’s still constantly out of position or lunging at the wrong things. Hopefully he just needs more time and he’ll get there. Right now last years Theis is a much better player.
I like Ainge and think his drafting has been mostly ok but I think he's also gotten some slack over the last few years for his non lottery picks. A lot of it is probably just luck but a few teams seem to get lucky a lot (Heat, Denver, Toronto). The hit rate for these picks will always be low and the expected outcome is probably "non contributor" but the C's should have hit on at least a couple more over the years with all the picks they had. TL and PP may be some regression to the mean. Yeah, positive variance!
Yep., agree with this. Teague and Theis /or TT in the starting line. Then spring 8Mile and TL on the opponents 2nd unit
What is this?
Non lottery. Rozier is definitely one of the gets for non lottery picks. And like I said, most of those picks aren't good but Ainge has had enough that you'd think he'd have lucked into a few more hits. He had a few hits earlier on with Delonte, Al, Tony, Big Baby.
