Timelord Injury Watch
- Thread starter bsj
- Start date
He's attempted 4 so far this year. And two of those four were right at the bottom of the circle. So yes, extremely rare.
He's only attempted 6 shots total from more than ten feet out
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If he can run the offense from the high post or top of the key, I don't care if he doesn't shoot.
The ball movement means a lot more, right now.
Yeah I said it would help him a ton going forward.
He's obviously not comfortable shooting from there, right now.
He's 24. Let's get to his peak first before we worry about aging.
TL has the talent to be an All-Star center if -in my opinion - he can stay healthy and be more consistent. If . . . .
We also have him locked up for four more years at a bargain rate.He's 24. Let's get to his peak first before we worry about aging.
TL has the talent to be an All-Star center if -in my opinion - he can stay healthy and be more consistent. If . . . .
Last 6: 31.3 mpg, .771/-/.700, 13.5 points, 11.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.7 blocks, 0.8 steals, 1.3 TO, 3.0 PF.
Per 36 last year: 15.2 points, 13.1 boards, 3.4 assists, 1.6 steals, 3.3 blocks, 1.9 TO, 3.8 PF.
Per 36 last 6: 15.5 points, 13.2 boards, 4.6 assists, 0.9 steals, 3.1 blocks, 1.5 TO, 3.5 PF.
The last 3 of those 6 were with Al, so he's returned to last year's production despite that.
Horford's last 3 games: 32.3 mpg, .333/.250/.833, 9.7 points, 8.7 rebounds, 7.0 assists, 1.0 steals, 1.3 blocks. 1.3 TO
Horford's last 8: 32.5 mpg, .392/.262/.875, 10.9 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.9 blocks. 0.9 TO.
He's been quietly racking up the assists for awhile now. Not focused on the shooting (though the 3 point shooting this year is semi concerning), as he has a track record and 8 games is nothing.
Last game, him and TL had 17 assists, 5 TO. They need more of that. Also, while TL's rebounding has slipped a little, it's almost all defensive rebounding. He's currently 8th in the league in total offensive rebounds (108), and 7th in OReb/36. He's averaging 3.9 OReb a game.
2nd on the C's on OReb is Kanter at 50. Horford is 3rd at 44. Kanter's per 36 is 6.6. Adams leads the league at 5.9.
Per 36 last year: 15.2 points, 13.1 boards, 3.4 assists, 1.6 steals, 3.3 blocks, 1.9 TO, 3.8 PF.
Per 36 last 6: 15.5 points, 13.2 boards, 4.6 assists, 0.9 steals, 3.1 blocks, 1.5 TO, 3.5 PF.
The last 3 of those 6 were with Al, so he's returned to last year's production despite that.
Horford's last 3 games: 32.3 mpg, .333/.250/.833, 9.7 points, 8.7 rebounds, 7.0 assists, 1.0 steals, 1.3 blocks. 1.3 TO
Horford's last 8: 32.5 mpg, .392/.262/.875, 10.9 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.9 blocks. 0.9 TO.
He's been quietly racking up the assists for awhile now. Not focused on the shooting (though the 3 point shooting this year is semi concerning), as he has a track record and 8 games is nothing.
Last game, him and TL had 17 assists, 5 TO. They need more of that. Also, while TL's rebounding has slipped a little, it's almost all defensive rebounding. He's currently 8th in the league in total offensive rebounds (108), and 7th in OReb/36. He's averaging 3.9 OReb a game.
2nd on the C's on OReb is Kanter at 50. Horford is 3rd at 44. Kanter's per 36 is 6.6. Adams leads the league at 5.9.
It feels like Rob has turned a corner over the past couple of weeks, particularly on defense but other ways as well.
View: https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1486437226795913225?s=20
John Karalis: Hey Robert Williams, what happens when a teammate throws you a bad lob? -- "if they throw one out of reach and I say something to 'em about it, they usually say like, 'It don't matter, go get that shit.' So it's pretty cool. No excuses. I understand."
View: https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1486437226795913225?s=20
John Karalis: Hey Robert Williams, what happens when a teammate throws you a bad lob? -- "if they throw one out of reach and I say something to 'em about it, they usually say like, 'It don't matter, go get that shit.' So it's pretty cool. No excuses. I understand."
I'd like to see Rob's numbers with and without Horford on the court with him. They obviously start the 1st and 3rd together, but I think there should be a good bit of sample where Rob is on there without Horford.
Not exactly what you asked for, but...
Rob's overall net rating is +5.3. Rob paired with Al is +3.9.
Al's net rating is +2.3. Rob paired with Al is +3.9. So, on net Al better with Rob than without him.
In 2 man combos, Rob+Nesmith is really really good: +14.6 in 87 minutes, while Al+Nesmith is really really bad: -13.0 in 82 minutes. That has nothing to do with anything, but just seemed weird enough to mention. Rob's best 2-man combo, and Al's worst, are with Nesmith for some reason.
Early in the season I thought Timelord seemed subdued or unsure of his role when sharing the floor with Horford, but lately there hasn't been anything tentative about his game. He is doing so many different things well right now. The picks, the ball movement, talking on defense, the lobs, the rebounds, a steal per game. This feels like the best stretch of his career to me. During his other runs of good play he would still get lost on defense too often. He's mostly cleaned that up now and his length and athleticism are weapons out there.
Edit: to add some fun Rob stats.
- 4th in the league in ORB/game with 3.9
- 14.4% ORB% this year, 13.7% for his career
- His eFG+ is 141 (Mitchell Robinson is the only guy ahead of him who has played any real minutes)
- His FG% is 73.8%
- Nearly averaging a double with 9.9 points and 9.4 rebounds per game
Edit: to add some fun Rob stats.
- 4th in the league in ORB/game with 3.9
- 14.4% ORB% this year, 13.7% for his career
- His eFG+ is 141 (Mitchell Robinson is the only guy ahead of him who has played any real minutes)
- His FG% is 73.8%
- Nearly averaging a double with 9.9 points and 9.4 rebounds per game
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To add to that, anecdotally, it seemed like Rob was in the dunkers spot for most of the first part of the season while Al handled pick and roll duties. Seems like that's flip-flopped so they can play four outside with Al in the corner, where he's been better taking threes. Takes a load off Al and let's TL get more love opportunities. Happy to be corrected if anyone sees something else or if the data proves that wrong.
It would be ironic if, after all this talk of how to acquire a third star, it turns out we already have that blossoming third star in TL.
Far from a sure thing, but he has unique unlimited ability, and his durability has been better than anticipated this season. His confidence is clearly growing by the day. I think he is the most exciting player to watch on the C's.
Far from a sure thing, but he has unique unlimited ability, and his durability has been better than anticipated this season. His confidence is clearly growing by the day. I think he is the most exciting player to watch on the C's.
Yea, Rob is better than Horford. This team would be better off if IME didn't play them together and ~ the same amount of minutes. BUT IME is not changing his starting lineup/rotation mins. anytime soon after 2 blowouts
By a little bit yes. They're still pretty good together though.
It's interesting that the starters (MS JB JT AH RW) have a great net rating, and the best in the league defensive rating, but have only played together in the 4th for 4 minutes. Maybe Ime should ditch the 2 big lineup to start and save it to close.
that's a start and not the worst idea in the world if the matchup makes sense in Q4
Possibly. It implies that his numbers are better when he's on without Al, BUT... it's also important to note that because both are starters minutes with one and not the other tend to be against bench units. also samples are small so some games might skew it.
Maybe the better stat (though also a small sample) would be that in 8 games where Horford didn't play Williams put up:
34.3 MPG, 12.4 PPG, 11.1 RPG, 3.1 APG, on 78/0/56 shooting, and was +47 in 275 minutes
His regular numbers are:
29.4 MPG, 9.9 PPG, 9.4 RPG, 1.9 APG on 74/0/69 shooting and +134 in 1,117 minutes.
Agree on the sample, but I would also say that when he's on without Al, he's also likely on without both Tatum and Brown or whatever. So, I think it is very likely his "with Horford" minutes are artificially inflated by having the 3 best players on the Celtics playing with him, vs. when Rob is out there with Grant instead of Tatum, for example.
TL isn't an All-Star this year and will be hard pressed to be named one given Embiid, Bam, and now Mobely in the conference. That being said, TL has been really really good this year and as mentioned above surprisingly durable.
One would think that having a top 15 guy, a top 25 guy, a borderline-lite All-Star, and an All-Defensive player as a core would translate into a substantially better than .500 team but it hasn't.
It's also interesting to me that despite all the crap that Al gets around here, he's 6th in the league in LEBRON among those players listed as Cs while TL is 25-ish.
By Raptor they're 22nd (RW) and 25th. That LEBRON number really seems off, but despite his shooting Al's advanced numbers really aren't bad.
for some reason LEBRON likes Horford's offensive contribution a lot more than TL's.
Assists? This is total conjecture of course.
The thing about these advanced metrics - and its not that they aren't predictive (as a side note - I am still floored that you thought someone would/could claim that usage...weird) - its that they don't do a great job capturing a leap in real time. These are models so there are a bunch of potential explanations but it might be as simple as Horford was better earlier in the season and TL is better now but its not really being captured in the metric yet.
it usually doesn’t though as teams are going smaller sometimes within a true big at all and spacing the floor to hunt matchups.
1. the C's pt differential (inflated by 2 blowouts) implies they should be substantially better than .500
2. nobody is crapping on Al, he's loved by all, he's just being overused & misused as a sWing
3. any metric that says Al Horford is 6th in the League, in anything other than being a good guy, is flawed. There are other flawed adv metrics that don't love him
4. TL definitely isn't an All-Star, but he is an excellent complimentary player to the JAYs, plus timelines well
It's hard for me to be too critical of a starting lineup that - when together - is one of the best performing units in the league and the best one defensively. Cleaning the glass gives it a net rating of 21.5 in 354 posessions - the best unit with Rob that has played 80 possessions or more.
There are 5 lineups Rob has played 97 possessions or more in, and the 2 best have Al.
- Smart-Brown-Tatum-Al-Rob: +21.5 in 354
- Schroder-Brown-Tatum-Al-Rob: +19.3 in 109
- Schroder-Smart-Brown-Tatum-Rob: +11.3 in 134
- Schroder-Smart-Tatum-Grant-Rob: -10.3 in 97
- Schroder-Smart-Tatum-Al-Rob: -15.7 in 205
According to the above, the common denominator to Rob's best lineups is Brown not Horford, I mean we can play with SSS combos all night. If you look at ALL of Rob's minutes his +/- efficiency spikes when he's not playing with Al, but even that is a little misleading on its own without context. My bigger concern with playing Al/TL together is excessive minutes for an older Horford + forcing minutes from your 3rd string Center. We'll see as the season wears on if Horford's excessive minutes hurt his efficiency. I thought he played better the first 6 weeks, but I'm not 100% certain that's due to minutes
Still feel this team would be better served surrounding Brown/Tatum with more 3pt shooting to unclog the lane and playing Al as the back-up 5. The better teams, that the C's will face in the playoffs, seem pretty capable of stopping 2-shooter lineups.
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I'm not as strong on it as BenHogan, but I do think that either TL/Al have to play less together, or you need a 3rd big who is not Enes added. Al is playing too many minutes, so is most of the team, but it's really noticeable with a 35 year old. The easiest solution is to reduce his minutes, play more with Grant and more super-small lineups. Perhaps the better solution if Ime really thinks the Al/TL combo is good (it's hard to really parse them out) is to reduce Al's minutes some and give them a 3rd in the rotation who can do a bit of everything, rather than Enes who is good at only a few things, and unplayable in many matchups.
There's reports Celts have asked about Theis, who fits very well but is a bit pricey (3/$27 mil remaining after this year) to be the third big. But if you move off of Horford that makes a lot of sense to me. Or, less likely, if TL is outgoing to bring in a scorer/distributor.
Part of what I think is hard about the 2 Big discussion is that we need to have it against a few different scenarios: you really do want/need it against certain teams/lineups; you really don't want it against others (and IMO you don't want it when TL or Horford is out and Kanter is playing a lot of 2 big lineup minutes), etc. It is not an always or never thing and it does make sense sometimes---and generally does help defensively (albeit with offensive trade-offs).
Also, part of the logic on adding another big now would I assume be that Horford may well be gone next year, and if Kanter is back it's a very situational role, so you need to get those minutes somewhere. I do not agree with the view that all bigs are fungible---I think that's actually demonstrably false when we look at contending teams---but I do agree it is easier to fill the 'backup big' slot than many others.
Part of what I think is hard about the 2 Big discussion is that we need to have it against a few different scenarios: you really do want/need it against certain teams/lineups; you really don't want it against others (and IMO you don't want it when TL or Horford is out and Kanter is playing a lot of 2 big lineup minutes), etc. It is not an always or never thing and it does make sense sometimes---and generally does help defensively (albeit with offensive trade-offs).
Also, part of the logic on adding another big now would I assume be that Horford may well be gone next year, and if Kanter is back it's a very situational role, so you need to get those minutes somewhere. I do not agree with the view that all bigs are fungible---I think that's actually demonstrably false when we look at contending teams---but I do agree it is easier to fill the 'backup big' slot than many others.
Yeah, the Celtics seem to be shopping Horford while shopping for replacements if they can move him. I think either way this is probably Al's last year here, he'll get traded or cut in the offseason if he makes it past the deadline I would guess. 3/27 for Theis isn't great, but it looks a lot better if he's your swing big, starting some nights, 1st off the bench others than if he's behind 2 other bigs.
It's amazing how much RWIII has increased his minutes per game this year while not getting those little injuries that plagued him the last few years and also increasing his production. He's second in the NBA in effective field goal % and 9th in offensive rebound percentage (4th in OREB per game). I think the Celtics could use him even more as a rim runner than they do, as I would think that would be a way to try and neutralize/mitigate shot blockers - which the Celtics struggle against (like vs. the Hawks). He's also maintained his elite shot blocking (4th in the league) while not getting into foul trouble despite such a huge increase in minutes played.
I agree that they still somehow underutilize his alley oop threat. Pritchard had excellent chemistry with him last year, it is unfortunate his play hasn't warranted more floor time this season.
TL's first 23 games: 27.8 minutes, .734/----/.619, 9.3 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.7 blocks, 0.7 steals, 1.2 TO, 1.8 PF
TL's last 17 games: 32.2 minutes, .731/.000/.880, 10.6 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.7 blocks, 1.1 steals, 1.2 TO, 2.5 PF
TL's per 36 his 2nd and 3 year combined: 36.0 minutes, .723/.000/.626, 14.9 points, 12.7 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 3.3 blocks, 1.7 steals, 1.9 TO, 4.1 PF
Per 36 last 17: 11.9 points, 12.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 3.0 blocks, 1.2 steals.
I was worried after the first 23 games. The increase in minutes saw TL's advanced rate stats and Per 36 stats tank. It looked like he wouldn't be nearly as effective playing 28 minutes a game instead of 19. I also worried his passing game was put on the back burner for Al Horford. The rebounding numbers were also down, but I mostly attributed that to Al/Tatum. The OReb numbers were still fantastic. Steals and blocks you expect to decrease a little with more time, but he saw close to a 50% drop in both. Add that to the injury history and the fact bigs are easily replaceable, the contract was starting to look pretty meh.
He has since eased my worries. His production over the last 17 games has drastically improved and that's despite another 4.4 minute bump in play. It's also very much in line with his Per 36 stats the previous 2 seasons, minus a slight drop in points and a huge drop in personal fouls. His rebound rate, assist rate, steal rate and block rate have mostly recovered to previous norms. He has emerged as a candidate for the C's 3rd best player, and one of our more valuable trade chips.
He has 236 FGA this year and 96 of those are dunks (45% of FGA). If he develops any type of offensive game that isn't dunks and put backs, he's going to be a monster. His passing game elevates him above JAG big status and makes his contract a bargain rather than an average one or even a poor one. Add an offensive move or two and he could be the 3rd banana.
TL's last 17 games: 32.2 minutes, .731/.000/.880, 10.6 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.7 blocks, 1.1 steals, 1.2 TO, 2.5 PF
TL's per 36 his 2nd and 3 year combined: 36.0 minutes, .723/.000/.626, 14.9 points, 12.7 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 3.3 blocks, 1.7 steals, 1.9 TO, 4.1 PF
Per 36 last 17: 11.9 points, 12.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 3.0 blocks, 1.2 steals.
I was worried after the first 23 games. The increase in minutes saw TL's advanced rate stats and Per 36 stats tank. It looked like he wouldn't be nearly as effective playing 28 minutes a game instead of 19. I also worried his passing game was put on the back burner for Al Horford. The rebounding numbers were also down, but I mostly attributed that to Al/Tatum. The OReb numbers were still fantastic. Steals and blocks you expect to decrease a little with more time, but he saw close to a 50% drop in both. Add that to the injury history and the fact bigs are easily replaceable, the contract was starting to look pretty meh.
He has since eased my worries. His production over the last 17 games has drastically improved and that's despite another 4.4 minute bump in play. It's also very much in line with his Per 36 stats the previous 2 seasons, minus a slight drop in points and a huge drop in personal fouls. His rebound rate, assist rate, steal rate and block rate have mostly recovered to previous norms. He has emerged as a candidate for the C's 3rd best player, and one of our more valuable trade chips.
He has 236 FGA this year and 96 of those are dunks (45% of FGA). If he develops any type of offensive game that isn't dunks and put backs, he's going to be a monster. His passing game elevates him above JAG big status and makes his contract a bargain rather than an average one or even a poor one. Add an offensive move or two and he could be the 3rd banana.
This really should be an area of focus for the Celtics because it can open things up. Jaylen Brown is not going to be a consistent, playmaker finding guys all over the court. But if he can learn to consistently hit Rob when driving, that will limit the center's ability to help off Rob.
Probably the most likely thing he will add is a jumper. (He's over 70% on free throws for the first time this year). I wouldn't mind him adding a post move or two, just something to go to when he's got the ball in close and there is a defender between him and the basket. Usually he just passes in that spot.
Fwiw, I was psyched that he took that 3 yesterday. Not something that we want generally, but he is so passive with the ball in his hands. If he's being completely left alone from 15, he should take that shot.
Well, it depends on how well he shoots them, doesn't it?
I think we'd want to see him develop a midrange before he starts shooting threes, but in general I would like to see him extend his range as ffs at as he can.
Yeah I don't want him shooting them, but I was glad to see the display of confidence.
I'm curious if this is something that is actually required. Do players really need to extend their game to 10-16 feet before they can extend it to beyond the arc? What happens if he practices taking 3s and skips the midrange?
Jayson Tatum definitely wasn't.
He was jumping up and down with his hands in the air
Wasn't there like 2 on the shotclock with no one open? I didn't think it was a bad shot at the time.
I couldn't quite read his reaction if he was saying that RWIII should have swung it to Tatum, or if he was just psyched to see the shot. There were abotu 2 seconds on the clock when RWIII got the ball.