2016-17 Celtics

[Crow]

% cumulatively positive lineups down to 27% for entire playoffs.

For Cavs series, just 22%. Of top 14 most used lineups (used over 4 minutes), 5 were positive or 36%. Of the 45 dinkier lineups the % positive was 15.6%. Coach knows, defer to him, so essentially says a former NBA insider on twitter recently.

[Crow]

In playoffs the Celtics play teams with 14th, 9th and 7th best SRS in regular season. Number of players who post .100 on winshares /48? 3 and 2 near misses. Only 2 among those getting 15 plus minutes per game. Thomas ends up at .078. Bradley .016. Jaylen Brown .023. Smart .045.

Celtic wing depth, a point of pride of a Celtic insider on twitter earlier this season. Celtic wings with better than league average on ws/48 in playoffs? One, Crowder, barely (unless you also count Jerebko as a wing... but probably shouldn't).

Number with above average playoff 3pt shooting fg%? 4 but only one starter.

% cumulatively positive lineups ends up at 25.5% for entire playoffs.

[Crow]

Celtics end up in virtual tie for 11th / 12th place on % of lineups cumulatively positive with Blazers. Worse (13th towards 16th): Bucks, Rockets, Wizards, Thunder (only 17.6% positive). Only Pop and Doc used more lineups than Stevens, with no one else close. Brad the tactician pulling the lever on the slot machine in high volume to find winners. It worked against the lower SRS teams, eventually, barely. It is a style. A winner in every 4. Best teams, 1 in 3.

[Crow]

Jaylen Brown had a meh at best season. The role up boxscorce metrics and RPM basically say he was bad in regular season and mostly bad in playoffs too. Maybe typical rookie bad but it was not much for a high draft pick. Is he untouchable? To Ainge, probably. To me, nope. I'd be fine discussing trades for him.

Ainge amused that fans are interested / concerned about Thomas' next contract. Very condescending comments. And deflecting about the challenge. They should be following that issue and any and every strategic issue. This is modern NBA fandom for at least for the zealots. He will be debating the options and the fans are already there and care about the choice & the outcome.

[Rd11490]

This might be a result of sample size (granted we are dealing with a rookie who played 17 min/game off the end of the bench of a playoff team so there isn't much to sample from in the first place) but from a quick glance at the numbers he showed some improvement post all-star break in fg%, 3pt fg% and TS.


EDIT* the image is coming out way too large and i'm not sure how to resize it on the board. Here's a link: http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... plits/2017

I think it's way too early to move on from a top 3 pick after their rookie season unless you are getting a truly talented player back. When you factor in the current state of the eastern conference and the optimal time for the Celtics to peak as a team, I don't see any reason to move on from brown at this time.

[Crow]

I tend to be cautious about post-break stats as many teams play less seriously.

Yeah some improvement in that time period but back to replacement level metric scores on all the major metrics and the shooting / scoring efficiencies in the playoffs.

Young players, usually over-hyped. Decent or better by year 3 or 5? Maybe.

[jgoldstein34]

It's at least better to improve throughout the season, but I'd agree that pre/post ASB stats don't matter much. He had a bad to meh rookie year. If a trade becomes available for a star player and they don't do it because of his "potential" it would be a huge mistake.

[Crow]

Fultz and Hayward would add to Celtics strengths (providing some plus shooting / scoring perhaps but also some redundancy with only so many shots to go around) but leave their main issue- rebounding- to ge addressed with the non-prime assets. That does not sound that good of a plan to me. Who is the best great rebounding big man who could play well next to Horford? That is the main question that NEEDS answering.

[Dr Positivity]

Fultz and Hayward would add to Celtics strengths (providing some plus shooting / scoring perhaps but also some redundancy with only so many shots to go around) but leave their main issue- rebounding- to ge addressed with the non-prime assets. That does not sound that good of a plan to me. Who is the best great rebounding big man who could play well next to Horford? That is the main question that NEEDS answering.

Ante Zizic is an outstanding rebounding prospect so that helps

[Crow]

Zizic is a good rebounder. Better than Saric and Juan Hernangomez, as you would expect. The main question is does he do enough stuff acceptably to be on the court in the playoffs much or at all. Eventually, probably. Next season? I dunno, that is asking a lot.

[Crow]

More minutes for Jaylen Brown seems inevitable. Last season by a number of measures he had the worst impact of any Celtic in the regular rotation. How much does he improve?

Amir Johnson? I haven't heard anyone predict he'll be back. Olynyk? No better than 50-50 he is back.

Fultz, Zizic... unless they are atypical, they'll be negative on RPM.

I think there is more chance the Celts slip some next regular season and playoffs than get better.

[jgoldstein34]

They probably slip, I wouldn't expect IT to be quite as good either. Unless Brown or one of the rookies wildly outperforms expectations, they'll slip a few wins.

[Crow]

Hey IT, your confidence on offense is mostly justified, regular season. 6th best ORPM. But your recent attempt to deny your defensive liability, trying to slough it off as mere heightism, was totally bogus. DRPM has you as 2nd worst defensive impact. That pulls down your overall RPM impact to 59th. Your DRPM gas been very bad 4 years running. That isn't observer error based on your height, that is consistently bad team defensive impact. Estimated twice as bad last season as previous year. Even if perhaps too high, still terrible in a consistently terrible pattern.

You may be best player in world to you but to me using RPM as a starting point you are closer to 59th. 3 playoffs, you got points but overall you were not much / enough net help. By WS/48 and BPM, once a bit above league average, once average or a bit below and first time out flat out weak / bad.

I hope you have enjoyed the recent mostly favorable media handling. Things probably going to be tougher. Only better defense (can you pull it from 467th backs towards 300th or dream of dreams 200th? Other guys your height have managed that or far better and you were probably 300-350ish in past) and / or better playoff offense should get more praise. Do the same and you should get far more heat on defense and some more on playoff offense.

[jgoldstein34]

Yeah Thomas is a serious defensive issue. I don't think he can play in some matchups. That's a bad sign for an apparent franchise player.

[Crow]

Meh draft. No trade yet. All indications stil that they will bring a huge salary guy who doesn't deliver great value and lose some good to great value guys.