IT's All-Star chances

[ConstableGeneva]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UlB52pJNWI[/youtube]

[jmr07019]

Didn't realize Kyrie was out until January. Obviously this helps IT's chances.

[soxfan2003]

Didn't realize Kyrie was out until January. Obviously this helps IT's chances.

It does but I don't think necessarily by that much. If someone like Wall wins the popular vote to start in the game and would have been picked by the coaches, it helps IT. But if Rose wins the popular vote to start then I think IT isn't helped much. I don't think Rose was an automatic pick at all by the coaches at all so if Kyrie just loses out all star votes to Rose, IT is pretty much in the same position.

Kyrie with his national exposure last year may be able to win the popular vote even without playing until January so it may have no impact from that angle as well.

[ConstableGeneva]

This recent rape charge on Rose could hurt his brand a bit.

[KGboss]

Did yall see little IT getting up and blocking Trevor Ariza?

[soxfan2003]

Pierce had Antoine Walker, Rodney Rogers, Tony Delk, and Kenny Anderson - Raef and GP in other seasons - all of those guys were superior offensively to the past year's supporting cast in terms of raw production and the game plan.

IT just carried an insane USG% last year - that's above his level - I'll judge him once their is a balanced attack that requires less concentrated game planning. Go back and watch PP vs IT in their early playoff debuts - IT had 3 defenders shadowing him for large portions of the CLE series, Pierce never faced that level of game planning scrutiny because he had shooters on his teams.

Give IT some three point threats and watch that TS% soar.

I actually agree that at times, PP played with more offensive talent than IT did this past playoffs but I think you are overstating it. And perhaps the fairest way to look at it is the overall quality of your teammates on the offensive end, the team defenses you were facing, your main defender and the NBA rules in place.

PP in his first year in the playoffs faced the 1st, 4th and 8th ranked defenses in the NBA and that was when hand checking was legal. His 2nd year in the playoffs, he faced the top ranked defense in the entire NBA and then the 5th ranked defense in the NBA. Cleveland got a heck of a lot better defensively after their trades so I won't state their lousy yearly rating but even after the trades they were only 12th in defensive rating. Cavs defense became top notch when Love and Irving were both out.

Regardless, I wasn't trying to focus on PP in his first couple of playoff series vs IT this post season but I was trying to focus on that Indiana series specifically in which PP did not score efficiently.

The starters PP had to put up with in the 2004 post season against Indiana were Blount, Atkins, McCarthy, and Jiri Welsch. The bench (Ricky Davis, Chris Mihm, Banks) was even worse. It is frightening that the Celtics outside of Pierce were that bad without the team trying to actually tank games. I will take Boston's offensive talent that IT got to play with way before that very limited cast of characters. With that lousy supporting cast, Pierce was facing the 3rd best defense in the NBA that won 61 games and was coached by Carlisle. Pierce was also known as a great player so he was a marked man especially since he already had led Boston past Indiana the year before. And the Pacers could hand check as well.

Now here are some of the other players that PP played with before KG/RA and my assessment of them.

Walker was a seriously flawed top 35-50 player when he was near his best which was just really a couple of years. Regardless, Walker wasn't on that terrible 2003/4 team. LaFrentz was but he pretty much missed nearly the entire season including the entire playoffs in 2003-4.

Kenny Anderson was slightly below average overall for his career with the Celtics and just played in one post season with the Celtics/Pierce. A clear upgrade over rookie Billups that Pitino was foolish enough to trade but by the time the Celtics drafted PP and he got really good, Anderson was below average even on offense. His last 2 years with Boston his TS% was around 47.4% which is not good at all.

Rodgers was a good offensive player to have off of the bench as a floor spacer. But his TS% dropped like a stone after he left Boston even when he played with the Nets. Pierce played with Rogers for a total of 27 regular season games and the Pierce/Walker led offense got Rogers tons of wide open looks and thus it is not a surprise he posted his career high TS% with Boston. With a mediocre supporting cast, Pierce led the Celtics to the ECFinals. No doubt Pierce's supporting cast on offense that year was better than IT's this year but he had that supporting case for a grand total of 1 playoffs. And PP obviously did well enough to get the Celtics to the ECFinals.

Years later, Gary Payton, who just played one year with the Celtics, was good with the Celtics but he was not that close to his prime HOF caliber play due to age(36).

Overall, LaFrentz was a major downgrade from the good version of Walker in Boston and Ainge as smart to cut his losses and pay the price to swap him for the Ratliff contract that was a year shorter.

I do agree with you that IT's TS% in the playoffs is capable of going up but if the Celtics are going to win a championship, I can't envision him starting on the typically constructed championship team. For it to make sense to start IT, it would probably have to be on a team with 4 above average to great defenders. IMO IT is a better overall player than 2007-8 Rondo but unless a team was truly causing the Celtics problems by daring the Celtics to shoot, I would start even 2007-8 Rondo over IT given that PP/RA/KG back then were good enough to deal with Rondo's lack of floor spacing. Another way to look at it, pretend this years Warriors had a healthy Durant at SF and didn't have Stephen Curry on the team but had a role playing guard equivalent to Harrison Barnes. All of the other Warriors the same as this year. I am no huge Barnes fan but given this hypothetical Warriors team has Durant and Klay T, I'd probably want to start the Harrison Barnes level PG over IT. It isn't even that Barnes is the better player but he is the better fit as a starter since even though he is hardly D Green on defense, he is certainly well above IT.

I wish IT nothing but the best with the Celtics. I especially like rooting for the guy since there are not many people that succeed in the NBA that are a couple of inches shorter than me but I do think the Celtics have to be realistic about what his best role is on a championship contender. First guard off the bench. Nothing wrong with that as long as he accepts that role. IT does deserve to start on some team from the perspective that he is one of the 30 best PGs in the NBA but so isn't Smart and Smart just projects to be the much better fit as a starter on a typical champion.

[BfB]

I need to see IT play with an above average collection of shooters before I make a final assessment of his potential as a starter. The hypothetical scenario you laid out above is well thought out, but it is speculative on a massive scale - sometimes you just got to let 'em play and see what transpires.

IT plays the least important defensive position on the court, it's virtually impossible to impact the game like a GP era PG could now that no handchecking exists. For a player as good at dribble pentration and scoring as IT, it doesn't take much to offset his defensive limitations in today's game - plenty of quality teams have started a poor defender at one of the tuard spots.

The current team isn't designed for that, they need the perimeter to be top notch. But, I don't think we've seen IT's best considering the quality of his teams and the level of continuity he's been afforded the time to reach with each.

This will be the best team he's been a part of to date in his career, certainly defensively, and one designed to play off his greatest strengths offensively. If they can shoot at even a league average level, it should dramatically change the way defenses are forced to play off the elbows and corners.

At that point, we'll see what happens next. But, i've seen enough to want to actually experience pushing IT's limits first-hand, vs. intellectualizing them and never giving him a teue shot.

[ConstableGeneva]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Isaiah_Thomas/status/638245366396121088[/tweet][tweet]https://twitter.com/scott_souza/status/639242450905657344[/tweet]

[ConstableGeneva]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ESPNForsberg/status/639205821801480192[/tweet]

[OFWGKTA]

#FreeIT

[pfm]

I really don't get why people get so bent out of shape over whether IT will start or not. It's the number of minutes he plays and finding the minutes in games in which he is most impactful. If it is deemed that he is most effective when coming off the bench and going against the other team's bench guys then he should do that. If he is closing games all the better.

I get it from his perspective as an ego thing. It is thought that the best players start and you want to be considered in that group. But from a non biased practical side, it really shouldn't matter. You just want him to be in there when he can be the most effective.

[FlatearthZorro]

To me, if IT plays the same way, he did last season and the C's play that same brand of basketball, he has a huge chance of being an all-star... I actually think he'd make it.

[jmr07019]

I really don't get why people get so bent out of shape over whether IT will start or not. It's the number of minutes he plays and finding the minutes in games in which he is most impactful. If it is deemed that he is most effective when coming off the bench and going against the other team's bench guys then he should do that. If he is closing games all the better.

I get it from his perspective as an ego thing. It is thought that the best players start and you want to be considered in that group. But from a non biased practical side, it really shouldn't matter. You just want him to be in there when he can be the most effective.

I (and I speculate most people) associate starting with more minutes.

As far as IT being better against bench players ..... Isn't that true of every player making it a moot point?

[Green89]

Bench or starter, he needs to average more than 30 minutes per game. Leading scorers on any given team should get the most minutes to increase your chances of winning. The sample size of team's in any of the past 20 years who've had their top scorer either come off the bench or not get the team's most minutes, has to be either miniscule or practically nil. I can't even point to any examples or players myself, other than IT.

[BfB]

One of the most ill imformed rationale's on here is that bench players play against other bench players a majority of the time. In truth, the minutes overlap for high minute rotation players is relatively small, with a majority of time being almost equally distributed as that of the starters. If IT plays 30 mpg his ratio of "starter-to-bench" mins will be newrly identical to the "starters".

The real key is production i. the mins spent on-court. Staggering the rotation gives IT the chance to burst early in the game and carry that momentum into effecting the other team's sub patterns. Doing this well will lead to potential AS selection, which can lead to a much better reputation lon-term than many starters - ala, Manu.

[FakeScreenName123]

I really don't get why people get so bent out of shape over whether IT will start or not. It's the number of minutes he plays and finding the minutes in games in which he is most impactful. If it is deemed that he is most effective when coming off the bench and going against the other team's bench guys then he should do that. If he is closing games all the better.

I get it from his perspective as an ego thing. It is thought that the best players start and you want to be considered in that group. But from a non biased practical side, it really shouldn't matter. You just want him to be in there when he can be the most effective.

I agree that it's weird when us fans get invested into this particular debate strongly. How he produces is irrelevant if it's meeting or exceeding our fandom's demand.


If I was IT i'd definitely want to start. It'd be weird not to be competitive that way. There are also status and financial implications for being designated as a starter.

[165bows]

One of the most ill imformed rationale's on here is that bench players play against other bench players a majority of the time. In truth, the minutes overlap for high minute rotation players is relatively small, with a majority of time being almost equally distributed as that of the starters. If IT plays 30 mpg his ratio of "starter-to-bench" mins will be newrly identical to the "starters".

The real key is production i. the mins spent on-court. Staggering the rotation gives IT the chance to burst early in the game and carry that momentum into effecting the other team's sub patterns. Doing this well will lead to potential AS selection, which can lead to a much better reputation lon-term than many starters - ala, Manu.

I'm sure people in the industry have much better tools but folks on here can see it on a game by game basis on popcornmachine.net. They show not only box scores but who plays when for all participants in each game.

Good place to confirm what rotations look like in real time.

[ConstableGeneva]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/si_nba/status/640354310019239936[/tweet]

A final note for Thomas is his playoff performance in 2015. Yes, his efficiency was ghastly—33.3% from the field and 16.7% from long range—but he did average 17.5 points and 7 assists per game against the eventual Eastern Conference champion Cavaliers. According to Basketball Reference, Boston was outscored by 3.3 points per 100 possessions when Thomas was playing. When he sat, the Celtics were pummeled by a 24.7-point margin per 100 possessions. He wasn’t efficient, but he kept his team far more competitive, and that should count for something.

I know we were bad when IT sat. I didn't know we were THAT bad. Wow. The little guy needs help.

[165bows]

I thought IT would get off to a strong start, which hasn't really happened.

That said, he is currently 12th in PPG, 9th in assists per game, and 12th in steals per game, league wide. He's also 19th in PER, even though I think that stat is pretty useless. He's shooting poorly compared to his history, but is currently getting to the line more than any season in his career. He's also currently posting his highest career assist%, without increasing his turnover rates.

IT getting close to his historical scoring efficiency would be a big boost for this team.

[BfB]

His shooting will normalize as the rest of his teammates continue to hit shots.