Welcome to Boston/Maine Celtics, RJ Luis, Jr. (Two-Way, Aug. 5, 2025)

[celticgreenie]

Interesting coincidence. RJ and Boucher share the same agent, who represents very few NBA players.

[Hal14]

Interesting coincidence. RJ and Boucher share the same agent, who represents very few NBA players.

Interesting note.

The agent does seem to have a decent sized client list though:

https://basketball.realgm.com/info/agent-client-list/Sam-Permut/855

[sam_I_am]

I am intrigued after watching highlights. The guy has a great motor and really plays above the rim. Reminds me of Derrick White with steals and blocks and crafty finishes.

I could see Norris being odd man out of 2 way guys. Unless they give a roster spot to the center they drafted.

[Hal14]

One thing I like about Luis. The trajectory.

Freshman year: Was a role player in the A-10 (at UMass)

Sophomore year: Moves up to harder conference, to the Big east to play for St John's. Was able to handle the step up in competition..was a solid role player

Junior year: Big East Player of the Year..made a big leap as a junior. Must have really worked his tail off..

He has wing size. He has wing athleticism. He plays hard, has a toughness/edge to him. He can defense, he can drive. Not a good shooter but not a terrible one - if we can get him to shoot better, he could possibly make it in the league.

Solid flier to take on a 2-way. Low risk, high reward.

Also, while Luis did go undrafted, you could argue that he was the best player in this draft class who went undrafted. And 1 of the 2nd round picks got forfeited. So there was only 59 guys drafted. There's a good chance that if 60 guys were drafted, Luis would have been the 60th pick.

We basically got 4 of the top 60 players in this draft class - Hugo, Amari, Shulga, Luis.

At one point earlier in the season last year, I saw him as a borderline 1st round pick caliber prospect.

Would love to be a fly on the wall at those training camp practices to see Luis, Walsh, Baylor, Hugo and Minott flying around, battling, going at each other and fighting for depth chart position/mins.

[Fierce1]

Reggie Luis.

[Parliament10]

Reggie Luis.

While Reggie Jason "RJ" Luis Jr. is his actual name. It's really not funny.
That's a deep wound in the Celtics community.

[Fierce1]

Reggie Luis.

While Reggie Jason "RJ" Luis Jr. is his actual name. It's really not funny.
That's a deep wound in the Celtics community.

Yeah, that was really shocking, especially after Len Bias.

We'll just have to call him RJ instead.

[threrf23]

One thing I like about Luis. The trajectory.

Freshman year: Was a role player in the A-10 (at UMass)

Sophomore year: Moves up to harder conference, to the Big east to play for St John's. Was able to handle the step up in competition..was a solid role player

Junior year: Big East Player of the Year..made a big leap as a junior. Must have really worked his tail off..

Junior year, he turned 21 in November. He hit physical maturity. That is all.

Sophomore year, his outside shooting did take a hit & his foul efficiency was a little worse, understandable given that he stepped into a better conference, but I'm just saying.

His per 40 production actually didn't change much from year to year, by the numbers he mostly just improved his foul efficiency and turned the ball over less...which does mean something.

He was a solid rebounder in college, which often portends good things. On the flip side, he was rather inefficient inside the arc, a lot of FG attempts but was consistently around 48%. When a smaller guard struggles to hit 50% from inside the arc throughout 3-4 years of college I find it tends to be a soft red flag, someone with RJ's size should have effortlessly been above 50% if a legit NBA prospect IMO.

But idk, St. John's was a dominant team last year despite that their offense was horrible. This guy likely contributed to their success on the defensive end, hopefully he was held back by his teammates & system more than he was a contributing factor to that mess on offense.

[return2glory]

Hoping RJ plays well. This was a guy that was a potential late lottery pick midway through the college season last season. He could have easily been picked anywhere from 14-25. But something happened. I knew he had a really bad final game in the tourny. I watched that game. Otherwise he had a really strong season. Wishing him the best on the Celtics.

[redslastlaugh]

Obviously, he didn't get drafted. But a lot of analysts thought he'd be in the mix in the 25-45 range, even after his lousy end to the college season.
Ringer draft guide big board had Luis as 42nd best prospect in the draft. For comparison they had Hugo Gonzalez as the 37th best, so not much separation there

Hoping RJ plays well. This was a guy that was a potential late lottery pick midway through the college season last season. He could have easily been picked anywhere from 14-25. But something happened. I knew he had a really bad final game in the tourny. I watched that game. Otherwise he had a really strong season. Wishing him the best on the Celtics.

[redslastlaugh]

Chuck from Chucking Darts has RJ Luis as the highest rated draft prospect of the four guys we got on draft night.

His board:

34. RJ Luis
52. Hugo Gonzalez
53. Amari Williams
55. Max Shulga

https://chuckingdarts.substack.com/p/2025-nba-draft-final-dart-board-cooper

[jfs1000d]

I don't think I've ever seen a GM trade for a two way guy before (yes I'm aware the move was more about cutting Niang's salary) so it's nice to know that Stevens can still get creative within the boundaries of this CBA and the cheapskate new ownership.

Can't say I know enough about RJ Luis to have a strong opinion on his game. I wish him luck in Maine.

I'm curious to see how the two way situation will play out. Amari Williams still hasn't signed and all three two ways are now filled. Assuming this was in the works for a few days, it makes it fascinating that they decided to lock Shulga in first despite drafting him lower and knowing the roster crunch was coming.

At end of day we wanted him. I like that about Luis. I think I he is a low ceiling player but he might be able to be a bench piece co tribute on a good team. Exactly what we need. We have 3 guys on 2 ways to develop as rookies.


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[return2glory]

Watch on YouTube

I think Luis has starter potential in the NBA. He has the talent. It's up to him to show how hard he is willing to work.
People see him go undrafted and think he is not going to make it. He could have easily been drafted in the 1st round.

[ThePigeon]

Watch on YouTube

I think Luis has starter potential in the NBA. He has the talent. It's up to him to show how hard he is willing to work.
People see him go undrafted and think he is not going to make it. He could have easily been drafted in the 1st round.

Just from this video, I am not impressed by his defensive effort. He seems lackluster on the defensive end
Offense is there but some bad decisions that he needs to work on
Hope he'll do well and develop to a complete player

I was impressed by this guy Richmond from St.J

[Hal14]

Watch on YouTube

I think Luis has starter potential in the NBA. He has the talent. It's up to him to show how hard he is willing to work.
People see him go undrafted and think he is not going to make it. He could have easily been drafted in the 1st round.

Luis was much better than Kalkbrenner in this game (a guy some folks on here wanted us to draft)

He had a hell of a game.

I really like how Luis constantly tries to get out in transition to get easy baskets - before the opposing defense gets set. That's probably the biggest thing he can potentially bring to the Celtics. Often when we struggle, it's when we play too slow, we're attacking a set defense, offense gets stagnant, not able to generate easy shots.

Luis can potentially help us there.

There's a non-zero chance that he ends up being our best player from the 2025 draft class.

[jfs1000d]

So we have to over reach on guys? We all love second rounders. Luis seems like a good player, I like him better than Williams and Shulga. I like Ron Harper Jr better than Shulga as well.

[redslastlaugh]

We had KP on an expiring contract. And we traded him and a second for Niang and a second. Then we traded Niang and two seconds for the 2-way contract of RJ Luis.

Trading KP, a 20pt/8reb all star, and two seconds for an undrafted rookie on a two way, is a little disappointing as far as the return I'd want to get back.

But RJ Luis played at UMass and some people liked him pre-draft as a borderline first round pick (in the 25-45 range on some big boards). So I don't hold it against RJ Luis that he is the only thing return after trading 2 seconds and Kristaps Porzingis.

Read on Twitter

So we have to over reach on guys? We all love second rounders. Luis seems like a good player, I like him better than Williams and Shulga. I like Ron Harper Jr better than Shulga as well.

[Bad-Thoma]

But RJ Luis played at UMass and some people liked him pre-draft as a borderline first round pick (in the 25-45 range on some big boards). So I don't hold it against RJ Luis that he is the only thing return after trading 2 seconds and Kristaps Porzingis.

That certainly seems like a poor return until you factor in the reason they traded KP was to shed enough salary to get out of the second apron. He had a 30 mil cap hit, averages being available for just over half a season and is usually beat to **** by the playoffs. The only playoff series he didn't suck in was the Finals against Dallas and he only played in 3 games in that one. Every other team knew the position we were in, no one was going to give us anything for him.

Mostly I'm just still surprised that Brad moved KP that cheaply and felt the need to point it out, I thought for sure moving Jrue and KP was inevitable and that it would cost us 1sts.

[Curmudgeon]

We now have the biggest stars on the Portuguese national team and the Ecuadorian national team.