Official Celtics 2022 Off-Season Thread

[Theocy]

Yeah, it would be interesting how the team plans against the eventual defensive strategy of the good teams to just pack the paint, show two against Tatum, and dare the others to shoot or drive into traffic.

Last season, White shot 37.27% on open & wide open shots. Not awful. He was 48.8% from the corners (this season it's gross!). 37% on catch-and-shoot. Again, not bad. But those numbers have gone down this season. Your guess is as good as mine as to why.

One thing I know that hasn't worked when teams defend the Cs this way is standing around the perimeter with little to no movement and hoping Tatum or Brown makes something out of nothing while taking late-clock contested shots.

I havent followed the spurs a lot i admit but other then Dejuntay i dont think they had any other solid offensive options correct ? His numbers might have declined but that team is really bad so perhaps it’s been affecting him too. A 15 ppg player is a good third option for this team - from the little I’ve seen him play he made a good impression on penetrating the basket. Often in a weird way because he is not blazing fast ir anything but he could get to his spots in a weird wobbly way.

Dont know I’m on the fences on this one. Have we gotten enough value for the frp ? It feels like the team is basically moving away from developing guys to basically trying to say it’s competition time

[steefP2]

Wasn't exactly sure where this would fit best but I'll post my thoughts here.

Having Derrick White will absolutely help Jaylen and our offense when Tatum sits. I love Jaylen but he has not been able to keep our offense a float when Tatum goes to the bench by himself. Shroder and him were a terrible fit. With White in the fold, Jaylen can keep functioning as an exceptional play finisher AND have a more viable kick out options who's better driving off close outs. White is also a good pace setter so maybe they can run a bit more but that's probably hoping too much. White doesn't take any long 2's, instead everything is 10 feet and inwards or from 3; he's a good penetrator and loves to operate in that floater range meaning he can hopefully collapse defenses a bit more and kick it out to Jaylen (and Grant) in the corner when Tatum sits.

Having a more team oriented ball handler around instead of shroder should hopefully help pritchard and nesmith too when they get minutes. Theis might also help there cause if you're nesmith and pritchard and you have to play with Enes when you get minutes, it gets real easy to lose leads or look terrible on D.

I think this team makes a ton more sense and while overall shooting remains a weakness, White brings a dynamism that should translate all over the roster.

Oh and we're gonna be absolutely nasty, crazy good defensively. We are gonna bully guards to hell and back.

[Drax]

For our nerds, 538 looks very favorable on this iteration of Celtics.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-nba-predictions/

[winsomme2]

Yeah, it would be interesting how the team plans against the eventual defensive strategy of the good teams to just pack the paint, show two against Tatum, and dare the others to shoot or drive into traffic.

Last season, White shot 37.27% on open & wide open shots. Not awful. He was 48.8% from the corners (this season it's gross!). 37% on catch-and-shoot. Again, not bad. But those numbers have gone down this season. Your guess is as good as mine as to why.

One thing I know that hasn't worked when teams defend the Cs this way is standing around the perimeter with little to no movement and hoping Tatum or Brown makes something out of nothing while taking late-clock contested shots.

I think many of us (myself included) are trying to talk themselves into the idea that DW is a good shooter. I don't think we should put that on him because I don't think he is and I don't want poor outside shooting to be the way we evaluate him.

I think we know how desperate this team is for consistent shooters because it totally affects how this team plays (ie when we have those shooting slumps our defense goes in the tank too and teams can go on a big run because we aren't scoring and are giving up easy buckets on the other end).

I think we just have to be okay with the fact that DW is going to continue this really streaky outside shooting identity that has been with this team for years now.

The question is whether any of PP, Nesmith, and Hauser are going to step up and I guess whether Ime is going to give them a chance to because the one thing they each have in common is that their best skill is 3pt shooting. We know PP is lethal from outside. Hauser is developing that rep in the G League and the whole reason to draft Nesmith was his deep range in college.

I think I will really like DW attacking the basket. It will jump start the kind of ball movement that is required for the Js to get attack lanes to the basket and force defenses to adjust. The main question I have is whether or not Ime is going to give a role to one of our young shooters and whether they are going to be able to seize it.

[winsomme2]

One other thing I'm a little worried about is I think Ime is showing that he really likes a short rotation. So I could definitely see him just playing:

Smart
Brown
Tatum
RWill
Al

DW
Grant
Theis

And that team IMO is going to be really impacted by the lack of shooters. I think if he goes with this 8 man rotation we are going to have some woeful shooting nights.

My hope is that he puts PP into the rotation right away and lets him take some lumps to carve out a role for himself. We absolutely NEED a shooter off the bench but it's not gonna happen with PP proving himself in garbage minutes. It has to be a planned effort on the coaching end.

[Larry_Russell]

Super excited about the offseason now too FYI

Adding theis has made Horford expendable in the offseason just in case a superstar becomes available but our starters, theoretically, are set moving forward.

Our bench next season will have
Grant and theis as absolutes, and Pritchard and Nesmith and Hauser will have opportunities to show they belong in the league and belong being a part of the rotation.

2022-2023 Celtics
Smart/ chance for Pritchard
White/chance for Nesmith
Brown/chance for begarin or hauser
Tatum/Grant
Timelord/Theis

Exciting times ahead.

Right now, assuming player hit their likely incentives and that Horford get waived and stretched out over a 5 year period (14.5 mill/5 years is 2.9 million per season)
Leaves us at 124.8 million in salary 9 players.

Assuming Begarin signs a small contact (say 1.5 million per season) and Hauser is converted to a contract (assume 1.5 million again) we would then be at ~128 million in salary.

Lux tax is expected to be about 147 million meaning the celtics have about 19 million in space BELOW the tax.

MLE is expected to be 10.095 Million
and tax payer MLE is expected to be 6.149 Million

Depending on how the trade is structured boston will either have a TPE worth 17.1 Million that can could use all of, OR and 11.6 million dollar TPE AND the ability to use all or part of the MLE (depends on if they want the tax or not) to fill out the parts of roster that needs is (looking at backup pg,sg,sf right now)


Brad has given the team LOADS of flexibility

[Parliament10]

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[Larry_Russell]

PG: Smart
SG: White
SF: Brown
PF: Tatum
C: Timelord

Let that lineup sink in for a second.

Brown, a very very good defender who can man up against about anyone in the league pg-pf effectively slowing/shutting that player down. I think we all agree that Brown is an Excellent defender.

Brown is the WORST defender in that lineup.

Again, let that sink in.

[Smart2Nesmith43]

An underrated benefit from the deadline deals is that everybody is signed long term so guys can play team basketball instead of playing for their next contract.

Another positive development is that Brad Stevens clearly seems to prefer cycling through end of bench guys quickly until landing a contributor rather than wait years on non NBA players to develop.

[bucknersrevenge]

Yeah, it would be interesting how the team plans against the eventual defensive strategy of the good teams to just pack the paint, show two against Tatum, and dare the others to shoot or drive into traffic.

Last season, White shot 37.27% on open & wide open shots. Not awful. He was 48.8% from the corners (this season it's gross!). 37% on catch-and-shoot. Again, not bad. But those numbers have gone down this season. Your guess is as good as mine as to why.

One thing I know that hasn't worked when teams defend the Cs this way is standing around the perimeter with little to no movement and hoping Tatum or Brown makes something out of nothing while taking late-clock contested shots.

I havent followed the spurs a lot i admit but other then Dejuntay i dont think they had any other solid offensive options correct ? His numbers might have declined but that team is really bad so perhaps it’s been affecting him too. A 15 ppg player is a good third option for this team - from the little I’ve seen him play he made a good impression on penetrating the basket. Often in a weird way because he is not blazing fast ir anything but he could get to his spots in a weird wobbly way.

Dont know I’m on the fences on this one. Have we gotten enough value for the frp ? It feels like the team is basically moving away from developing guys to basically trying to say it’s competition time

Interesting. I kinda read these moves the other way around. Clearing out Dennis, Romeo and Josh actually gives us the opportunity to give Nesmith, PP, and maybe to a lesser extent, Hauser to play and develop. We're still a fairly young team here don't forget. The Jay's, the Williams'; we're young and developing all over the place. And we still have Begarrin and Madar waiting in the wings.

[Joshyjess]

An underrated benefit from the deadline deals is that everybody is signed long term so guys can play team basketball instead of playing for their next contract.

Another positive development is that Brad Stevens clearly seems to prefer cycling through end of bench guys quickly until landing a contributor rather than wait years on non NBA players to develop.

I think it also shows that Brad cares more about what Ime thinks as a coach then Danny did about what Brad thought as a coach. In other words, Brad made moves that seemed to be about what Ime wanted.

[AgentGreen]

We are on a good run, too bad we are having one of the first real tests against the Nuggets just when we made some roster changes. Our team could underperform because of a new rotation with creating chemistry with the new additions. Let's hope that Nesmith and Pritchard will be fired up to proof themselves.

Too bad we wasted easily winnable games. We probably would've been first if we didn't choke away all these potential game winners. Like how many did we actually choke 5-10 games? I lost count. But that would've placed us next or above the Heat.

Boston running on all cylinders will be a ECF finals candidate imo, most rivals don't realise that yet.

[zoyathedestroya]

Our regular starters have a win % (16-6) of a 60-win team.

[Fierce1]

Season saved by the improved play of Smart and the acquisition of White and Theis.

[steefP2]

In the nuggets game, aka Derrick’s first game, we had a lot more points in the paint and transition frequency was way above the Celtics’ average. Coincidence ? You decide !

[zoyathedestroya]

In the nuggets game, aka Derrick’s first game, we had a lot more points in the paint and transition frequency was way above the Celtics’ average. Coincidence ? You decide !

2nd highest pace too for the season. Thanks to 18 offensive rebounds (2nd highest) and 20.2 opponent turnover rate (highest). 96 FGAs in a regulation game! Tommy must have enjoyed watching that.

[zoyathedestroya]

Happy birthday to the GOAT!

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[zoyathedestroya]

Jeez.

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[Bill Lumbergh]

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[steefP2]

Over the last 20 games or so, Smart is shooting 37% from 3 and Derrick white 39%. I’d urge you not to look at the jays numbers. Worse than don’t Google Fournier.

First 29 games for Smart:26% from 3. Last 25: 37%