Welcome to Boston, Wenyen Gabriel! (Waived - peace out, Wenyen)

[meatball sub]

how the hell is this guy a top 10 post defender and nobody wanted to sign him??!?!

[SlimShady83]

how the hell is this guy a top 10 post defender and nobody wanted to sign him??!?!

probably because only thing people look at these days are shooting

[Triple7]

I like this signing. He has potential, and can definitley improve. He has a good shooting stroke, and i don’t think he’ll be as gun shy as Rob on that end. He has some handles for a big guy.and a really good motor and hops.

[Kalela]

Welcome to Boston, Wenyen Gabriel. Hopefully, he will do well in Boston.

ps. Isaiah Jackson would have been the perfect replacement for Timelord but there is probably no way to get him.

[JTMVP]

Interesting player. Looks like a hustle guy. As long as he can defend and rebound, that is good enough. He looked decent last year in limited time.

[Hal14]

Welcome to Boston, Wenyen Gabriel. Hopefully, he will do well in Boston.

ps. Isaiah Jackson would have been the perfect replacement for Timelord but there is probably no way to get him.

Wenyen is actually pretty similar to Jackson, in terms of size, build, mobility, strengths, weaknesses and stuff.

Jackson being younger has higher upside to eventually become the better player. But Gabriel at age 26 is probably more likely to help us win banner 18 in the short term.

Also, Gabriel was just sitting there in free agency. Jackson would have taken assets to acquire him and I haven't seen any reports/rumors to indicate Indy is looking to move Jackson.

[Shak_Celts]

Watching highlights, how does he have so many assist highlights? Like, what?? Watched a little 5m video and i said, “JB could get some pointers!” Really, for the 15th man, he looks like he can keep the ball moving with solid instinct.

[31to6]

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Rob WIlliams could work on his offensive game for 15 straight healthy summers and maybe never try, in game, some of the things Gabriel does. But if WG can be 1/3 of my binky RW for the next couple of years I’ll be happy enough.

[ConstableGeneva]

Read on Twitter

You know this to be true because it rhymes.

This offseason, he worked out with the same trainer as Robert Williams III.

[djFan71]

I like him and I like the signing, but stat nerds: his +/- doesn't look very good so far in his career? That was, of course, a Rob Willimas III speciality.

Dunno about +/- but he will help with the interior defense. Boomer like Al still keeping up with these Gen Zs.

Read on Twitter

Man, I've always liked Wendell Catheter Jr. Wanted him in many of my Jaylen trades.
Wenyen Gabriel will have to do. Solid end of bench guy.

[ConstableGeneva]

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[ConstableGeneva]

Is he like Montrezl Harrell with passing and defense but less offensive skill?

[ConstableGeneva]

I'm trying to convince myself that Wenyen can come in and fill the Griffin role from last season. For the regular season, as long as Porzingis and Horford aren't out for extended stretches, our bigs rotation will be fine.

Celtics went 22-7 in the first 29 games Rob was out. They were 17-4 when Kornet played more than 15 minutes (some are admittedly garbage minutes). Celtics still had a +4.5 net rating in the 1,281 possessions with Kornet at center and both Horford/Timelord were off the floor.

In the playoffs, we need both Horford and Porzingis to be healthy, no question about it. No available big can make up for the loss of either guy. Last playoffs, we basically rolled out two bigs (Horford, Timelord) entire postseason with Grant being the "third big". Might have taken a toll on Horford after defending Embiid then facing Bam in the ECF.

[steefP2]

I'm trying to convince myself that Wenyen can come in and fill the Griffin role from last season. For the regular season, as long as Porzingis and Horford aren't out for extended stretches, our bigs rotation will be fine.

Celtics went 22-7 in the first 29 games Rob was out. They were 17-4 when Kornet played more than 15 minutes (some are admittedly garbage minutes). Celtics still had a +4.5 net rating in the 1,281 possessions with Kornet at center and both Horford/Timelord were off the floor.

In the playoffs, we need both Horford and Porzingis to be healthy, no question about it. No available big can make up for the loss of either guy. Last playoffs, we basically rolled out two bigs (Horford, Timelord) entire postseason with Grant being the "third big". Might have taken a toll on Horford after defending Embiid then facing Bam in the ECF.

I think of Wenyen like a more mobile, higher motor vonleh. But to your point of Horford; we didn’t have a good big outside of him for most of the season, and even when rob came back he wasn’t ready
For real minutes.

Just 1800 minutes of porzingis (30mpg, 60 games) will be enormous in keeping Horford fresh.

And lastly for the playoffs; just don’t **** around. I close opponents out when you have a shot, don’t play around with the hawks and sixers really.

More blowouts; less minutes. In short; be better lol

But I think the combo of Wenyen/Stevens/Brisset/kornett is probably equal to Blake/kornett/grant from last year for the regular season with the big difference coming from 1500-200 minutes over the 800-900 we got from rob.

[Hal14]

In the playoffs, we need both Horford and Porzingis to be healthy, no question about it. No available big can make up for the loss of either guy. Last playoffs, we basically rolled out two bigs (Horford, Timelord) entire postseason with Grant being the "third big". Might have taken a toll on Horford after defending Embiid then facing Bam in the ECF.

I think the answer to that (Al not running out of gas deep into the playoffs) is a combination of:

a) Lower his minutes a little bit. We gave him plenty of rest games last season, but last season he was at 30.5 MPG in reg season and 30.9 MPG in playoffs. Let's lower those down, closer to the 25 MPG mark.

b) We'll be able to lower Al's mins a little bit if KP plays more games and more MPG than Rob did last season

c) We'll also be able to lower Al's mins a little bit if we play more single big lineups - meaning someone like Tatum, Brissett or Stevens at the 4.

d) Gabriel is essentially replacing Griffin. Gabriel is 26, plays with a high motor and tons of energy - he played like 60 games last season so he'll probably be able to handle a little bit more of a workload than Griffin had last season - who was much older, and his body was only able to handle about 40 games last season

e) We're also not relying on Al's scoring as much this season. So that means he'll likely be more efficient (since he'll often be the 5th or *maybe* 4th option on offense when he's on the floor and it also means if he does happen to have a cold shooting game/series, it's not going to cost us our season

[31to6]

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in his highlights he looks like a classic NBA Jam player come to life

[shackles10]

He's about the same size as Rob, but man makes you realize what crazy hops Rob has in how he gets up for blocks and lobs. Either way, I like his hustle and work on the offensive glass. Also it's been awhile since I've rooted for UK player at the NBA level (James Young your lazy ass doesn't count!).

[steefP2]

Very much high from Celtics media day fluff but I kinda really like Wenyen. He needs to be better at basic nba things like finishing and pick and roll defense to really have a place BUT he has very fun mix of ancillary/swing skills that could be very intriguing if he gets better at the basics.

Very high motor, plays super hard but yeah so those flash skills

1. Fun passing skills, flashed some nifty inside the paint passes and corner swings.
2. A surprisingly functional, smooth dribble. No face up game really but he can take 2-4 dribbles without embarrassing himself, that’s not nothing.
3. Some nascent shooting.

[31to6]

Very much high from Celtics media day fluff but I kinda really like Wenyen. He needs to be better at basic nba things like finishing and pick and roll defense to really have a place BUT he has very fun mix of ancillary/swing skills that could be very intriguing if he gets better at the basics.

Very high motor, plays super hard but yeah so those flash skills

1. Fun passing skills, flashed some nifty inside the paint passes and corner swings.
2. A surprisingly functional, smooth dribble. No face up game really but he can take 2-4 dribbles without embarrassing himself, that’s not nothing.
3. Some nascent shooting.

yup. So if he's maybe one-half the athlete Rob is, but capable of doing five times as many things on offense (and, maybe just as importantly, willing to try to do some things on offense), then darned if I don't think he can be [pushes calculator buttons] 2/7ths the player Rob was for us last year. And, honestly, I'd be stoked to have that on this roster for basically free.

[return2glory]

He's about the same size as Rob, but man makes you realize what crazy hops Rob has in how he gets up for blocks and lobs. Either way, I like his hustle and work on the offensive glass. Also it's been awhile since I've rooted for UK player at the NBA level (James Young your lazy ass doesn't count!).

Robs hops were so up and down last season. He wasn't the same player. In the playoffs, his normal dunks 2 feet above the rim turned into layups. He became the layup master.