Let's talk Robert Williams

[JHTruth]

Aren't we doing that exact thing with Tristan Thompson?

I'd give up a first round pick to switch Thompson to Theis (on a longterm deal) for the same salary, as long as there's an understanding that Timelord is going to be the starting center getting around 30 MPG.

1) Ainge's vision was Thompson as starting center. We got killed by Bam Adebayo in the playoffs last year and he wanted a guy who was bigger, better interior defender, better rebounder than Theis, better inside scorer too, and it helped that Thompson had NBA finals experience. So Ainge signed Thompson to take over as starting center - that's why he paid him $9 mil a year on a 2 year deal.

2) Theis is only having a slightly better season than Thompson. A lot of metrics have them pretty close. Thompson is a better rebounder - they're close defensively. Defense and rebounding are really the 2 main things we need from that position. Since there's not much separating them, I don't think I would have thrown in a 1st round pick in order to trade Thompson instead of Theis. Plus, who knows, maybe Ainge tried doing that and still no wanted Thompson..

3) If Time Lord is starting center and getting 30 MPG, it doesn't make sense to pay anyone (Theis or Thompson) $9 mil a year, not to mention neither of them would sign for $9 mil a year to be a backup when any other team in the league willing to offer them $9 mil a year is going to start them. Obviously if given the choice and $ is the same, you're going to go where you can start, not where you can play 15-18 mins a game off the bench.

Then why did he sign Thompson who is a worse interior defender than Theis? Thompson is ass in the paint and can't defend the rim. One of the least effective scoring bigs in the NBA as well. If they can't use Thompson's contract in a trade by the next trade deadline, then it was an egregiously stupid signing. I don't know what the vision was with Thompson, but this is the same guy who signed Jeff Teague too, so I'm not sure if there even was a vision. Probably just had the MLE and wanted to use it.

Ron was a ? mark headed into the season and Theis had just gotten his a** kicked all over the court by Bam. The thinking was we'll get this proven bigger-body C to fill the whole as Theis will probably bail after the season and if Rob didn't show out we have a nice tradeable contract to go get a C. Unfortunately TT has looked like total trash and Rob exploded leaving trading Theis the only avail option..

[Bleeding Green]

1) Ainge's vision was Thompson as starting center. We got killed by Bam Adebayo in the playoffs last year and he wanted a guy who was bigger, better interior defender, better rebounder than Theis, better inside scorer too, and it helped that Thompson had NBA finals experience. So Ainge signed Thompson to take over as starting center - that's why he paid him $9 mil a year on a 2 year deal.

2) Theis is only having a slightly better season than Thompson. A lot of metrics have them pretty close. Thompson is a better rebounder - they're close defensively. Defense and rebounding are really the 2 main things we need from that position. Since there's not much separating them, I don't think I would have thrown in a 1st round pick in order to trade Thompson instead of Theis. Plus, who knows, maybe Ainge tried doing that and still no wanted Thompson..

3) If Time Lord is starting center and getting 30 MPG, it doesn't make sense to pay anyone (Theis or Thompson) $9 mil a year, not to mention neither of them would sign for $9 mil a year to be a backup when any other team in the league willing to offer them $9 mil a year is going to start them. Obviously if given the choice and $ is the same, you're going to go where you can start, not where you can play 15-18 mins a game off the bench.

Then why did he sign Thompson who is a worse interior defender than Theis? Thompson is ass in the paint and can't defend the rim. One of the least effective scoring bigs in the NBA as well. If they can't use Thompson's contract in a trade by the next trade deadline, then it was an egregiously stupid signing. I don't know what the vision was with Thompson, but this is the same guy who signed Jeff Teague too, so I'm not sure if there even was a vision. Probably just had the MLE and wanted to use it.

Ron was a ? mark headed into the season and Theis had just gotten his a** kicked all over the court by Bam. The thinking was we'll get this proven bigger-body C to fill the whole as Theis will probably bail after the season and if Rob didn't show out we have a nice tradeable contract to go get a C. Unfortunately TT has looked like total trash and Rob exploded leaving trading Theis the only avail option..

Yeah I understand bolstering the big position, but I just don't get why they chose such a **** player to sign who made twice as much as Theis and had been really bad at basketball for several years in a row now. I guess it all doesn't matter if Thompson is relegated to second big and Williams continues to show out.

[Gomes3PC]

Then why did he sign Thompson who is a worse interior defender than Theis? Thompson is ass in the paint and can't defend the rim. One of the least effective scoring bigs in the NBA as well. If they can't use Thompson's contract in a trade by the next trade deadline, then it was an egregiously stupid signing. I don't know what the vision was with Thompson, but this is the same guy who signed Jeff Teague too, so I'm not sure if there even was a vision. Probably just had the MLE and wanted to use it.

Ron was a ? mark headed into the season and Theis had just gotten his a** kicked all over the court by Bam. The thinking was we'll get this proven bigger-body C to fill the whole as Theis will probably bail after the season and if Rob didn't show out we have a nice tradeable contract to go get a C. Unfortunately TT has looked like total trash and Rob exploded leaving trading Theis the only avail option..

Yeah I understand bolstering the big position, but I just don't get why they chose such a **** player to sign who made twice as much as Theis and had been really bad at basketball for several years in a row now. I guess it all doesn't matter if Thompson is relegated to second big and Williams continues to show out.

Because the last time he played on a winning team, Thompson wasn't ass, he was a key piece to a title contender. A big part of that was his strength/rebounding inside and still having quick enough feet to hedge and defend on the perimeter. Theis got abused by Bam because he just wasn't strong enough, and they obviously weren't sure at the time about Timelord.

Apparently, who we really wanted for the MLE was Paul Millsap, we thought we had him and he decided at the last second to go back to Denver for one more run. That left us scrambling as Trezz was gone, Ibaka was heading to LA too, Favors went home to Utah (and got 3 years, not 2, prob a factor for Ainge). We hitched the wagon to Millsap and by the time we knew he was out of the barn we didn't have many good fallbacks. Blame Ainge for chasing the wrong guy, but that's how we settled on TT.

As much as I have crapped on TT for his crummy approach this year, I got the logic of the signing. With those other names soft-circled you were looking at the next tier down of the likes of Robin Lopez, Meyers Leonard, and Aron Baynes, etc.

[Hal14]

Ron was a ? mark headed into the season and Theis had just gotten his a** kicked all over the court by Bam. The thinking was we'll get this proven bigger-body C to fill the whole as Theis will probably bail after the season and if Rob didn't show out we have a nice tradeable contract to go get a C. Unfortunately TT has looked like total trash and Rob exploded leaving trading Theis the only avail option..

Yeah I understand bolstering the big position, but I just don't get why they chose such a **** player to sign who made twice as much as Theis and had been really bad at basketball for several years in a row now. I guess it all doesn't matter if Thompson is relegated to second big and Williams continues to show out.

Because the last time he played on a winning team, Thompson wasn't ass, he was a key piece to a title contender. A big part of that was his strength/rebounding inside and still having quick enough feet to hedge and defend on the perimeter. Theis got abused by Bam because he just wasn't strong enough, and they obviously weren't sure at the time about Timelord.

Apparently, who we really wanted for the MLE was Paul Millsap, we thought we had him and he decided at the last second to go back to Denver for one more run. That left us scrambling as Trezz was gone, Ibaka was heading to LA too, Favors went home to Utah (and got 3 years, not 2, prob a factor for Ainge). We hitched the wagon to Millsap and by the time we knew he was out of the barn we didn't have many good fallbacks. Blame Ainge for chasing the wrong guy, but that's how we settled on TT.

As much as I have crapped on TT for his crummy approach this year, I got the logic of the signing. With those other names soft-circled you were looking at the next tier down of the likes of Robin Lopez, Meyers Leonard, and Aron Baynes, etc.

Plumlee could have been another option..

[Gomes3PC]

Yeah I understand bolstering the big position, but I just don't get why they chose such a **** player to sign who made twice as much as Theis and had been really bad at basketball for several years in a row now. I guess it all doesn't matter if Thompson is relegated to second big and Williams continues to show out.

Because the last time he played on a winning team, Thompson wasn't ass, he was a key piece to a title contender. A big part of that was his strength/rebounding inside and still having quick enough feet to hedge and defend on the perimeter. Theis got abused by Bam because he just wasn't strong enough, and they obviously weren't sure at the time about Timelord.

Apparently, who we really wanted for the MLE was Paul Millsap, we thought we had him and he decided at the last second to go back to Denver for one more run. That left us scrambling as Trezz was gone, Ibaka was heading to LA too, Favors went home to Utah (and got 3 years, not 2, prob a factor for Ainge). We hitched the wagon to Millsap and by the time we knew he was out of the barn we didn't have many good fallbacks. Blame Ainge for chasing the wrong guy, but that's how we settled on TT.

As much as I have crapped on TT for his crummy approach this year, I got the logic of the signing. With those other names soft-circled you were looking at the next tier down of the likes of Robin Lopez, Meyers Leonard, and Aron Baynes, etc.

Plumlee could have been another option..

Plumlee signed like the moment that FA started, got 3 years, and folks roundly mocked that deal. Personally, I would have been totally fine with that but I think Ainge was aiming to bring someone in with higher upside. Not sure at his best you could have Plumlee playing crunch minutes in a playoff game (saw what happened there vs. AD). I think the hope was someone like Millsap or TT could have played those kind of minutes.

[KGtabake]

I don't want him to lose the aggression. As he plays more and more, the game will slow down.
He will learn how to place his body and hands better. I don't worry about the fouls, i think it's logical for now. He's great in giving the ball at once and setting the pick instantly.
I think that us don't getting Drummond or someone similar is the wisest thing we've done lately. He's a reason to smile.

[cloverleaf]

I don't want him to lose the aggression. As he plays more and more, the game will slow down.
He will learn how to place his body and hands better. I don't worry about the fouls, i think it's logical for now. He's great in giving the ball at once and setting the pick instantly.
I think that us don't getting Drummond or someone similar is the wisest thing we've done lately. He's a reason to smile.

The main focus into this game seemed to be how he was going to go up against the one MVP-class center in the league without getting steamrolled with too many fouls. My guess is that it was in part a self-fulfilling prophecy in that only two of his fouls were on Embiid, the first one seemed to be an old nerves/trying too hard to be perfect mistake and worsening recovery from his mistake. (Same deal with his getting up to 3 TOs in his short time on the court. He had a couple of uncharacteristically bad passes that could have been nerves or Philly changing whether his teammates could get to where he was expecting them.) The second foul really wasn't. And after that he was stressed.

He also bagged 9 boards in his time on the court and disrupted a lot of their offense while he was out there. He'll be fine.