Boston Celtics: Feeling the slow burn
The Step Back has been born from the aesthetics and traditions of the Hardwood Paroxysm Basketball Network. In the past, Hardwood Paroxysm has produced a massive stand-alone season preview. This year, that preview effort has been rolled up into the launch of The Step Back.
The Step Back’s writers and illustrators have prepared a hefty deep-dive into each team, built from multiple smaller sections. This year’s theme is television comedies and each section is named after some of our favorite sitcoms. For links to all 30 teams, as well as details about the focus of each section, check out our guide on how to read this preview.
Community
By Joe Clarkin (@Joe_Clarkin)
Considering the quantity of assets at their disposal, it was kind of expected that the Boston Celtics’ rebuild would occur in one fell swoop. Much like the summer of 2007, they’d take those assets, flip them for win-now players, and be right back in contention for the Eastern Conference.
That’s not the way it has turned out.
Instead, general manager Danny Ainge has built this team slowly, piece by piece. He drafted contributors like Marcus Smart and Kelly Olynyk, made smart below-market signings to retain Avery Bradley and add Amir Johnson, and got more in return than what he sent out in lopsided trades for Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder and Jonas Jerebko. Most importantly, he inked head Brad Stevens to what I think is a lifelong deal.
The big trade(s) never came, at least not yet, and the Celtics are probably better off for it.
For one thing, this one-step-at-a-time approach has allowed Ainge to build a cohesive roster as he continues to search for that missing piece. Rather than cashing out all at once, he’s chosen to watch his investments grow naturally. That’s allowed the players on the roster to improve together as a unit, and provide a stable foundation for whenever, if ever, the opportunity to take the money and run presents itself.
The summer of 2016 was another example of that approach, just on a grander scale. If the Celtics were two steps away from challenging Cleveland for the East heading into offseason, it now feels like there is only that one final stride before they pull even.
The first major move was an easy one: Take whomever they felt was the best available player in the draft with the No. 3 pick they got from Brooklyn, the most generous benefactor in the Celtics rise to power. Whether small forward Jaylen Brown was actually the best choice in that slot can’t be answered for a long time, but he has undeniable talent and the opportunity to learn at a slow pace. There’s no doubt he’s a big part of this team going forward.
While the selection of Brown was relatively easy, the Celtics’ biggest move of the summer took a bit more convincing. Getting Al Horford to leave the only team he’s ever known surely took a great sales pitch, but hardly any team was in a better situation to make that presentation. Boston’s combination of a deep roster, a war chest of draft assets and a relative weakness in the frontcourt were all excellent selling points, and it was enough to get Big Al to move up to New England.
With Horford in the fold, the Celtics are squarely in the conversation for second-best team in the East, alongside Toronto. Horford’s presence gives Boston something it hasn’t had since Kevin Garnett netted (sorry) them all those draft picks in the first place: a legitimate two-way big man.
On the offensive end, Horford’s shooting ability should be a welcome addition to an offense that occasionally struggles to space the floor. He and Isaiah Thomas will be a wonderful combination in the pick and roll, as Big Al should be able to hoist mid-range jumpers to his heart’s content.
It’s the defensive end of the court, however, where Horford figures to help this team really shine. The 2015-16 Hawks, for whom Horford was the linchpin, finished second in points per possession last season, while the Celtics finished tied for fourth. And Boston did that while regularly giving minutes to guys like Jared Sullinger and David Lee for large portions of the season. It would be a disappointment if Horford’s presence does not lead to the Celtics threatening for the fewest points per possession in the entire league.
As we said before, this is plausibly the second-best team in the East. Finishing second, of course, is not the ultimate goal for this team, which is why it still feels like there is another major move to come. The obvious, and most exciting, proposition is Boston making a splashy trade for an All-Star by using one or both of the Brooklyn picks as the centerpieces of an unbeatable trade package. With Russell Westbrook signing an extension, Blake Griffin is probably the player that best fits in that scenario but trading for a star is always tricky. Those guys don’t come cheap.
The alternative is to just continue what they’ve been doing: building slowly and steadily. There’s a bit more urgency with 30-year-old Horford’s massive contract on the books, but if the realistic worst case scenario is winning 50 games, holding onto your young players, picking in the top five of a loaded draft, and taking a couple big swings (hello, Gordon Hayward) in next year’s free agency, then you’re in a pretty good spot.
Each rung up the NBA ladder gets a little tougher and a little more precarious, but the Celtics are closer to the top than they’ve been since the heyday of Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. There’s still work to be done but few teams are in a better position to reach the top than Boston. Now it’s just a matter of doing the work necessary to make it there.
Art by Bryan Mastergeorge
I Love Lucy
By Matt Cianfrone (@Matt_Cianfrone)
In basketball, chaos can be a good thing. Chaos can force an opponent to do things that they don’t really want to do. It can speed up an offense as players have no desire to actually touch the ball with a defender living in their personal space. It can cause players to take shots that they really don’t want to take because nothing else is coming open anyway.
Marcus Smart creates chaos when he plays defense. At 6-3 with a 6-9 wingspan and 227 pounds of what looks like pure muscle, Smart can guard just about any perimeter player. And he loves to do just that. Players walk into games against the Boston Celtics knowing that Smart is going to be a handful, fighting them on every dribble and against every movement until he has worn them down. During the regular season, that works. Smart seemingly doesn’t tire and on some nights he creates enough chaos to bully opponents into submission.
In basketball, chaos can also be a bad thing. Chaos can force a team into doing things that they don’t want to do. It can force players to take shots that their team doesn’t really want them to take because, well they have no option. It can force offenses to grind to a halt because defenses don’t have to play them like they thought.
Marcus Smart creates chaos when he plays offense. Just about all of that chaos comes because he can’t shoot. Like at all. Smart shot just 31 percent from 3-9 feet, 39 percent from 10-15 feet, 31 percent from 16 feet to the three-point line and 25 percent from three, per Basketball-Reference. As one would expect based on those numbers, teams don’t exactly worry about Marcus Smart beating them with jumpers. That means laying off Smart when he is off the ball and going under screens when he is running the pick-and-roll. Of course, defenses encouraging him to shoot those shots meant Smart did, as he averaged four threes per game last year. There were a lot of misses and a fair amount of ugly ones.
At the end of the day it remains to be seen if the chaos Marcus Smart creates is really worth it. Per Box Plus-Minus, a box scored derived estimate of a player’s net impact per 100 possessions, Smart’s positive defense has outweighed his negative offense, but just barely.
Marcus Smart is going to create chaos this season for the Boston Celtics. The question is whether he can continue developing to the point where that chaos is mostly there for the opponent.
Third Rock From The Sun
By Evans Clinchy (@evansclinchy)
It’s amazing to think that less than 24 months ago, the Celtics pulled off a trade with the Dallas Mavericks that was essentially billed as “Rajon Rondo for a first-round pick and a handful of throw-ins.” Fast-forward to today, and look where we are. Rondo is now in Chicago, playing for his fourth NBA team of that 24-month period; he’s not washed up, exactly, but he’s heading that way. The pick turned out to be No. 16 in this summer’s draft, and the Celtics’ selection of Guerschon Yabusele is a draft-and-stash guy who remains in China for the time being. That Dallas trade is no longer “the Rondo trade.” Instead, it’s the deal in which one of the throw-ins ended up as a legitimate foundational piece for the Celtics’ future. That piece, of course, would be Jae Crowder.
Crowder, now a 26-year-old small forward entering his fifth NBA season, is not the Celtics’ primary cornerstone — that would be Al Horford, who signed this summer for four years and $113 million. He’s not their No. 2 guy — that’s Isaiah Thomas, who averaged 22.2 points per game last season and became an All-Star. But Crowder, despite his relative lack of fame, fortune or eye-popping stats, is absolutely essential to the identity of the 2016-17 Celtics.
Consider how the Celtics managed to cobble together a 48-win season last year. It wasn’t with devastating offensive talent — Thomas was really the only star on that end of the floor, and even he has obvious physical limitations at 5-9. No — the Celtics shone because they made up for their lack of halfcourt offensive firepower with a lethal transition game. They hounded opposing offenses mercilessly, they forced mistakes, they grabbed loose balls and they ran. Last year, Boston forced turnovers on 14.6 percent of opponents’ possessions, third-most in the league. Crowder was a major part of that. For a long stretch at the beginning of the season, he was leading the whole damn NBA in steals, an amazing development for a player who’d been a spare part off the bench a year earlier. It quickly became apparent that Crowder’s greatest strength was part and parcel to the Celtics’ style of play — they were a run-and-gun team, and Crowder was the quintessential run-and-gun player.
This isn’t to say Crowder lacks weaknesses. He has them, and they’re obvious. He’s not an isolation scorer; he’s not a pick-and-roll guy, either, whether handling the ball or rolling. Most wing players in his mold can at least shoot the three; at 32.4 percent for his career, Crowder is mediocre at that. He’s not a guy with plus-level skills in the halfcourt offense, but given the way the Celtics play, he doesn’t have to be. He was able to swing entire games last season with just his ferocious fast-break play. The halfcourt stuff was never a major concern. There will be even less pressure on him in that department this year, as Horford’s arrival is sure to make every Celtics’ life easier. Crowder, like everyone else on the roster, can just relax and be himself.
What makes Crowder’s success so impressive is the impact he’s had on the Celtics’ long-term plans for team-building. When Danny Ainge began to envision the post-Big Three era after trading Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in 2013, his initial plans were rather abstract. He was looking for nothing but value — the objective was simply to pile up assets and figure out the “fit” part later. At the time, trading Rondo for picks and prospects in December 2014 looked like a perfect example of that. Instead, it turns out that Crowder has fit better than anyone imagined. His growth, along with that of Thomas and a few other young pieces on the Celtics’ roster, has sped the developmental process up considerably.
Three years removed from tearing apart a championship team, the Boston Celtics are now back in the conversation for Finals contention. Crowder isn’t the reason for that per se, but he’s one of them. Rajon who?
Perfect Strangers
by Matt D’Anna (@hoop_nerd)
Ten Word Analysis: So many interchangeable parts fit the system so well.
TeamSPACE charts are based on mapped clusters of shot activity. These areas are affectionately called Hunting Grounds, because they are the areas on the court where a player hunts for shots — and successfully scores most often. TeamSPACE takes the Hunting Grounds of all five players in a lineup and puts them on the court together — because, you know, they have to share that physical space, and there is only one ball.
In the past, it was one color per player; which meant that blending colors represented overlapping spaces for shot activity. But this time around, these are not your ordinary TeamSPACE shot maps. Each lineup is analyzed in the aggregate — one color! — and that unit is compared that unit to the rest of the league. So you will see a persistent red layer on every chart, highlighting the league’s Hunting Grounds from last season. The most prolific locations should come as no surprise: the paint, the corners, most of the top of the arc, and a couple of dabs at the foul line and top of the key.
So…how were these lineups chosen for each team? In the past, it’s been about projecting the starting lineup, estimating the most used lineup, or even designing the “most favoritest” lineup. This year? It’s the these charts represent the “most interestingly feasible” lineups….what? That’s a loaded phrase, so let’s unpack it a bit.
The goal is to identify the collection of five players on a team that could potentially play together, and if they did, the offensive results could be glorious. Ideally these lineups aren’t too far-fetched, but also slightly off-kilter and confusing to an opposing defense. While this type of analysis is not conducive for assessing defense, somewhat reasonable decisions are attempted to be made. So while it’s tempting to just put all the best shooters together…how realistic is it (outside of Houston, at least)? And, full disclosure: I favor some stretch in my lineups. It not only provides plenty of high-octane potential, but getting stretchy is also on par with current league-wide trends.
Each TeamSPACE chart has a couple of other sitcom-related features:
Family Matters: You’ll notice a series of Jaleel White’s across half court. Each lineup is scored on a scale of 0-7 Steve Urkels for how well it matches league-wide trends. Remember, there’s seven league Hunting Grounds (right corner three; at the rim; left corner three; foul line/top of the key; right wing; middle 3pt; left wing). A lineup gains points for matching each area; it loses points for messy excess shot activity.
Odd Couple: “Most interestingly feasible” is obviously debatable, so in order to account for some of those decisions, you’ll see Oscar and Felix on each chart. Often, there are players that are in the lineup…and maybe/probably they should not be. They get the Oscar label. And, there are those players that are out of the lineup…and maybe/probably should be included. They are the Felix for their team.
And briefly, a word about data. These strange visual displays are based on last season’s shot data, weighted by made buckets — so rookies and season-long injuries are sadly excluded. This analysis is nothing without the help of Darryl Blackport, and the research materials available at Basketball-Reference and NBA.com. Further, these charts feature some of the best logo re-designs I could curate from the ol’ Information Superhighway, including Dribbble.com and Pinterest. I made none of the logos; I merely selected some of my favorites. Enjoy!
Freaks and Geeks
By Krishna Narsu (@knarsu3)
The number to know is: 103.6
That was the Celtics defensive efficiency last year, per Basketball-Reference, and it was among the best in the league. What did they do well and how can they improve?
Let’s start with the Celtics transition defense, where they did a good job limiting opportunities. Just 12.6 percent of their opponent’s plays came via transition plays according to the NBA’s play type statistics, which is the sixth lowest mark in the league. Part of this number is the domain of the offense. By limiting turnovers on offense, you limit the opponent’s chances of getting out in transition so it was not surprising to see the Celtics with the fourth-lowest offensive turnover percentage. However, when the Celtics did allow transition opportunities, they did a good job of not allowing them to turn into points: ranking ninth in the league in points allowed per possession on transition plays.
The Celtics were a very good halfcourt defense too. One interesting stat that many models have found to be significant and may be a proxy for their physicality and defensive anticipation, they were second in the league in offensive fouls drawn (2.3 per 100 possessions). In particular, Marcus Smart is adept at drawing these types of fouls, having finished third in the league in total offensive fouls drawn last year (48).
Another hallmark of a good defense is its ability to force turnovers. The Celtics ranked third in opponent turnover percentage and fifth in steals per 100 possessions. Steals can be an important play and jump-start runs which makes it easier on the defense because they are allowed time to set up after made baskets. Both Marcus Smart and Jae Crowder finished in the top-20 in steal percentage last season.
The Celtics were also good at forcing teams to take bad shots. Through the first half of last season, they ranked fourth in defensive KOBE, which is a measure of shot selection based on SportVU tracking data. That data set was not available for the full season. However, given the fairly strong year-to-year correlation of defensive KOBE and the fact that the Celtics’ personnel has remained largely the same, it’s a good bet the Celtics forced bad shots in the second half of the season and will continue to do so throughout next season. Adding Al Horford should only help.
However, there were a few areas the Celtics will hope to improve on defense. Boston was fairly susceptible to dribble penetration and allowed 29.1 drives per 100 possessions, 17th in the league. Interestingly, there was actually a negative correlation between drives per 100 possessions and defensive efficiency last year. It’s possible the better defensive teams funnel penetration into their rim protectors and have their perimeter players worry more about defending the three-point line. Of course, this only works if you have great rim protection and the Celtics didn’t, which brings us to the Celtics primary defensive weakness last year.
The Celtics allowed a 53.6 field goal percentage when defending the rim last year, which ranked 23rd among all teams last year. Combine that with their 29.1 drives per 100 possessions, which in turn led to a middling rank in rim deterrence (restricted area field goal attempts allowed per game where they ranked 16th) and there’s a clear avenue for the Celtics defense to get even better next year. Fortunately, Horford should help. While he’s not Rudy Gobert when it comes to rim protection, he has allowed a modest 49.5 field goal percentage when defending the rim over the last three years. With Amir Johnson returning, the Celtics should always be able to have a rim protector out on the floor. Combine their improved rim protection with their other strengths on defense and the Celtics should be even better this year.
Photo by Elsa/Getty Images
Everybody Loves Raymond
By Dan Favale (@danfavale)
What Isaiah Thomas, standing 5-9, lacks in size he makes up for in likability stature. There are other things with which he supplements height, too: unrelenting, slithery dribble drives, crafty passes, an at times unconscious shot selection, a discernible, unbreakable bravado that allows him to dart around and through players routinely 10-plus inches taller, and so much more.
But his personality is also a draw, and not just in typical terms. Underdogs, such as himself, are commonly liked, if not adored. He is undersized for his sport and was the Mr. Irrelevant pick in the 2011 NBA draft. No matter how much success he experiences against fellow pros — he is an All-Star now — there will still be those who keep a defaulted soft spot for this long-shot feel-good story. In this sense, his unexpected rise through the league’s ranks bestow upon him a very specific character that fans are more than happy to back, like and cherish.
The beauty of Thomas’ persona, though, is the way it transcends this stereotype. He isn’t just likable, or relatable, because he, at one point, was this unfathomable success story. He’s appealing because he’s real, in this wacky, good-natured, swaggering way.
Thronging scores of professional athletes will point toward outside criticism as inspiration. But very few will publicly respond to opinions they view as slights. Thomas is among the exceptions. It’s not just hard judgment he digests, either. He sees the jokes, the gifs, the memes — including the one of him smirking during the Boston Celtics’ 2015 first-round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He told me so himself over the offseason. And, frankly, it’s pretty damn cool that he takes all this stuff in. He is not alone in this consumption, not by a long shot, but he’s interactive with it, a tendency that, even in this age of social-media access is, again, unique to a few willing individuals.
Then, of course, there’s Thomas’ overt humility. You sense, by way of Instagram and Twitter, that he’s an invested family man. You clearly see, on those same mediums, his continued commitment to not merely defying odds, but obliterating the remnants of perception he has already annihilated.
And yet, he melds his profound thoughts and expressions and aspirations with a full air of fun. This is the same Thomas who joked about the need to go to space after NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly grew two inches during a year aboard the International Space Station. Our understanding of Thomas is such that when Celtics president Danny Ainge referred to him as a leprechaun ahead of the 2016 Draft Lottery, we’re inclined to think he took the reference in stride, with his trademark smirk, before texting ol’ Danny an emoji-mobbed retort (or something).
Basically, Thomas seems like the player you want to lead the locker room through success and strife, the guy you send to recruit top free agents and on a 4 a.m. burger run, the dude you totally want to party with, but the sporting role model you want your children, born, unborn or otherwise, to emulate.
Put another way: Thomas appears to be a damn good human who just so happens to also be a ridiculously entertaining basketball player.
Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images
Boy Meets World
By Brendon Kleen (@BrendonKleen14)
The bottom of the Boston Celtics’ roster is a Who’s Who of WHO? After centuries of stockpiling assets, Danny Ainge now sees before him a group of players that actually resembles something of a literal pile in its uselessness, absent even the added height-increasing benefits of most piles. This group of young players isn’t helping the Celtics get over any hump, literal or metaphorical.
Sure, I’m bullish on Jaylen Brown. I sincerely believe in the ability of such a smart dude to understand and carve a niche for himself, especially under an equally smart coach in Brad Stevens. He epitomizes toolsiness — Brown is the sort of player whose lack of proven skills allows you to dream up the development of just about any of his abilities. Imagine him in any role you like.
I’m encouraged by how smart he is about how and when to take advantage of his length; he drew a lot of fouls in Summer League, and yeah so did everyone else, but his ability to actively seek out those mistakes in his defenders is fun to see. He can create separation off the bounce with nice bumps and pushes, and has timed his defensive recovery nicely.
Brown plays bigger than himself and has an NBA body that already has Stevens playing those same dream-up games that we all are. I’m not sure he makes sense as a power forward with Jae Crowder and Jonas Jerebko already on the roster, but the way that Brown manages to Bullet Bill his way through layers of defenders is intriguing. He only has to add to that base skill to become more and more valuable.
Then again, if he can’t shoot, he’ll face eight feet of room between himself and the nearest defender, and most of that value vanishes. Oh well.
But back to that Island of Misfit Toys in Portland, Maine (home to the Celtics’ D-League affiliate). Everyone has their favorite among this group, and we’ve seen each of them at various points during this iteration of Celtics competency. R.J. Hunter sort of stands in the corner and looks uncomfortable, but mastered the herky-jerk at Georgia State and posted a 26.7 PER in his final season there. Jordan Mickey bounces around and does his best Modern Center impression, but will always be at a disadvantage due to his smaller frame and inconsistent jumper.
I’m a Terry Rozier fan, and I think as the fourth guard he can impress. He maneuvers nicely in the pick-and-roll and combines a long wingspan with the prowess of a Louisville alum to inspire optimism about his defense. But that’s not moving the short-term needle. Neither is James Young, probably the most high-profile of the Celtics under-25 morass. Blessed with a scoring touch like few others and an impressionable lefty swagger, Young was supposed to provide a much-needed injection of scoring for the Celts. Not so much.
Scoring hasn’t been the issue for Young, but Brad Stevens isn’t going to play these guys unless they can chip in across the board — something Young simply hasn’t been able to do. He’s a wing tweener in the worst way, but that’s no excuse considering the success Kelly Olynyk has worked toward during his time in Boston. Apart from his tearing Kevin Love’s arm into two, Olynyk has steadied himself in the frontcourt rotation and toyed with some fun off-the-bounce stuff on offense. There are nights where the Celtics run things through him, and it’s all a result of the work he’s put in to broaden his game.
Olynyk is of course not the only young Celtic already earning minutes; several guys (Crowder, Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, and Tyler Zeller) barely miss the under-25 blanket, but they’ve each been producing for the Celtics for multiple seasons now. The pressure is on this familiar group to push past their ceilings and rise together to outweigh the sum of their parts.
The real X-Factor here is also pretty familiar to most NBA fans. Marcus Smart is the least secretive Secret Weapon that any coach has, considering he’s played 27 minutes per contest for both of his professional seasons. But what Stevens did in putting Smart on a fiery-hot Paul Millsap in the Eastern Conference Semifinals last year was magnificent. The man played POWER FORWARD and won his team a playoff game. The man is 6-4. The man is the man, man!
If Smart can continue to add bits and pieces to his game and iron out exactly what he is on an NBA court within the context of this team, he’s probably the best player on this team by the time his next contract is signed. Then again, the whole roster could look a lot different by that time. Then again, is anyone on this team actually as good as they’re made to look by Stevens and his system?