SQ24 Does “Can Make His Own Shot” = “Ball Stopper”

Ideally no, but in this modern NBA it is mostly true. On a weak team, a player who “can get his own shot” is too often the only threat in the quiver. As a team improves, and their offense improves, this one-man-gang is less critical (except perhaps in the final three seconds of the game, quarter, or shot clock). On a good team, I think one could make the case that “hero” may actually hurt the team offense, and the team overall. Let me hasten to say that for the transcendental great, that hero gene is liberally complemented with using the threat to enhance teammates' opportunities, and the team as a whole. Unfortunately, the highly aggressive gunner too often generates assists only as an afterthought as he bails out from having forced himself into a dead end attack.

With these thoughts in mind, I found myself considering whether some key cogs in last year's playoff unit, might become less and less useful; or even, eventually, a liability. The primary example seems to be Evan Turner. Last year he injected life into a moribund offense. Other than Isaiah Thomas, Evan was the only threat to attack. He played well—filling up the stat sheet with points, assists, and rebounds. Unfortunately his forays into the paint were so unpredictable that too often his teammates were left standing around, unsure of just what they could/should do to maximize the benefit of Turner getting the defense moving and back on their heels. Many of his assists came off desperation passes as he found his attack thwarted and was forced to give up the ball to avoid traveling. Can he morph into that penetrating guard who presents an aware multiple threat that maximizes the abilities of his teammates as well as ringing up his own offense? This would be a tremendous improvement but that court awareness doesn't seem to be natural to him, and it is among the most difficult things to “learn.” Certainly his season with the Celtics was by far his best basketball, but even with improvement his court sense and distribution skills only moved from perhaps a 3/10 to a 5/10. After five years spread between three teams, one has to question whether it is reasonable to believe this leopard can change its spots?

Isaiah Thomas is much more of a point guard that Turner, but still he comes across as primarily a shooting guard (albeit a short one). While Thomas' recognition of teammate opportunities is better, he still racks up a high percentage of his assists from bail-out passes rather than selecting the best option from various possibilities that he is “tracking.” In his role as leader of the second unit, his ball dominance and single mindedness is probably more acceptable as second units typically boast far less firepower. On the other hand, one of the strengths of this Celtics team is even-quality depth, so it is likely that Stevens would prefer that his second (or even third) team kept the continuity of his read-and-react offense. Keep the ball (no ball stopper!) and players moving, flex the defense and keep the spacing to take advantage of weaknesses forced by their multi-pronged attack.

I'm not sure just how this fits the current discussion; but it occurs to me that IMHO the current Celtics who have the best balance between taking/making their own shot and making the ball move to enable teammates (whether assist, hockey assist, ball reversal, or just setting up a better angle for the next pass) are: Kelly Olynyk, Amir Johnson, and rookie R. J. Hunter. That none of these are primary scoring options suggest that our players, and the team, have a lot of growing to do.

Only 43 days until camp.

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