Jared Sullinger a starter soon? It would make sense
Over at MassLive.com, where Celtics Town authoritarian dictator (just kidding) Jay King gets paid to write about sports, Jay posted an interesting article on how Boston’s full-team plus/minus improves immensely when Jared Sullinger plays with the starters in place of Brandon Bass and/or Jason Collins.
“Consider this: During the 197 minutes when Sullinger has been paired with Kevin Garnett, the Celtics are outscoring opponents by 15.4 points per 48 minutes. During 60 minutes with Sullinger, Garnett and Paul Pierce on the court the Celtics are 25.7 points per 48 minutes better than their opponents. During 44 minutes with Sullinger, Garnett, Pierce and Rajon Rondo together, the Celtics are plus-26.1 points per 48 minutes. The trend continues almost universally – whenever Sullinger is surrounded by Boston’s best players, the Celtics play quite well.”
Jay goes on to cite Sully’s ability to play off the ball, his aggressive rebounding mentality and his high basketball IQ as reasons behind his success. There’s little doubt that Sully is very intelligent and that his rebounding has been a lone bright spot in a season filled with mediocrity on the boards. And looking at the numbers Jay lays out, it’s pretty difficult to argue that Bass or Collins should continue in the starter role over Sullinger.
Much has been made of Doc’s hesitance to play rookies, which isn’t entirely fair. Sullinger is the first rookie in Boston to be worthy of starters minutes in a very long time (Avery Bradley, obviously, earned his starter minutes in his sophomore year). Both Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins were given time to develop, and now Rondo is one of the best point guards in the NBA, while Perkins turned a successful stint in Boston into a big contract in OKC. Over the past five years, the Celtics have had Garnett, Pierce, Rondo, Ray Allen and no need for younger players in a successful system. Doc may not prefer to play young guys thanks to his talented veterans, but he doesn’t avoid playing them in the face of logic (see: Bradley over Ray Allen last year).
In Oklahoma City, there’s been an interesting debate going on among analysts between lineups that include Kendrick Perkins at center as opposed to lineups that feature Nick Collison at center. Nearly every metric points to Collison’s lineups as the more successful, but for some reason, Scott Brooks continues to play Perk in Collison’s place, in opposition to statistical logic.
Doc is a better coach than Scott Brooks. It would be a surprise if he proved to be as resistant to change, and it would be a surprise if Sullinger didn’t get starter-quantity minutes more consistently soon.
Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.
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Celtics Blog | Tom Westerholm | December 26, 2012
Are you people idiots? My god. Do you not yet understand that basketball is played by live human beings on a basketball court, NOT BY NUMBERS JUMPING AROUND?
Listen, Collins is basically a second rate Perkins, and right now, we desperately need him. Did you not see the way his presence in the paint, and his understanding of how to play defense, freed KG to play aggressive defense on the perimeter, which in turn freed Rondo to be a ball hawk? Sully should be the first big off the bench.
Collison plays more minutes than Perk. He piles up more stats. He generally plays better. But he is an energy guy. Sully is not so much an energy guy. He is more a smarts guy, though Collison is pretty smart too. Both guys are effective when the come in after the bigger guy who is tough, who creates space, who pushes the other team off their inside game.
People, please try to understand that the game is not contained within the numbers.
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In time, if Sully continues to develope his game, and if he becomes more physically powerful, he may become our starting center.
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We don’t need a 6’9″ center. Fab will be our center next year, if given the chance to compete. I do agree that JS should be the first off the bench, as I prefer BB starting (or CW when he is back), but he needs to ramp up his game to last year’s standard. Go Cs…
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I disagree with your rookies playing comments. Doc sucks at playing rookies and if he had played them more we might have kept some of the players we jettisoned and had others more developed and able to contribute. While the core 5 were set that doesn’t mean you can’t ever experiment and try rookies earlier in the bench rotations, as opposed to letting them sit forever at the end of the bench. I’d rather have rookies willing to hustle and give their all then the vets coasting and losing because they don’t feel like showing up. Go Cs…
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I would keep Sully coming off the bench right now and try to go get a quality big I stated before if the one big I would trade Sully for is Demarcus Cousins but the Kings would ask for AB and thats where it stops if you wanna get a player without breaking up your core if I was a GM I would go after Hollins or Koufas both these guys play great defence especially at the rim I feel the Celtics are a big away from a title I really do
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Naw, Sully is good where he’s at. It’s better for Sully to come of the bench. No more small line- ups, because it’s no effective. I rather Collins start next to KG. The Celts are better when playing big and everyone knows it.
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Agreed,has been underestimated. Isn´t this the guy they called the Dwight stopper. Let JS come off the bench when KG or JC take a break. Either way, the lineup should be in constant rotation with every player doing their bit.
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[...] Town Jared Sullinger a starter soon? It would make sense – Some convincing numbers suggest the rookie should be the starting power [...]
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collins at 5 kg at 4 when kg is out sully at the 4 when collins comes out bass at the 5.trade bass and lee for a 6’11″ center. start said center with collins at backup.kg and sullinger and green at the 4.pierce,green,joseph at 3.bradley,terry at 2.rondo,barbosa at 1.
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I’m with you on this.
Bass and Lee should go for a starting center. Not necessarily a 40mins/game one, since KG can spend some time with a strange yet effective lineup alongside with Sully, JG, PP, and RR. Small(KG, JS)&Tall(JG,PP)-ball unit.
I think mixing and matching players would make more sense than having a first and a second, clearly separated units, especially because we are (even too) deep. So with Lee and Bass gone, the starting lineup could be [Center], KG, PP, AB, RR. First guy off the bench, JS for KG, that eventually will come back to replace [center], with JG at small fw. It would also be interesting if AB is ready to play some point guard, as he claimed. That would add anther weapon to the Cs’ already deep arsenal. But the first step is a trade, also for Lee and Bass’ sake.
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sounds good we should get demarcus cousins and just have him permanently disable lebron in mid air.
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We need bradley back, a superstar center (see Kevin Love, Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum, etc.) and talent… sadly that’s the truth, we need talent. Trade Jeff green and get something good before the league realizes how simple jeff green is.
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