The Weekend Greenie Bag - Let's Talk Minutes

What’s going on everybody welcome back to another edition of The Weekend Greenie Bag! Hopefully you’ve been enjoying your weekend, and for those who maybe enjoyed themselves a bit too much last night and are on the road to recovery, that is why I’m here. I’m here to give you something to mindlessly read while you’re on the coach, or the toilet, on this beautiful lazy Sunday. With a little while to go until the Sox start, why not take some time to check in with the stoolies to see what’s on their minds in regards to our favorite basketball team. As a reminder you can be a part of this mailbag whenever you want, simply give me your hottest take/question with #GreenieBag or you can email greenieceltsbag@gmail.com. Either way works, but the more you write in the more you can tell your friends you’re basically a blogger for Barstool. Everybody wins!

With that said….your questions

Oh @Youngj31845492 you should know by know that if you’re going to come at my timeline with such slander, there is not “I don’t want this in the bag”. There are few things I will not tolerate on the internet, and one of them is James Young slander. Don’t ask me why, I know it makes no sense, I know things didn’t exactly turn out in reality like they did in my brain/2K, but you never turn your back on one of your first loves. Can’t do it, won’t do it.

So you know what we’re going to do instead? We’re going to celebrate this burning star that was in and out of our lives before we know what happened. Sometimes it doesn’t have to make sense, and that’s OK

Gordon Hayward’s first basket in the TD Garden ??? – Joe

Not really a question here by Joe, but I don’t hate it. You could certainly go with the heart eye emoji, on a certain level that’s accurate. For me, I’m leaning more towards this level of reaction

Until I’m told otherwise, I am not looking at the Smart extension as the kiss of death when it comes to keeping Rozier. Maybe that’s just me, but I feel like when you want to talk about Rozier and his future with this team, that fate is more tied to Kyrie Irving than it is to Marcus Smart. I know they both play PG so people group them together, but Smart and Rozier are very different players who have very different roles within this team.

Let’s say Kyrie was to extend, that immediately makes a player like Smart more valuable because in my mind, Kyrie and Terry are similar in that they are offensive focused, scoring focused, guards. If you already have the skillset of Kyrie on this roster, then having Smart and his skillset becomes all that more important. For example if the Celts two guards were just Terry and Kyrie, I think the Celtics are actually worse off. They lose defense, they lose versatility, they lose a type of grit and balls that is extremely contagious. Marcus Smart’s offense may NEVER come around, and he is still a player you can close a game with because of everything else he does.

But like you said, his salary number is important for flexibility purposes. The Celtics needed an in between type salary number to be able to work into any potential trade. I think in a perfect world, everyone stays, Wyc pays the luxury tax and everyone is happy. You’d be lying if you said nothing about Kyrie’s health scares you moving forward, and that’s why having a guy like Terry around is important, my guess is you remember how that looked last season. The problem is really that unless Ainge and Terry reach an early extension (something that has happened just twice in Ainge’s tenure), there is going to be a team out there that offers him starter money in RFA. My fear is he ends up on the Bucks or something like that, and then continues his development as one of the better guards in the entire East. Only time will tell, but I’m not freaking out just yet.

Hey man,

Sorry again to hear about Larry. Never easy putting them down even though it’s for the best.

Seems everyone talks about Cs starting five of Kyrie, Jaylen, Tatum, GH, and Al. But we know Baynes will start games against teams with a big 5, like Embiid. So who gets bumped to the bench: Brown or Tatum? I was thinking Tatum since he usually subbed out first to come back with the bench. But if he’s really the special player we think he’s gonna be, how can you take minutes away from him? Thoughts? – Andy

First off Andy, thank you for your kind words. It’s crazy to think that it’s been almost 3 weeks since the Legend went up to the rafters and honestly things are still weird as fuck and I hate it. Anyway, to your question. I’ve seen this asked a lot over the course of the summer, and my answer hasn’t really changed. Even against big ass centers, I wouldn’t change my starting lineup of Kyrie/Jaylen/Hayward/Tatum/Horford. You know why? The best way to make them ineffective is to space the floor, something that lineup does. I am in no way worried about Horford guarding Embiid, as we saw last year Big Al owns him. It’s the other centers like Andre Drummond that give Horford trouble, but even still I would just expect Brad to have quicker rotations than to actually mess with his starting lineup. I can see if he wants to give Al a break here or there for rest, but other than that I think it’s always smart to start your best 5 players.

The other thing that makes me laugh is that people think Tatum’s minutes have to be the ones that adjust with everyone back. Have we forgotten Marcus Morris and his 26.8 minutes a night? I say start there if you’re looking to find more minutes on this roster. I also think we’ll see Horford’s drop slightly just to keep him fresh, and I don’t think Hayward will be thrown right to the fire with 35+ minutes a night, maybe like 26-30. If there’s one part of Brad’s job I do not worry about, it’s finding minutes/rotations for everyone.

Hey Greenie

Sorry again about Larry.. I had a crazy thought and wanted your opinion on.. What would of happened in the ‘09 draft if The Celtics never trade for KG. I understand this isn’t a perfect question as many things can happen.. but let’s say KG is traded to LA so Minnesota is still bad. The Celtics had their first rounder from the Wally Szczerbiak- Ricky Davis trade, that they traded back to Minny in the KG deal… that pick ended up being 6th overall.. of course that’s the draft Minnesota passed over Steph Curry Twice..

Do the Celtics take Curry? I figured the Celtics roster would of been
Rondo
Pierce
R. Allen
T.Allen
Perkins
Ryan Gomes
Big Al
And a bunch of filler.

I feel like they take a shooting point guard Did Ainge like Curry? Would the Celtics have been better off with Curry and not making the KG trade? Does Ainge take *gulp* Hansbrough from UNC?

Just an interesting thing to think about – Jeff

First off, shout out Ricky Davis. Loved that guy. This is a tough one to answer because this would mean the team most likely wasn’t coming off an NBA title so their mindset is probably a little different. The other thing that makes this hard is you’re asking me to predict what Danny Ainge would do on draft night, as if anyone ever has any fucking idea. In terms of team need, it is a position I think they would look at, remember they drafted Avery in 2010. I think with Perk/Gomes/Big Al already on the roster, the Celts look at the guard spots because if you remember that year it was very guard heavy at the top of the lottery. Only 4 of the top 13 picks weren’t guards. I’m not sure he goes Hansborough if he was looking at bigs, probably Jordan Hill or something like that, but let me make myself clear. Even if that team did draft Curry, I’m not sure they ever win a title.

Look we all think of Curry differently now based on what he accomplished. Let’s not lose sight on what KG did for this franchise on the way to their title, and there’s no guarantee that Curry becomes Curry no matter where he ended up. Sometimes things break perfectly, and certain situations and environments are a big reason why a player develops the way he does. Back then this Celts team still had a lot of shit to figure out, but it’s definitely interesting to think about.

Depends on what your definition of underperform is. Is it miss the Finals? If so, it could be as simple as another Game 7 situation where nobody on the roster can hit a jumpshot. That would be weird if everyone is at full health given the talent, but look shit can happen. If you mean they end up as like a 3 or 4 seed or something like that, well that would be a little more tough to explain.

I think one thing that’s going to be important with this group is we’re finally going to see how they perform with real expectations. Sure it’s easy to look great when you are slightly overachieving, but it’s another to maintain that dominance when the film is out on you and you’re a target for the opposing team every single night. We could very well see this team’s work ethic or focus take a step back simply because the kids are buying into their own hype. That seems unlikely, but we did see it at times last year where they showed up and expected to win just because they were the Celtics. That’s the kiss of death in my opinion.

But I would say don’t try and force it. Barring any sort of injury or anything like that, this team should be really fucking good. Hell, even with an injury that doesn’t really change my mind based on what we saw last year.

Greenie,

Assuming good health for the Celtics starters how many minutes do you expect our top 5 guys off the bench to play this year?

(Rozier/smart/Morris/theis/baynes)

Obviously Rozier got a lot of minutes last year with Kyrie going down. Smart averaged 30 last year, but with Hayward back and jaylen probably playing 30-33 this year at the 2. I don’t see smart averaging 30 again, nor do I see Morris averaging as many as he did last season.

Players will definitely get dinged up and miss games but assuming general health how many minutes do you expect for the bench guys?

I’m having trouble seeing any of the bench players reach 25 minutes. – Jim

Well, let’s start with what we saw last year

Smart – 29.9 mpg
Morris – 26.8 mpg
Rozier – 25.9 mpg
Monroe – 19.1 mpg
Semi – 15.8 mpg
Theis – 14.9 mpg
Yabu – 7.1 mpg

So you can see, if you take our Rozier since his minutes were impacted by Kyrie being out, only 2 bench players had 25 minutes a night last season. I think it’s almost a lock to assume Terry/Smart will still live around that 25 minute mark, but if they’re the only ones to do it, who cares? Like if the Celts can have multiple guys be effective in something like 18-22 minutes a night, isn’t that better than one guy playing 25? Sure someone like Morris may be unhappy with less minutes, but if it becomes a problem just trade them. I think everyone on this roster knows how deep this team is, and that’s why I think we’ll see Brad be super conservative with minutes. He no longer has to run guys into the ground because there’s no scoring on the floor, so maybe we see Kyrie drop to around 30 minutes, Horford to slightly under 30 minutes, and next thing you know everyone is playing essentially just as much as they did the year before. I’m choosing to view the Celtics depth as a positive, because I care more about long term health than making like the 7th or 8th guy on the roster happy. If this team is winning, minutes shouldn’t be an issue.

And that’s it! Thank you to everyone who wrote in this week, you continue to be the best readers on the planet. You know the drill, I’ll see you all back here next weekend, but you don’t have to wait until then if you need to get something off your chest. The Greenie Bag is always open.

Anyway, hopefully this helped your hangover a little bit, have a great rest of your Sunday!