Boston Celtics: What’s with the Kids? Part 1

Many Boston Celtics fans have great confidence in their team’s assortment of young guards. Can you blame them? Marcus Smart, James Young, Terry Rozier, and R.J. Hunter were taken in the first round of the NBA draft for a reason. NBA scouts and coaches thought very highly of these talented young hoopers coming out of college. But so far their talents haven’t translated into meaningful NBA success. Truth be told, they’ve been more of a disappointment than anything else. So which of your young guards should you hold out hope for, Celtics fans, and which should you begin to question as parts of the team’s future? Let’s try to figure that out….

Boston’s selection of point guard Terry Rozier, 16th overall in the 2015 NBA draft, was a controversial one. At the time, the team ostensibly had great depth at Rozier’s position. Marcus Smart, the 6th overall pick from the previous year’s draft, was the incumbent starter. And the team’s best player, Isaiah Thomas, relieved Smart and provided tremendous offensive firepower off the bench as the team’s sixth man. To further confuse things, Rozier wasn’t projected by the foremost NBA draft experts to come off the draft board until late in the first round or possibly even the second. But Danny Ainge, never afraid to make a bold move, thought he saw something special in the scrappy young point guard from Louisville and took a chance on him.

Given the Celtics’ aforementioned depth at the point guard spot, Rozier hasn’t had much of an opportunity to prove himself early on in his professional career. Even when there have been injuries at his position, Brad Stevens has relied on capable ball-handler and usual small forward, Evan Turner, to fill in as the team’s back-up quarterback. Thus, Terry has only played a total of 96 minutes for the Celtics this season, making it exceedingly difficult to come to any worthwhile conclusions as to how well he matches up against NBA talent.

While Rozier hasn’t made an impact with the Celtics, he’s certainly been a difference maker for the Celts’ D-League affiliate, the Maine Red Claws. As the starting point guard in 14 of Maine’s games, Terry has posted very impressive statistics. He’s averaged 19.4 points, 8 assists, and 6.4 rebounds per game, to go along with 1.9 steals. He’s also shot an encouraging .34% from three point land. It’s not a great idea to read too deeply into a player’s D-League stats, but Rozier’s performance thus far in the minors hasn’t done anything to make Celtics fans doubt him.

Fans should be more concerned about R.J. Hunter, who was billed as a “shooter” when the Celtics took him 28th overall in 2015. Shooting was something the Celtics desperately needed to improve upon after a 2014-2015 campaign that saw them ranked as the fourth worst three point shooting team in the entire NBA and in the bottom third in terms of overall field goal percentage. Therefore, the Celtics’ selection of R.J. Hunter late in the first round seemed to make a lot of sense. Most Celtics fans saw the apparent logic in this and were rather pleased.

Hunter has received significantly more playing time with the Celtics than Rozier, most likely because of R.J.’s presumed skill set. During some stretches this season, Hunter has even been a regular member of Steven’s rotation. In these stretches, R.J. has displayed head’s up passing and solid defense for a rookie. But just how bad this supposed “shooter’s” shooting has been is alarming.

Hunter has shot an atrocious .255% from three with the Celtics this season, and his .347% overall shooting is lousy, too. And unlike Rozier, Hunter has struggled in the sample of games he’s played in Maine. He is averaging what on the surface appears to be a respectable 16.6 points per game with the Red Claws, but those points haven’t come easily for him. The “shooter’s” below .30% three point shooting and his .338% overall shooting for Maine are causes for concern, whereas now his shooting woes are looking more like a trend than an aberration.

It turns out, off-target shooting dogged R.J. in his final season at Georgia State University. As a junior for the Panthers, R.J. shot only .305% from deep and .40% from the field overall, while playing against what was subpar talent in the Sun Belt Conference — which was just the 19th highest rated conference in NCAA division I men’s college basketball that year. To put it simply, Hunter should have been far and away the most gifted player to take the court on a nightly basis while at Georgia State, so these stats are especially worrisome. If a “shooter” can’t shoot, what can he do?

Next: Jonas Jerebko is Finally Where he Needs to Be

Next week, I’ll examine how the Boston Celtics’ young guards that were the team’s first round draft selections in 2014 have performed so far in their young careers. I’ll also hand down my verdict as to which player’s development fans should be most concerned with. Stay tuned.