Guerschon Yabusele needs to step up in a big way if he wants to have a role with the Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are quickly filling up their roster, and the fringe bench players from last season need to be worried about their role. The player currently in the most difficult position might be Guerschon Yabusele. A lot of people want to believe in his potential, and he has become a fan favorite. Unfortunately, it is looking more and more like he will not have a role next season.
The Celtics have an unsettled collection of bigs right now, but they are not short of options. If Yabusele has any hope of being even the eight or ninth man in the rotation, he needs to do more then Robert Williams, overcome Semi Ojeleye, have as dynamic an impact as Daniel Theis, or bring the reliability of Aron Baynes.
Yabusele has great potential with his defense and shooting, but he has not shown the Celtics anything to indicate that he should get playing time over any of those options, and there is no way he will get minutes behind all of them.
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Yabusele can serve as solid injury depth, but even that might be in question, because the roster spots have been filling quickly. Yabusele has been given some sort of opportunity, so the Celtics have an idea of what they can expect of him.
If they do not believe that Yabusele is going to break out and become a standout player in any way, he will be lucky to see even garbage time minutes. Theoretically, Yabusele is the exact kind of big the Celtics need, but if he does not start showing that on the court quickly, the Celtics will have to move on from him.
The bright side is that every front court position beyond Al Horford is in question now. Brad Stevens is going to try and use as much as he can off the bench, but he even has limits to how deep his rotation can go.
On top of that, the standard will be higher next year. The amount of players will make it harder to get minutes, and the quality of the players will make it more difficult to put someone on the court that is ever a weakness.
So far, Yabusele has not proven that he can avoid being a liability in certain ways, and the moment he starts hurting the team there is no reason at all to keep him around.
Yabusele was always a solid project, and everyone knew he needed time to develop. If things come together, he can jump over a lot of the competition and have the first significant role of his career.
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At this point, however, there have been few indications that he is capable of elevating his game like that, and the Celtics do not have room on their roster or minutes to give out to a player that has performed the way Yabusele has so far in his career.