Boston Celtics: Backup bigs need to learn how to pass
The Boston Celtics need their bigs to start passing more like Al Horford
Al Horford truly transforms what the Boston Celtics offense is able to do with his passing. It allows their offense to remain fluid no matter who is handling the ball, puts another distributor on the court and opens up all kinds of space.
The Celtics cannot hope to another another big who is able to bring everything that Horford does, but different pieces might be able to bring different parts.
The Celtics have a lot of different front court options, but none of them are really the complete package. You have great defensive versatility with Semi Ojeleye and Robert Williams, and solid two way impact with Guerscon Yabusele and Daniel Theis.
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There is also a scoring specialist in Marcus Morris and a defensive stud in Aron Baynes. There are a lot of different pieces who can help maintain the impact of Horford, but the area they will struggle in the most is passing.
The Celtics do not have any true distributors amongst their backup bigs, but they all need to be capable passers. If you are going to stay on the court for the Celtics this season, you cannot afford to limit the team in any way.
If you are a ball stopper in any way, and that includes not being able to help generate the overall ball movement, you will not be on the court for long. The Celtics need everyone on the court to be able to sustain their ball movement, because that is how they generate so many good opportunities.
Anyone who is not able to sustain that kind of passing will be limiting what they can do on that end. There will be times when the defense is enough, or the shooting boost will be a priority. If, however, one of these backup bigs really want to separate from the rest, they will have to be strong passers, and make sure the offense continues to function as effectively as possible.
All players need to be as versatile and accommodating as possible to make sure they can be used in as many different lineups by Stevens, and prove to him how many different situations they can be trusted in.
They do not need to be scoring a lot, because they have more than enough of that on the starting unit. The problem, however, is that getting the best out of that talent involves everyone on the court.
Stevens is only going to trust these players if he can maintain their absolute best, and maintaining ball movement is going to be the most important thing for any of them on offense.
Even if the shots are not falling, they have plenty of options that will be getting and hitting open shots if they can maintain ball movement, while being steady with switching on defense.
There is a lot of potential with the second unit, but they all have a lot of work to do. Right now, passing is something every single one of them have to work on. Giving the Celtics an edge with ball movement can easily separate one of these bigs, and give them one of the more prominent roles on the team.