Boston Celtics: 4 reasons to be thankful for the Tristan Thompson signing
By Ian Riaf
Reason to be thankful for Tristan Thompson No. 5) Offensive skill-set
On the offensive side of the floor, brute force is the word that comes to mind.
Despite a drop in efficiency during the past two seasons, Tristan Thompson has a nice touch around the basket, can operate in the short roll, and has impeccable timing on the offensive glass — all things that should come to benefit the Boston Celtics.
For a player who gets a large portion of his buckets through assists, it would be remiss of us to not mention the context of the past two seasons.
Thompson played alongside quite possibly the least efficient starting point guard in Collin Sexton — ranked in the 78th percentile in turnover percentage and only 6th percentile in assist percentage and, yes, this is the 6th percentile among the entire league, not just guards.
When Sexton is your highest usage player, except for the quality of looks to dwindle, but let’s get back to Thompson.
During the LeBron James era in Cleveland, Thompson played more of the traditional stand in the dunker’s spot, surrounded by James, Kyrie Irving, and a bevy of floor spacers.
It wasn’t until after James and Irving’s departure that Thompson started shooting outside of the painted area.
During the 2018-19 season, he upped his non-painted area looks by <18 percent, granted the majority of these looks came in the short mid-range area, but he capitalized off this newfound range.
Even with this, however, we must slow down here a bit.
Even though he shot at an impressive 39 percent from three-point range, let’s take these numbers with a grain of salt given the minimal volume of attempts.
To put everything into perspective, Daniel Theis took more than 2-and-a-half three-pointers per game. If Thompson can hit the long-ball it’s an added benefit, but I wouldn’t set expectations too high coming into his first year with the Boston Celtics.
Thompson’s one-dimensional offensive profile may cause anguish to those wishing the Celtics invested resources into a modern floor-spacing big.
Missing out on the Myles Turner, Paul Millsap, Serge Ibaka sweepstakes limits this team in terms of its vertical pick and pop gravity.
Again, the Cs sided with toughness.