Boston Celtics: 3 players expected to make big jumps in 2021-22

Boston Celtics player No. 2) Aaron Nesmith

Over the past six years, the Boston Celtics have found themselves come into possession of four lottery selections and, with them, managed to snag franchise building blocks Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum in two consecutive years.

However, despite the hot start to this timeline, the front office has struggled to duplicate this level of success with their other draft night decisions.

Last year’s 14th overall pick, Aaron Nesmith, proved to be no exception to this rule.

Coming in viewed as arguably the best shooter in his respective class, the Vanderbilt star was quite underwhelming during the vast majority of his 46-game rookie campaign, posting rather underwhelming averages for a lottery selection (posted 4.7 points and 2.8 boards per game).

That said, despite his inconsistencies, the back-end of the season saw glimpses of true potential for the wing for, through the final nine games of the year, he posted solid averages of 9.7 points and 4.9 rebounds per game on 53.6 percent shooting from the floor and 45 percent shooting from deep while dropping 15 or more points on four separate occasions during this span.

Generally speaking, players who showed promise in year one tend to see an uptick in playtime during their sophomore campaigns and, due to the fact that the C’s bench could use as many offensive contributors as they can get their hands on — ranked 28th in points per game and 23rd in offensive rating last season — Nesmith should be in line for more minutes which, in turn, should lead to greater production.

Though we may not have as lofty of expectations as other media outlets do, we certainly are under the impression that year two should be a rather sizeable leap for the talented wing.