May 5, 2015
The Celtics of 2015-16 and beyond may have suffered a bit of a blow when Isaiah Thomas didn't win the NBA's Sixth Man Award last month.
The 5-foot-9 guard has said on many occasions that he would like to be a starter, which can be somewhat of an issue because, although he's guaranteed to be on the floor in crunch time, his talent and energy seem to make him ideally suited for coming in off the pine.
The Celtics want Thomas happy, and he seemed to be more amenable to beginning on the bench when it was noted to him last week that famed franchise sixth men Frank Ramsey, John Havlicek, Kevin McHale and Bill Walton were all in the Hall of Fame. The Celtics will try to convince him that he can still be a star without getting his name announced before tipoff.
As to whether the club can pull that off, Danny Ainge said, "I don't know. His job is to play. His job is to help the Celtics win, and he can choose to be happy or he can choose not to, but I'm confident that Isaiah is with us.
"I like the fact he wants to be a starter. I don't know a player that doesn't want to be a starter," the president of basketball operations added. "I know Manu Ginobili wants to be a starter. Well, maybe not now, but back when they brought him off the bench in his 20s. I know for sure Kevin McHale wanted to be a starter. Sometimes you've got to play the role to win and do what's best for the team. I'm confident that Isaiah is a winner, and I don't think it's as big a deal as you and I are talking about it right now."
Thomas struggled in the playoffs against Cleveland. Though he averaged a respectable 17.5 points in the four games (down a bit from his 19.0 for the C's in the regular season), he shot just 33.3 percent from the floor overall and was a poor 16.7 percent on 3-pointers. And he was averaging nearly four minutes more per game.
"Maximizing his production is most important," Ainge said. "Starting and playing 37 or 38 minutes, if the production's not going to be that much greater, then it doesn't make any sense. We feel like we're sort of maximizing his minutes and production at the high-20s to low-30s types of minutes as opposed to playing him more minutes and not getting the extra production."
As for Thomas finishing a distant second to Toronto's Lou Williams in the Sixth Man balloting, Ainge said, "I think the trade in midseason probably hurt his chances a little bit, being in the Western Conference and then coming to us. But Isaiah was as good as anybody off the bench this year."
In fact, Thomas probably was the main reason Ainge did not get his coveted chance in the lottery. But Ainge knew he would be downgrading the Celtics' draft position to at least some degree when he acquired him.
"We started the season out with high expectations," Ainge said. "I didn't believe that we were a championship contender at the beginning of the year, but we certainly thought we were a little bit better than how we played early on.
"And then when we made the trades early in the season, I think our expectations were a little bit less. We were going to play our young guys and focus on them, and there was probably more attention on the draft to me at that time. But I never intervene with the coaches or the players and give them direction one way or another, other than to go out and win and create a culture of winning.
"And when we acquired Isaiah, I knew he would make us better, and ultimately we acquired Isaiah, so we were fine with that. I mean, it's that simple. The decisions that we made weren't always to try to be the very best we could be this year when we were making the decisions. We didn't know we'd be better even before we got Isaiah, and when we got Isaiah we knew that was a missing piece, that we needed an offensive scorer, a fireplug off the bench that can create offense, and we were pretty sure that was going to make us better. Ultimately we chose to do that."
OLYNYK FOUL WAS COMMONPLACE
After talking with several people round the league, it seems there is almost unanimous opinion that Kelly Olynyk committed nothing more than a common foul on Cleveland forward Kevin Love and that his one-game suspension to begin next season is unwarranted. Interestingly, however, these NBA types would rather keep their names out of it because: a) they don't want to be attached to criticism of the league; and b) there's no sense getting the Cavaliers mad at their teams.
But Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca told Herald colleague Mark Murphy, "I don't know if (Olynyk)'s being demonized, but I looked at the play and it seemed to me like it was jostling that happens during the season. Kelly doesn't have a history of malicious play."
On whether he's concerned Olynyk will acquire a bad reputation, Pagliuca said: "Everybody has a different view in the heat of battle. We had a view when (Rajon) Rondo got hurt with Dwyane Wade (in the 2011 second round), and Isaiah Thomas got hurt with Dwyane Wade (this season). But I don't think there will be long-term ramifications for Kelly, because Kelly's not a dirty player. He's just not."
Ainge thinks Olynyk's penalty had more to do with Love shoulder injury.
"Because Kevin did get hurt, the league does evaluate those situations, and I understand a little bit why they did it," he said. "There was a lot of pressure on Cleveland. They were losing JR Smith in the first couple of games of the next round (for elbowing Jae Crowder), and they have Kevin out for the playoffs now. So I'm sure there was a lot of frustration in Cleveland and they wanted some justice and they scrutinized it and felt like Kelly gave a little bit too much at the very end of that arm tangling. When someone gets hurt, you're just under a little bit more scrutiny. But I thought it was just a foul, two guys going for a loose ball."
FUTURE IS IN SULLY'S HANDS
Jared Sullinger picked up his production after coming back from a fractured foot, going for 21 points and 11 rebounds in 28 minutes in the series finale against the Cavs. No one questions whether the kid can play. The issue is whether he can get himself into proper condition and maintain it.
"We've talked about this before," Ainge said in his season-closing press conference. "I hate harping on it. Jared wants to be in great shape. Jared puts his work in. I think he's in the process of trying to change his habits and get in the best shape of his career. "I'm hopeful that he'll see the light. I know that's what he wants, and I know that he does work at it. I'm a big fan of Jared's, and I think he has a very, very bright future. But I think he's hurting the longevity of his career and his play now by not being in as good of shape as he can be in. We do have a plan in place, I won't share with you the specifics of that plan, but we provided Jared with a lot of tools and a lot of people around him. But ultimately it's his choice of how compliant he is going to be. We can't watch him every second of his life."
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