On this episode, Ben and I respect the reintroduction of Marcus Sensible, speak Mazzulla getting the fulltime gig, and hand out some essential awards. These awards are extremely prestigious and the First to the Ground group doesn’t hand them out evenly. They aren’t, I repeat, they don’t seem to be, utterly arbitrary and completely meaningless. Tell us the place we went unsuitable and who you’d choose for these extraordinarily prestigious awards.
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports activities
The Marquis Daniels Award for Most Underrated
Winner: Al Horford
Right here’s the variety of huge males that take as many or extra threes than Al Horford and make the next proportion: 0. The one bigs within the top-30 of 3-point discipline objectives per sport that shoot over than 40% from 3 are Lauri Markkanen, Kelly Olynyk, and Al Horford. Al’s 42.2% tops all of them, oh, and he’s sixth amongst facilities in makes an attempt per sport, greater than Olynyk.
Amongst bigs which have performed 20 or extra video games, opponent discipline purpose proportion drops 5.7% when Horford is defending. That’s sixth amongst facilities, and he contests the best variety of discipline objectives amongst these 6. On protection, Al Horford is in every single place, and he’s impactful.
Having an enormous that may shoot, defend all 3 ranges, and swap between the 4 and 5 on each ends is absurdly precious. But, Al stays underrated as a result of his counting stats have dipped significantly from his peak. Due to the invisible worth of Al, he’s our most underrated participant.
Honorable Point out: Luke Kornet
Picture by Maddie Malhotra/Getty Pictures
The Marcus Sensible Award for Greatest Defensive Participant
Winner: Derrick White
He leads the group in whole variety of blocks and is second behind Robert Williams in blocks per sport. The protection is 2.8 factors per 100 possessions worse when Derrick White isn’t on the market. He’s recurrently requested to chase off-ball shooters, navigate excessive ball screens, and swap onto bigs. He does all of that someplace between adequate and elite.
White profitable this one is a little bit of a perform of Rob not taking part in a ton and never utterly being ROB! when he has, and Sensible lacking a bunch of video games not too long ago. I’m a slave to recency bias- I’m sorry.
Honorable Point out: Al Horford
The Ray Allen Award for Third Greatest Participant
Winner: Derrick White
This one is a tossup, greater than even Greatest Defensive Participant. The factor with White is that the superior stats and counting stats meet at a ravishing crossroads the place there’s an image of Derrick White having bother listening to and repeating “another sport” time and again.
s
Per PbP Stats, the Celtics are over 8 factors per 100 possessions higher when Derrick White is on the court docket. If multi function metrics are your factor, he leads the group in 538’s RAPTOR and he’s second on the group in BBall Index’s LEBRON and ESPN’s Estimated Plus Minus. White can be fifth in PPG and third in APG whereas solely turning the ball over a measly 1.1 instances per sport regardless of working because the nominal level guard typically. He additionally hasn’t missed a sport. The Derrick White commerce is an absolute house run for Brad Stevens.
Honorable Point out: Marcus Sensible
Picture by Omar Rawlings/Getty Pictures
The Evan Turner Award for Greatest Comedic Efficiency and Locker Room Presence
Winner: Luke Kornet
The Kornish Sport Hen, the Stromile Swift celly, nodding goofily to himself when he finishes a behind the again alley-oop. Kornet is an honest backup middle blended with a comedic genius.
Honorable Point out: Blake Griffin
The First to the Ground Award for Being First to the Ground Offered by First to the Ground
Winner: Blake Griffin
Blake Griffin has nothing left to show within the NBA. He’s been All-NBA, multi-time All-Star, and lead aggressive groups in scoring. He’s a borderline Corridor of Famer that went #1 general within the draft. But right here he’s, in a blowout in opposition to the Detroit Pistons, diving everywhere in the ground to a raucous Boston crowd.
Blake has embodied every part we love about Celtics basketball the second he placed on the jersey, and hopefully we get the person the one factor he’s ready for, a hoop.
Honorable point out: Marcus Sensible
Hope you get pleasure from this episode, Ben and I actually loved giving out the awards and celebrating Joe getting the full-time gig. Please subscribe to the CelticsBlog podcast feed and the First to the Ground YouTube channel. Thanks for listening!
