Taking stock at mid-season: the Celtics’ veteran grades so far

With the midpoint of the 2019-20 NBA season in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to take stock of what the Boston Celtics’ veterans have done so far.

Rotation

It speaks to good roster management by Danny Ainge and the rest of the front office that the team has no unproductive veterans on the roster. But how have the pair of rotation players left ungraded fared compared to expectations?

A journeyman and a bit of a project in terms of development have both fared well — though both have room for improvement.

Brad Wanamaker

With perhaps the lowest expectations of any veteran on the roster, the Pitt product has managed to exceed them, yet still may be less than what Boston needs.

He’s not especially dynamic of an offensive player, yet has proven to be a calming presence as a floor general when called on to fill a larger role, and has defended well no matter how much run he gets.

The biggest knock on Wanamaker this season is a noteworthy drop in efficiency coming with that bigger role — his 3-point percentage has fallen from a sizzling 41 % last season to just 31.6 %, and 2-point percentage to 46.1 % from 55.2 %.

Robert Williams III

It’s hard to grade a player who hasn’t played much this season, but it’s not Timelord’s fault he hurt his hip. What was hoped for from him this campaign was a player who made less of the defensive mistakes taking him out of action in his rookie season, and more diversity on the offensive end of the floor.

He demonstrated flashes of some away-from-basket scoring (albeit not that far) and some intriguing passing that started to suggest the former Aggie could realistically be a starting center for the team with a little more growth.

While the hope was that might come by the end of the season, with the justifiable care being taken with his hip, we may not see it until 2020-21 in earnest. That’s just fine, though, as we’ve already seen most of what we wanted to out of this young rim-runner to date.

Only a dip in 2-point efficiency (down to 67.3 % from 70.6 %) and the free throw line (57.1 % from 60 %) are negatives, and the latter normal when shooting father from the cup.

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