I was wondering about where the Celtics could best stand to upgrade to get to that next level. To get a rough estimate of top players and how the Celtics stack up, I took a quick look at RPM of the top 5 players at each position and compared it to the Celtics starters. The biggest difference between the top players and the Celtics starters comes in at the PG position, but this is mostly because of the dominance of Curry, Westbrook, and Lowry who are in a league of their own.
Crowder and Sullinger seem to be the two best Celtics players in comparison to top players at their position. This got me thinking- is Cousins really a good piece to spend assets on? I think Sullinger would have to go to the bench if Cousins was brought in; I am not really seeing them on the court together. I guess downstream this would hopefully limit minutes for Lee and the already sparsely used Zeller, which would be good, but in an ideal world, would upgrading our backcourt be a better idea than our bigs? Obviously, it all comes down to availability of players (it would be nice if Bledsoe was actually on the trade block like the rumors were earlier this year).
Here is what I found:
Top 5 - 1's (PG) - Curry, Westbrook, Lowry, Bledsoe, Wall:
Average: RPM: 7.79, ORPM: 7.00, DRPM: 0.79
Celtics:
Thomas: RPM: 2.63, ORPM: 5.34, DRPM: -2.71
Smart: RPM: -1.97, ORPM: -1.98, DRPM: 0.01 (obviously an extra small sample alert here with only 9 g played)
Top 5 - 2's (SG) - Harden, Butler, Ginobili, Batum, Middleton
Average: RPM: 3.29, ORPM: 3.49, DRPM: -0.20
Celtics:
Bradley: RPM: 0.78, ORPM: 1.52, DRPM: -0.78
Top 5 - 3's (SF) - Leonard, James, Durant, George, Crowder
Average: RPM: 6.57, ORPM: 4.58, DRPM: 1.99
Celtics:
Crowder: RPM: 3.86, ORPM: 1.28, DRPM: 2.58
Top 5 - 4's (PF) - Green, Millsap, Love, Griffin, Bosh:
Average: RPM: 5.39, ORPM: 3.20, DRPM: 2.19
Celtics:
Johnson: RPM: 2.23, ORPM: -0.09, DRPM: 2.32
Top 5 - 5's (C) - Jordan, Duncan, Drummond, Ezeli, Plumlee:
Average: RPM: 4.59, ORPM: 0.05, DRPM: 4.54
Celtics:
Sullinger: RPM: 3.14, ORPM: 0.10, DRPM: 3.04