C's pick Aaron Nesmith #14 overall

pjheff

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A Nesmith who improves on D and is a plus shooter absolutely would give the production that Fournier did last year.
I am skeptical that Nesmith is going to put up a second season akin to Jaylen Brown’s, and if he surprises me, I will shower his performance with more enthusiastic encomiums than “solid.” To me, that’s a 99th percentile outcome.
 

128

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I am skeptical that Nesmith is going to put up a second season akin to Jaylen Brown’s, and if he surprises me, I will shower his performance with more enthusiastic encomiums than “solid.” To me, that’s a 99th percentile outcome.
Barring a rash of injuries to teammates, I doubt Nesmith will have the opportunity Brown did in his second year. I'll be happy if Nesmith shoots well and smooths out some of the rough edges on the rest of his game.
 

pjheff

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Barring a rash of injuries to teammates, I doubt Nesmith will have the opportunity Brown did in his second year.
I don’t think he will either, though the opportunity is there for the taking. This team is light on established wing depth, and there should be a significant role for him if he can beat out Pritchard, Hernangomez, Langford, and GWilliams.

I'll be happy if Nesmith shoots well and smooths out some of the rough edges on the rest of his game.
I will too. That would be a solid second season.
 

benhogan

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It will be interesting to see how Nesmith adapts after COVID season, Summer League, a healthy summer, Training Camp, & a pre-season under his belt. His 3Pt% will dictate his minutes/effectiveness.

Fresh @Vand: 32 games 59/175 33.7%
Soph @Vand: 14 games 60/115 52.2%

Celtic rookie: 40/108 37%

I think we can all agree that AN was a bundle of nerves during his rookie year. AND Shooters need to play games/mins, get attempts and have the confidence to shoot well.

(SSS alert)
The 3mths where he got to play the most minutes (Feb/April/May) he shot 27/64 from 3 (42.2%) vs the three months he played the least (Dec/Jan/March) 13/44 (29.5%)

Nesmith strikes me as a guy that will shoot better as he gains confidence/mins, as we saw in college and during his rookie year. He's also a guy worth investing early regular-season minutes into since we probably will have to part with him in any deal that brings back the 3rd star we crave. I don't see 12ppg from AN but I do see 40%+ from 3 if gets to play 15mpg with no DNP-CD.

Also putting him in the same sentence as Jaylen Brown seems silly, completely different players/talent levels.
 

nighthob

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Yeah, Nesmith’s role in the NBA is 3&D guy. No one’s looking at him as a star (honestly I was higher on Jaden McDaniels in the draft and I didn’t like him either), his future is as a potential high end roleplayer. In the event that there’s no third star to be had (which is the most likely scenario), Nesmith fits in to the Duncan Robinson role of weak side shooter that runs to daylight. This obviously relies on Tatum and Brown taking another step as playmakers, but I think that they have that in them.
 

Euclis20

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Have you seen the Celtics injury luck the last couple years?
Why? It can’t be the amount of wing depth on the roster.
Brown was 2nd on the team in non-big minutes in his sophomore season. Currently ahead of Nesmith we've got Tatum, Brown, Smart, Schroder and Richardson at a minimum, and possibly Pritchard and Romeo. The Celtics injury luck has been abysmal in recent years but their current wing depth is certainly decent and there are a LOT of guys ahead of Nesmith.

It'd be for the best if Nesmith somehow passed a bunch of these guys and became a regular (I think only Tatum is a better shooter and he's got good energy), but the rest of his game is so far behind everyone else that it would take some extraordinarily luck (for him) to play more than 20 mpg and have more than a handful of starts.
 

pjheff

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Brown was 2nd on the team in non-big minutes in his sophomore season. Currently ahead of Nesmith we've got Tatum, Brown, Smart, Schroder and Richardson at a minimum, and possibly Pritchard and Romeo. The Celtics injury luck has been abysmal in recent years but their current wing depth is certainly decent and there are a LOT of guys ahead of Nesmith.
The first five are pretty much guaranteed minutes, but they should still leave 40-50 non-big minutes available. The question is whether Nesmith can wrest them from Pritchard, Romeo, and I’d add Hernangomez.

It'd be for the best if Nesmith somehow passed a bunch of these guys and became a regular (I think only Tatum is a better shooter and he's got good energy), but the rest of his game is so far behind everyone else that it would take some extraordinarily luck (for him) to play more than 20 mpg and have more than a handful of starts.
Or extraordinary improvement. What you’re describing sounds to me less like a lack of an opportunity than readiness for an opportunity that is clearly available.
 

Euclis20

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There's definitely an opportunity for some non-garbage time rotation minutes for Nesmith, but what I'm saying is that there isn't a chance in hell that he gets the same minutes that Jaylen got in 2018 (2000+).

If there are 40-50 minutes left over, Pritchard/Romeo/Hernangomez/Grant will take more than a handful, especially because the last two can play the 4 while Nesmith is a bit small for that. I'd put Nesmith's over/under for MPG this year at 15, and would be very happy if he hits 20.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Well, if he shoots 40% from 3 - if - he'll get minutes, somehow.
Steve Novak was a career 43% shooter over his 10 year career, which is close to 50% based on today’s averages, and only got more than 10mpg three times in his career. Nesmith will have to do more than be a slightly above average three-point shooter to get minutes on this deep of a team unless their are injuries.
 

JM3

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I think you're going to have to show your work on 43% = 50%.

In Novak's rookie year, '06-'07, the NBA shot 35.8% on 3s. In Novak's last year in the NBA, '16-'17, the league shot 35.8%. For Novak's career, the league shot 35.8%.

Since Novak retired, the league has shot 36.1% on 3s.
 

benhogan

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It's a volume, not a % thing now. Novak would be much more appreciated in today's game as opposed to a decade ago. He'd play and launch more...and get more of those NBA riches.

see Robinson, Duncan

He had some obscenely high OBPM #s some of those years, he should have received more minutes. If Nesmith shoots 43% from 3 he'll be over 15mpg
 
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pjheff

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We are loaded with veteran wings who are assured on major minutes. I don’t understand this position you’re taking.
Who are the veteran wings? There are two guaranteed starters in Tatum and Brown as well as one certain rotation player in Richardson.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I think you're going to have to show your work on 43% = 50%.

In Novak's rookie year, '06-'07, the NBA shot 35.8% on 3s. In Novak's last year in the NBA, '16-'17, the league shot 35.8%. For Novak's career, the league shot 35.8%.

Since Novak retired, the league has shot 36.1% on 3s.
I didn’t realize the league was that high back then. I thought it went from low 30’s to today’s 37%. My point stands. He’s going to have to improve other areas unless he gets well into the 40’s on this team. Even the kid in Golden St shot 40% last year and only played like 10 mpg and that was on a lottery type team.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Who are the veteran wings? There are two guaranteed starters in Tatum and Brown as well as one certain rotation player in Richardson.
Tatum and Brown are at 35 mpg+, JRich is going to play……is Smart not going to also see 25-30 mpg with many at the 2? That doesn’t even account for Romeo who he couldn’t beat out for minutes in the playoffs last year.
 

pjheff

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Tatum and Brown are at 35 mpg+, JRich is going to play……is Smart not going to also see 25-30 mpg with many at the 2? That doesn’t even account for Romeo who he couldn’t beat out for minutes in the playoffs last year.
Tatum / Brown / Richardson are certainly going to have fixed roles regardless of Nesmith, but Marcus’ usage and Romeo’s minutes are very much a result of his own performance and improvement.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Tatum / Brown / Richardson are certainly going to have fixed roles regardless of Nesmith, but Marcus’ usage and Romeo’s minutes are very much a result of his own performance and improvement.
How is Marcus’ usage going to be performance based? Unless he goes full blown Fultz he’s 25-30 per game with some or most of his minutes at the 2.
 

pjheff

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How is Marcus’ usage going to be performance based? Unless he goes full blown Fultz he’s 25-30 per game with some or most of his minutes at the 2.
I think Marcus’ usage, whether at the 1 or 2 defensively (with ball handling duties offensively regardless), will depend on if the reserve role is claimed by Nesmith or Pritchard (or even Hernangomez/Langford).
 

JM3

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I didn’t realize the league was that high back then. I thought it went from low 30’s to today’s 37%. My point stands. He’s going to have to improve other areas unless he gets well into the 40’s on this team. Even the kid in Golden St shot 40% last year and only played like 10 mpg and that was on a lottery type team.
I was using bref for those #s. Was hoping to find a quickie chart with % for every year since Chris Ford started the trend.

The closest I found on quick look was Wiki's stats in 10 year increments:

79-80 2.8 attemps at 29%
89-90 6.6 attemps at 33%
99-00 13.7 attemps at 35%
09-10 18.1 attemps at 36%
19-20 34.1 attemps at 36%

The league obviously shoots much better as a whole as it's kept its % at an exponentially increasing volume, but yeah, actual % pretty static.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Nesmith will have to do more than be a slightly above average three-point shooter to get minutes on this deep of a team unless their are injuries.
I don't think average is the benchmark for him, so much as what others on the team are doing. If Richardson has a bounce-back year and shoots 38% again, he'll likely get full starter minutes and crowd others like Nesmith off the floor. But if his downward trend continues and he shoots below 32%, that's a whole different story.
 

benhogan

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The C's were facing a mediocre team, so it wasn't the best proving ground for Nesmith, but he was fine defensively. No bad lapses.
I wasn't watching for this but I did notice a couple of times that AN didn't t shuffle his feet when the opponent drove - he turned his hips and ran after the guy. No bueno.
Smith with a pretty bold statement for the haters...Prediction: Both Langford and Aaron Nesmith pass Josh Richardson in the rotation by midseason.
Funny - if you could combine RL and AN, you'd have a max player. I know you can say that about a lot of combinations, but it's just funny that DA drafted them in successive years. (I also know that I'm not the first to mention this but it stood out to me last night.)
 

Jimbodandy

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Yeah AN doesn't shuffle. Just doesn't.

Hoping he gets that someday. But for now, it's still a weakness. He's gonna get beat off the dribble more than his athleticism should allow.
 

HomeRunBaker

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but where are the defensive highlights?

I'm not worried about his O.
I’m worried about his offense against NBA starters for sure. You can definitely see the game slowing down for him this preseason compared to last year. I wouldn’t expect consistent production from him yet but he’s slowly getting there. You want to continue seeing progress without a stagnation period in a guys second year.
 

128

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I’m worried about his offense against NBA starters for sure. You can definitely see the game slowing down for him this preseason compared to last year. I wouldn’t expect consistent production from him yet but he’s slowly getting there. You want to continue seeing progress without a stagnation period in a guys second year.
Compare where Nesmith is today offensively and where he was at this time last year. It's night and day. In the fall of 2020, he was a "lights-out shooter" who couldn't actually shoot, and I'm not sure he could have even attempted one of those Jaylen-esque moves, let alone made one.

As long as the C's ask him to do too much on offense, he should be fine this season. There's a lot to be said for guys who can hit open 3s.
 

bakahump

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Agreed with much of the comments above who know more about BB then me.

Are we grading his D to harshly? Will he ever be Kwahi? Or Tatum or Jaylen or Smart? No. But isnt he "too athletic" to be be hunted?

IOW if his role is being the worst defender of a starting 5 of J,J, Marcus and Rob thats plenty good isnt it? its not like he is Kemba or Isaiah.

If he is a second unit leader/scorer (and Romeo is the 5th Starter), then his defense is again not much of an issue when matching up against other 2nd units.

We can always hope (and IMHO Defense gets a bit better with experience even with no "talent") he gets better at defense. But being "what he is" right now isnt terrible.

His offense speaks for itself and will only improve. Still misses the occasional 3 that I *think he should hit, but even the greats miss 58% of thiers.
 

TripleOT

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Are we grading his D to harshly? Will he ever be Kwahi? Or Tatum or Jaylen or Smart? No. But isnt he "too athletic" to be be hunted?

IOW if his role is being the worst defender of a starting 5 of J,J, Marcus and Rob thats plenty good isnt it? its not like he is Kemba or Isaiah.
Some posters are certainly grading his D harshly, with a lot of the criticism on his technique. Since he is not too undersized and has a decent defensive skill set (effort, decent arm length, decent athleticism, smarts), he should grow into an acceptable defender. Technique is fixable.
 

Jimbodandy

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Some posters are certainly grading his D harshly, with a lot of the criticism on his technique. Since he is not too undersized and has a decent defensive skill set (effort, decent arm length, decent athleticism, smarts), he should grow into an acceptable defender. Technique is fixable.
Yeah baka raises a good point (and you).

He's won't be a liability on D. He has some athleticism, decent enough size and length, and busts his ass at that end. His BBIQ is already expanding, and he doesn't seem to space out and shit like that.

It's probably a pet peeve thing, since most of us were coached to slide our feet and not crossover before we were old enough to shave. It's the type of thing that would limit his ceiling if uncorrected, but his floor is already okayish.
 

Imbricus

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I'm more on the Nesmith train than the Langford train. Nesmith is the better shooter, and I think Romeo's nice three-point shooting a couple of games ago will prove a fluke. On defense, Langford has an advantage, but I'm not convinced it's much of one. Nesmith looks like a better passer too.
 

Cesar Crespo

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so Aaron's base case 3pt% is 50%? Giddy Up!

Practice and all, but I'm sure JT is not taking this laying down.

FREE Nesmith
I know you are kidding but they have some random bums who make 100s in a row.

What is base case anyway? Best or minimum?
 

benhogan

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I know you are kidding but they have some random bums who make 100s in a row.

What is base case anyway? Best or minimum?
It's a finance wonk term used during earnings expectations. Somewhere on the conservative side.

Here is Google's take:

The base case is the model's expected case, determined by using the assumptions that the project team consider are most likely to occur. The financial results from the base case should be better than those from conservative scenarios, but worse than those from upside cases. ... Financial modelling is full of uncertainties.


and Tatum could probably care less
 

Cesar Crespo

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It's a finance wonk term used during earnings expectations. Somewhere on the conservative side.

Here is Google's take:

The base case is the model's expected case, determined by using the assumptions that the project team consider are most likely to occur. The financial results from the base case should be better than those from conservative scenarios, but worse than those from upside cases. ... Financial modelling is full of uncertainties.


and Tatum could probably care less
I'm pretty high on Nesmith offensively and overall. I think his ceiling is limited a bit because of his D, but I don't think he's a liability.

I think he's going to be a very good to elite 3 point shooter as soon as this year. Around 40% if he gets any real volume. If he can do that while not being a liability on D, PP might see his role shrink. You can never have enough shooters though, so PP may get burn regardless.

And Tatum might care, but in a "if he does that during games, I'm passing him the ball" sorta way.
 

PedroKsBambino

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So, if you averaged Nesmith's 3pt without missing two in a row and Ben Simmons' you'd have....122.

While I agree Tatum may not care, I bet somewhere in French Lick someone is either unhappy or challenging that constitutates a Celtics record....
 

Eddie Jurak

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I did not enjoy reading a tweet that began "Nesmith says he broke Jayson Tatum's..." For a split second it looked like disaster to me.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Because he isn't good enough.
Even if he was good, he's not getting 30 minutes but I tend to agree with you unless Ime and BS are just totally off on their evaluation of Nesmith.

I'd like him to get some developmental minutes but unless the above is true, you'd have to think Nesmith doesn't deserve much more than developmental minutes.

I'm not a huge fan of the G league and question how much it helps, but I think Nesmith might be one of the few players who would benefit from going. Let him play 30-35 minutes a night for a handful of games. Especially if he's just going to play scattered minutes at best in the NBA.

PP too, though I think he has far less to gain. I don't see much to lose by doing so as they aren't really playing with the big league club and you can get both of them back anytime you want.

Bruno played for the G league tonight, he sucked. The whole team did really.
 

Van Everyman

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In a perfect world, PP would be in the Shane Larkin role.

I’m not sure it’s that complicated with Nesmith. I think he (and PP to an extent) would be getting more minutes if Ime wasn’t doing quasi-major surgery on Tatum, Smart and the defense. With those guys struggling to maintain consistency, Ime has to play the starters more and the minutes there are for guys like Nesmith go to guys who know the system a little better (like GW).

I could be wrong but I’d expect his minutes to get more consistent once the rotation stretches out and normalizes a bit.
 

Cesar Crespo

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In a perfect world, PP would be in the Shane Larkin role.

I’m not sure it’s that complicated with Nesmith. I think he (and PP to an extent) would be getting more minutes if Ime wasn’t doing quasi-major surgery on Tatum, Smart and the defense. With those guys struggling to maintain consistency, Ime has to play the starters more and the minutes there are for guys like Nesmith go to guys who know the system a little better (like GW).

I could be wrong but I’d expect his minutes to get more consistent once the rotation stretches out and normalizes a bit.
But what's the harm in playing PP and AN in Maine until Ime figures it out? Nesmith putting together a string of 5-6 games where he goes 23/50 from 3 might do wonders for his confidence level. PP too.