Agree with all of the above. Brown was in an awful funk at the start of the year so his case would be "I'm the one who should be getting underserved minutes, not Gordon". And JT did not exactly set the world on fire in the early part of last year. On the plus side, Brown in particular turned his season arouns at some point.
I can kind of understand where the Celtics were coming from on keeping Rozier: Kyrie was something of an injury question mark, and Rozier had just shown that he could start in the playoffs. If Kyrie had setbacks and missed a lot of games, they would have wanted Rozier. But they failed to consider how a dissatisfied Rozier was going to negatively impact the team.
I wonder how much of all of this would have been solved by trading Rozier, making Smart the primary backup to Kyrie (and starter when he is out), and re-signing Larkin as a depth/matchup guy.
This post is pretty spot on, especially the last comment about Terry.
I agree Rozier didn't like being the 8th guy off the bench or being on the floor with Kyrie (he stated as much in the post season Greenberg/ESPN interview) and his adv ratings showed it. He flat out sucked in his role. Terry wanted to start and he played better when he did, that was obvious. To start the season I believed Terry as
Kyrie insurance was valuable and should be kept, in hindsight, it didn't work out. Brad Wanamaker as a 3rd string PG would have been adequate (esp with Horford and Hayward capable of initiating the offense as point forwards). I guess Danny should have gambled on Kyrie's health and just moved Rozier if he was going to sulk? But I certainly understand Danny's position here.
I also believe Brown had trouble adjusting to being the 5th option on offense to start the season, he seemed hesitant and confused the first 8 weeks. Making JB a main offensive option with the 2nd unit helped him get more involved early in games and build a shooting rhythm, so Brad deserves some credit for that adjustment. Brown's usage and minutes by the end of the season, could have seen a larger bump, which may have led to some murmurs/rumblings in the aftermath of the season.
My issue with Hayward was his initial usage and forcing Gordon into the starting lineup day 1. He should have been brought along much more slowly after that catastrophic injury. It's a very long season, his minutes/role could have developed organically. It appears like it also alienated some teammates, which didn't help with the chemistry/locker room.
BUT this was all driven by the biggest issue, Brad lacked balance with his lineups/rotations. This whole notion of playing 5 offensive alphas at once (playing
"small ball"), spreading 5 out on the perimeter is silly. Show me, one team, where this has ever worked? You need at least 1 or 2 lunch pail players on the floor/in rotations doing the dirty work. When Brad went
"small" none of those guys wanted to set screens, which led to little cutting, not many picks, and terrible ball movement. The Celtics offense was pretty much 5
potted plants on the perimeter and it was easy to defend. Brad preached "defense and ball movement" in every PG presser, yet his game lineups/rotations did not efficiently produce that. They rarely got big defensive stops at the end of tight games from his
small ball rotations. It wasn't a question of talent on the roster, it was in game execution by the coach/players with ill-conceived rotations and undefined roles.
Brad's small-ball style was a horrible approach, was proven as much, hastily corrected by the last week of the regular season. Brad admitted error at the end of the season press conference which leads me to believe/hope Brad/Danny have learned from this blunder of a season and will be better from it as they rebuild the next great Celtic team.
