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9 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

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9 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

12
10 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

94
11 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

13
14 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

42
14 days ago

Final Grade: Avery Bradley (C+)

In his third year in the league, in which promising players often make brash leaps from benchwarmer to starter, from starter to star, Avery Bradley took a big step back. But his regression might be deceptive. When he returned to the Celtics’ lineup on January the 2nd after two in-season months recovering from offseason shoulder [...]

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Introducing: Luke Harangody (Wait, Huh?)

The Celtics almost had Solomon Alabi, once thought likely to go somewhere around #20, slide all the way to their second-round pick at #52. But the Mavs (picking  for the Raptors, apparently) took Alabi two spots in front of Boston.

So the C’s took….Luke Harangody, a player I assume most of you know a lot about, since I know a lot about him and I barely follow college basketball. If you don’t, here’s the quick and dirty: A power forward who put up huge numbers (22 points, 9 boards) at Notre Dame but (according to most folks) lacks the athleticism, size and quickness necessary to succeed in the NBA. Harangody is listed at 6’8” but measured just 6’6” without shoes and has an underwhelming 6’10” wing-span, according to the DraftExpress.

Some other blurbs:

DraftExpress:

Though Harangody has made some changes to his game, his biggest weakness from an NBA perspective remains his lack of athleticism. The hard working forward certainly took the draft process seriously last summer, shedding some weight and improving his mobility to a degree in the process, but the strides he made still leave him severely lacking compared to the average NBA power forward. Extremely strong, but very undersized at just 6-6 without shoes, and without a great wingspan (6-10) to compensate for that, Harangody may not have the type of physical tools that would allow him to translate his production to a much smaller role at the next level. While that certainly limits his NBA upside, it may not exclude him from having the opportunity to make an impact as a role player.

ESPN U:
NBA scouts do watch players play. When they saw Harangody play, they saw a burly, undersized forward who relied on an unorthodox jump shot and a coterie of herky-jerky low-post moves to create his offense. They saw a guy who rebounded like a maniac, but who also siphoned a huge portion of his team’s possessions, not always efficiently. They also saw a guy whose team inarguably played better without him in 2009-10, and whose return came just in time for the once-resurgent Irish to lifelessly fall to Old Dominion in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Heh. On the one hand, rebounding is the one stat that translates predictably from college to the pros and Harangody grabbed rebounds in college. On the other hand, Harangody seems like an inferior version of Glen Davis, doesn’t he?

The Celtics unquestionably need big guys, and Harangody is a big guy. He’s probably not the big guy they were hoping to get as a few notable names kept slipping during the 2nd round, but he’s the one they got.

And remember: Someone picked at #52 has about a 5 percent chance of being anything but a total non-entity in the NBA, according to ESPN’s analysis of draft history. So there’s a good chance that Harangody, with no guaranteed deal, will never play a minute of real NBA action for the Boston Celtics.

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