Pro sports (particularly the NBA) are all about projecting future talent since so many guys enter the league not quite ready to make an immediate impact. Celtics center Robert Williams is a perfect example of this type of maddening player: he has All-NBA ability but for a variety of reasons (injury-prone, immature, lack of motivation, etc.), you wonder if he'll ever scratch the surface of his limitless potential on the basketball court. Quality big guys don't grow on trees though so I suppose that the C's had little choice but to reportedly sign him to a four-year contract extension to the tune of $54 million. This despite the fact that he's only appeared in 113 games in his first three seasons with Boston and even worse than that, he has made just 16 starts in that time span (with 13 of them coming last season).
Even casual observers or those that don't watch the Celtics often can nevertheless notice pretty quickly how much Williams stands out from the crowd: he's only listed at 6-foot-8 and 237 pounds (slightly undersized even for the modern center) and he thankfully does not shoot any 3-pointers (which strangely is kind of refreshing these days especially for this club) but his athleticism is still off the charts. Last season in 18.9 minutes per game, he averaged a career-high eight points per game, 6.9 rebounds per game and 1.8 blocks per game. His defensive presence on the court is no joke and while his offensive game is mostly limited to alley-oops and putbacks, the other Celtics do a nice job of finding him in good positions for easy baskets. Williams is a capable passer too but he really struggles at the free throw line (61.6% last season) and that has to improve ASAP.
Let's keep in mind that Williams will turn 24-years-old a few days before (on October 17) the season opener which means I am probably being a little too hard on him. He was not a lottery pick, not even close in fact. Given that he was the 27th overall selection out of noted basketball factory Texas A&M in 2018, he could already be deemed a success in the eyes of many local fans and national media alike. Williams has been a Celtic long enough to understand the passion of the team's fan-base which at times has a tendency to overrate Boston's players (something the front office recently has also been guilty of). If he is ever going to live up to this contract (and earn an even bigger one down the line), Williams has to prove that he can play for much of a regular season and still be available for the postseason-assuming that the middling Celtics quality for it.
The Celts recently brought back center Enes Kanter on a one-year deal but this extension signifies their belief in Williams both now and in the next few years. President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens must be a fan of Williams since he knows all the pluses and minuses about their mercurial center and yet he still had to keep him in green and white. You can see that his teammates love him (witness Jayson Tatum's thrilled quote tweet today about Williams' news) so that gives me hope that Robert can start to build a more consistent level of performance. Going into his fourth season in the league, it's not good enough to flash in a game and then not show anything for the next few games (or worse, get hurt right after that and miss a bunch of contests). If Boston is ever going to get back to being a true title contender anytime soon, you have to think that Williams would have a large role in that since he can do so many things that others simply cannot.
No comments:
Post a Comment