A Look at Rob Williams’ Outsized Impact — Part 1
Editor’s Note: Despite my best efforts to keep this to 1 part, this will have to be 2. I feel like George R.R. Martin
Robert Williams is 24th overall in NBA.com’s PIE metric. The players around him are effectively a list of the all-NBA teams and Boban. He ranks 3rd in Win Shares Per 48 minutes, right behind Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. Rob Williams averaged 8–7–2 in 52 games last year.
It’s safe to say Robert Williams has an outsized impact when he’s actually on the court, which unfortunately can be a rarity. If you told me we’d get 70 healthy games out of Rob next season, and a healthy playoffs, I would be convinced the Cs would be making some serious noise. He may not score in bunches, but when he’s at his best, he does pretty much everything else.
The Celtics haven’t really had a player like Rob during my fandom. They’ve had hyper athletic role players before, but none with the size and force of Rob (shout out Gerald Green and young Tony Allen, dude was a maniac). There’s a natural anticipation when Rob is on the court. When he goes up for an oop sometimes it feels like he’s going to fly right over the backboard, out of the stadium, and land right in line for a slice at Halftime Pizza.
There’s no doubt Rob is exciting, but exciting doesn’t mean productive. The stats I just referenced seem to indicate he’s one of the best players in the league. That’s probably not the case, although it’s incredibly tempting to make that argument. With those ridiculous stats in mind, let’s try and figure out exactly how good our Timelord and savior is at basketball.
Dunking and Diming
Rob’s offense is truly unique. He’s got extreme strengths and serious limitations. He’s an excellent play finisher at the rim, but he’s also a plus passer, and not just for a big. That’s a combo that doesn’t come together very often, and it’s the reason Rob has a chance to be special. Once I take a look at those skills though, I’ll walk through some of Rob’s weaknesses.
Finish Him
Rob Williams missed his calling as a wide receiver. I have never seen a center go up and get the ball like Rob Will can. He catches everything, and somehow usually manages to finish without even landing. I mean look at that play! He catches it back shoulder, lefty, at the side of the hoop and finishes it all in one beautiful motion. At some point, I think the guys were intentionally making it hard on Rob. I mean look at that bullshit pass from Pritchard. He just kinda one hands it over Zubac even though Zubac didn’t leave Rob! He’s still guarding him and Rob just Randy Moss’s right over and finishes it while hanging in the air seemingly forever.
The stats bear out that Rob finishes everything remotely near the hoop.
Stat | Numby
RA FG% | 78%
Paint Non-RA FG% | 69%
Mid Range FG% | 34.8%
Roll Man PPP | 1.23
Roll Man %tile | 74th
Post Up PPP | .93
Post Up %tile | 46th
Dude misses 1 out of every 5 shots in the restricted area. Compare that with TT who shot a blistering (as in with herpes not temperature) 57% on shots in the RA (below average for a guard never mind a center). He’s also excellent from floater range making almost 70% of his shots in the paint, but outside the RA.
Part of the reason he’s so efficient? 100 out of his 258 total FGAs were dunks (shot 93% on dunks… so apparently he missed 7). That makes Rob fun as fuck to watch, but he doesn’t have the most diverse offensive skillset (more on that in a bit). He’s not quite an elite roll man, partially because he’s not a good FT shooter, and partially because he’s not efficient from mid-range so he can’t keep the defense honest. He also can’t take a few dribbles and get to the rim if he has to catch it on the short roll. That said, if Rob has a lane to the hoop, or he gets the ball in the paint, it’s probably going in the cup.
He’s not just a dunker though. He’s had some seriously nice patient finishes. While his post up numbers aren’t great, and he only posted up 14 times all season, I think as he bulks up and ages his athleticism and soft touch indicate he will probably become more efficient down there. It would open up other parts of Rob’s game if he could be a consistent post threat, most notably, his passing.
Dime Lord
Rob Williams is bordering on an elite passing big man. He has every pass in his bag. He’s on time and accurate from the top of the key, where he utilizes different types of passes to hit cutters on a dime or open shooters. While he’s not real comfortable catching, dribbling, and playmaking on the short roll, if a pass is there, he will make it.
Rob’s raw passing stats aren’t amazing.
Stat | Numby
Ast% | 13.7%
Pass to Ast% | 9.3%
Ast. | 1.8
Pot. Ast. | 2.7
What gets really interesting is when we look at how the Cs play when Rob is ON the court versus when he’s OFF.
Stat | ON | OFF | Diff.
FG% | 48.2 | 46.0 | 2.2
TS% | 58.7 | 57.0 | 1.7
Ast % | 59.9 | 55.5 | 4.4
%FGs 3 | 41.6 | 40.6 | 1.0
% 3s Ast | 78.3 | 73.0 | 5.3
The Celtics are more efficient, they pass better, and they shoot more threes with Rob Will on the court, despite him taking 2 threes this year (both were full court heaves and he shot 0%). Rob’s knack for moving the ball quickly is conducive to good offense. Even simple stuff like these little flips (there are two right in a row in that video) and lefty pitches to the corner keep the defense off balance. Rob just looks so natural moving hard one way and quickly flicking it to a cutting guard. That’s more difficult than it looks and is much more useful than the standstill, statuesque handoffs a guy like TT does. Rob’s guy is actively going the opposite direction, which makes help defense much more difficult once the ball is given up. Look at how much space Rob creates for Kemba after that second flip by rolling to the rim. I mean that is a WIDE open 3, and all Rob had to do was flip the ball and start jogging at the rim. That’s how much attention he garners.
Where things get really interesting is looking at Rob’s numbers after the trade deadline, once he was moved into the starting lineup. Rob played 15 games after the deadline, the Celtics went 11–4 in those games, that’s not a coincidence.
Stat | ON | OFF | Diff.
FG% | 48.1 | 45.4 | 2.7
TS% | 60.0 | 56.9 | 3.1
Ast % | 63.8! | 57.2 | 6.6
%FGs 3 | 46.8 | 44.4 | 2.4
% 3s Ast | 85.1 | 78.1 | 7.0
Net Rating | 9.1 | .7 | 8.4
Excuse me, I need a shower and a cigarette. 63.8 Ast% when Rob was on the court after the deadline. That’s the difference between a top 5 passing team and a bottom 10 passing team. Rob himself upped his Ast% to 17.2 and increased his assists and potential assists to 3 and 3.7 during that stretch.
The Cs outscored teams by 9 points per 100 possessions with Rob on the court and only .7 with him off. The Celtics aren’t just a better team when Rob is on the court, they go from middling to elite.
Rob’s combination of being both a high flying lob threat and a plus passer opens things up for the offense in a ton of ways. Sometimes he even combines the two on a single play. He draws attention on his rolls which opens up corner shooters. He hits guys on backdoor cuts when defenders cheat high against the dribble handoff. Rob makes teams play honest, and if they don’t, he punishes them. He has the ability to fundamentally alter the Celtics’ ceiling, and there’s only two other guys on the team you can say that about.
He’s not Perfect
With all that said, Rob has some serious on-court offensive weaknesses that limit exactly how good he can be right now.
First of all, he basically does not dribble. Rob averages an unbelievable .41 dribbles per touch. That doesn’t even make sense to me, it’s like he’s not even playing basketball. If those cutters aren’t open, or the initial pick and roll isn’t effective, Rob doesn’t bring a ton else to the table other than standing in the dunker spot. If he gets the ball at the elbow extended, he’s basically out of moves unless you think a 35% mid range jumper is a good possession (it’s not).
His lack of range is limiting his offensive upside right now. 191 of his 258 shots were taken in the restricted area and 74% of his makes were assisted (a significant portion of the unassisted are off put backs). He cannot create his own shot at all when facing up, and Stevens clearly didn’t trust him to post up since he only did it 14 times. His inability to do basically anything with the ball in his hands limits how effective he can be as a passer and playmaker. Rob is a great passer, he’s accurate and has good vision, but he can’t manipulate a defense to create passing opportunities like even Bam can (and forget about Jokic, dude is on another level). He’s also somewhat turnover prone, leading the Celtics bigs in TOs per 100 possessions (non-Mo Wagner division) with 2.5. It’s not real concerning now, but it’s something to monitor as Rob (hopefully) takes up a larger role offensively for the Cs.
All tolled, Rob Williams is already an elite role player on offense. The lack of a similar skillset on the Cs, combined with the Celtics having to play TT when Rob didn’t play, make his ON OFFs look amazing, but that’s more than noise. Rob has the ability to turn from elite role player to tertiary star if he adds a few things to his game. Unfortunately, all of that requires him to stay healthy, and that is the real question mark with Williams. At this point, his impact may not be all-star level despite what some impact metrics say, but if he stays on the court, there’s a very good chance it will get there.
