The #StartNesmith Manifesto — Why the Cs 8th Best Player Should be the 5th Starter — Part 1: Offense
Despite my best efforts, I have George R.R. Martin’d this up again. This will be two parts, the second part will handle defense and why the bench works better without Nesmith
In my youth, I used to play a popular card game called Magic the Gathering. My friend and I recently decided to sell our 20+ year old collection earlier this summer and it had me deep in youthful nostalgia. One particular card that was especially meaningful to me was a card named Goblin Welder. It’s one of the weakest creatures in all of Magic the Gathering, but it’s powerful for a different purpose. Gobby Welder was an enabler. It’s purpose was to facilitate your ability to get your best cards on the playing field. Goblin Welder was the ultimate glue guy. It wasn’t the most powerful, but it ensured your best cards were even better.
Aaron Nesmith is the Celtics’ Goblin Welder (artist’s rendition). Nesmith is far from the Celtics best player. In fact, he’s pretty far from being the Celtics 5th best player, but that doesn’t matter. The specific skillset that Nesmith possesses is the perfect fit for the starting lineup on both ends. Perhaps more importantly, the bench makes more sense without Nesmith than with him. Brad and Coach Udoka have both come out and stated that they want to put pieces around the Jays that accentuate their skills. Nesmith does just that. Like my friend the Goblin Welder, he’s an enabler.
Stand in the Corner and Shoot
Nesmith had an incredibly up and down season last year and his numbers are far from impressive. Even still, he managed to shoot 37% from 3 on the year. For a guy that looked completely lost for significant portions of the year, that’s encouraging. As the season moved along however, Nesmith really started to find his footing, and it is that version of Nesmith that fits the Celtics offense like a glove. Nesmith’s shooting by zones after he started to get legitimate run in late April (the 22nd to be exact) are downright insane. This chart is from Cleaning the Glass and the percentile you see is his percentile among wings.
His worst percentile is on corner 3s where he’s still in the 67th, shooting a blistering 47%, and an insane 90th percentile on all threes. Even if you expand this to include a larger sample, this one is from February 1 to the end of the year, his shooting numbers are very encouraging.
40% from the corners and 38% overall. Now these are small sample sizes, but his college shooting combined with his summer league performance makes me bullish on his ability to hit open shots. That’s not all, he’s shown the ability to drive closeouts as well and has flashed some nice rim finishes. These numbers bear that out as his % at the rim is well above average. If Nesmith is in the starting lineup around the Jays, he doesn’t need to do anything other than hit some open shots and drive a close out to provide immense value to the offense. Despite his struggles last season, already showed through more than half of the season he can do just that.
Existing is his Biggest Strength
Here’s the best thing about Nesmith, he doesn’t need to get any better than he already is from three. His biggest impact is simply from being on the floor spacing it out for the Jays. Let’s take a look at some photos.
In this photo, we have a picture of Grant and Romeo spacing the weakside out for a Tatum iso (familiar picture unfortunately) at the top of the key. Notice how the defenders are angled. They have their hips open. They are effectively pre-helping off of Romeo and Grant (also Jesus Christ Grant, get to the corner dude). If Tatum beats his guy, it doesn’t matter, he’s already got two people ready to help and guard. The lack of respect for Grant and Romeo makes his life effectively impossible and neuters the offense and our ability to get the drive and kick game going. A staple of modern offenses.
Here’s another picture with poor Carsen Edwards on the weakside of a Tatum post up. Look where Kendrick Nunn is! He’s just sitting in the paint! If Tatum shakes his man he’s got TT and Carsen’s guys to beat in order to get a layup, it’s effectively impossible and he was forced to take a turnaround here (he made it because he’s Jayson Tatum). Almost feel bad for Carsen at this point, he’s a shooter that no one thinks can shoot (because he can’t). You can make an argument that Tatum should have passed this regardless, and I may do so, but the lack of respect for Carsen’s off ball game clogs up the whole offense.
Now let’s look at a still frame with Nesmith. Tatum is setting up a pick and roll at the top of the key. Nesmith spacing on the weakside. Look where his man is, a full step out of the paint and with his inside foot up the floor. His hips are closed off, it’s so he can make sure that he gets back to Nesmith and contests if there’s a kickout to him. It also makes it much more difficult to help if Tatum gets to the rim. This is how defenses have to defend good shooters. They can’t pre-help like against Romeo, or straight up ignore them like Carsen. Just having Nesmith on the floor will make the Jays life easier, even if he only takes a handful of shots a game.
Let’s take a look at his offball threat in action in this play. Some context, Nesmith just hit a three. San Antonio is in zone, and the ball swings to him. Look at how quickly the defender gets out to him, which leads to an easy pass to Tatum on the post. Because you can’t leave Nesmith, there is no help or dig from his man and it’s an easy spin and layup for JT. Had that swing been to a non-shooter, Nesmith’s defender could have sat deeper and eliminated the pass to Tatum, which completely stalls the set and bogs down the offense. The anti-thesis of making things easier on the Jays.
Look closely at how Nesmith is being defended here. Murray does a really good job of staying with Nesmith and trying to bother JT because he’s a ridiculously good defensive player, but Nesmith’s shooting threat doesn’t allow Murray to fully commit to help. He’s hyper conscious of who he is defending and has to make a series of decisions the whole possession. You want guys on the floor that make defenders make decisions, that’s when mistakes happen and Nesmith simply being on the floor near Tatum does just that.
The Stats Portion of the Start Nesmith Manifesto
Once Nesmith started playing in April, the numbers bear out his impact to varying degrees. From 4/22 to the end of the season, of the five two man lineups with the highest True Shooting %, Nesmith was in 4 of them. He averaged 8.2–4.3-.9 on 52.4/46.2/91.7, good for a 65.9 TS%, on a low 15.1% USG in 18.7 minutes a game.
The three man lineup of the Jays and Nesmith played 64 minutes together during the season. It had a 14.6 Net Rating, 64.5 TS%, and a 67.2 Ast% (would have led the league). The type of player that Nesmith is, shooter first, rare attacker when necessary; perfectly complements two ball dominant wings. You cannot stop the Jays if they are allowed to play 4 on 4 instead of 5 on 4 (looking at you Semi, Grant, and especially that useless fuck TT).
The season long playtype data bears out that Nesmith can admirably play the role of floor spacer and open the lane for the Jays. Below you will see this data compared with the other two guys in the running for the starting lineup, both new additions.
One caveat, extremely small sample size on the Nesmith Off Screens, he had 17, but God damn did he turn those 17 into buckets.
Richardson and Schroder, and Schroder especially, have their strengths. They are both almost certainly better basketball players than Aaron Nesmith right now, but what they do well doesn’t fit all that nicely with the Jays on offense. Both are ball handlers first, and in Richardson’s case, he’s not even much of a ball handler.
Brief aside, PP is a great fit on offense for the starting lineup, arguably better than Nesmith, but I think his defensive shortcomings eliminate him from contention
Neither are good enough to take the ball out of either Jays’ hands or even Marcus Smart’s. Neither are particularly good off ball threats either. So why make the Jays life more difficult by putting a round peg into a square hole? It might work, the brilliance of the Jays was able to overcome lineups with Semi and TT sharing the floor, but the idea is to make things easier, not turn up the difficulty to Hard. That’s exactly what our human Goblin Welder doesn’t do. Aaron Nesmith doesn’t have to be our 3rd best player, or hell even our 5th, to have an immediate impact on offense next year. We don’t need him to handle the ball or even shoot all that much, he just has to exist to have an impact and make it easier on the Jays to attack. And that’s why Coach Udoka must #StartNesmith.
Part 2 a breakdown of the defensive fit and the bench coming soon
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