The #StartNesmith Manifesto — Why the Cs’ 8th Best Player Should Be Their 5th Starter — Part 2: Defense and the Bench
Welcome back to Part 2 of my erotic fiction about Aaron… I mean my analytical argument as to why Aaron Nesmith should be the 5th starter for the Boston Celtics. Like in , I’m going to lean on a narrative crutch because I’m uncreative and lazy. In Part 1, I used the Magic Card Goblin Welder, you might be surprised to find that yet again, I’m going to compare Nesmith to a Magic Card (I don’t have many interests).
In Magic, there is this bad ass wizard dude named Teferi. I don’t know a ton about Teferi, but I do know that dude had a moat. And while Gandalf was able to confidently declare “none shall pass,” Teferi’s moat wasn’t quite that effective. What it did do was prevent a certain subgroup of creatures from attacking you. In other words, it had a good amount of defensive utility, but it also had its weaknesses. I think you are probably starting to see where I’m going with this (artist’s rendition of Aaron Teferi gazing at his moat).
Between the players in the running for the starting 5, Nesmith is almost certainly the 3rd best defensive player. Schroder has his limitations, but he’s a solid on ball guy that is long and quick. Richardson would barely be in the league if not for his plus defense. Pritchard tries hard, but his size and athletic limitations are such that I don’t like him as a starter at all.
So why Nesmith? As I already discussed in Part 1, Nesmith is the best fit on the offensive side of the ball out of the other competitors for the starting spot (at worst, second best behind PP). As I’m about to write a super long post about, I also think he’s a nice fit on the defensive end, despite being worse than Richardson and Schroder on that end, especially if we project some natural improvement from him defensively. Essentially, Nesmith is the perfect compromise between going defense/ball-handling with Schroder and Richardson or all offense with PP. Additionally, I think the bench makes a hell of a lot more sense with Nesmith in the starting unit than if he’s forced to come off the bench.
Aaron D-Smith
Let me first start off by reiterating that Nesmith is not a particularly good defensive player right now, BUT, he is not nearly as bad as the prevailing narrative about him. I think the Celtics fandom and some of our talking heads discuss Nesmith’s defense like he’s unplayably horrible. He’s not. In fact, he’s downright solid and maybe even good as an off-ball defender. With that said, he struggles mightily when he’s switched onto small wings and guards that can easily beat him with speed. Most people watch the ball when they watch a basketball game. Since Nesmith’s defensive shortcomings are on ball, and thus very fucking obvious to the common fan, it becomes exaggerated how bad he really is.
The more I’ve watched Nesmith, the more I have convinced myself of one simple truth, he is, at least right now, a 4 on defense. He can defend the position and he’s a great rebounder, what more do you want from your 4 man?
Off-Ball Competence
Nesmith is definitely not the most fundamentally sound defensive player, but that’s ok because he makes up for it with a sheer will to compete and a violent athleticism that he leverages with zero regard for his own health and well-being. I love it. If you’ve watched him play, it should be no surprise he leads the Celtics in loose ball recoveries per-36 minutes (of guys that actually played).
Nesmith has great size at 6'6” in shoes with a roughly 6'10” wingspan, and he’s got a solid frame that will only get solider (apparently that’s a word). While the deflection statistics don’t bear out that he’s getting into passing lanes, his tape shows a smart and disruptive force, at times. For instance, look at this subtle little dig at Brad Beal on his way to the rim. It forces Beal to protect the ball, and gets him off balance and enables Tatum to defend the play nicely. Nesmith is also able to get back to his man (Davis Bertans, a power forward) and prevent a kick out pass. This stuff doesn’t show up on the stat sheet, in fact most people would never notice it, but it leads to a missed shot and impacts winning.
He has really solid instincts when he’s not directly on the ball, and clearly understands spacing and the geometry of NBA basketball.
Take this play from his breakout game against Charlotte. This is Nesmith and PP defending a Bridges/Graham pick and roll. Nesmith has a subtle show to dissuade Graham from pulling up (which he loves to do behind picks), but then sneaks back to Bridges right as Graham has committed to passing. He manages to get his hand on the pass as he crashes (likely painfully) to the floor. Patience, intelligence, athleticism, that’s good stuff and what I hope to see more of next year.
This last play really shows that, while sometimes completely lost, there lies a smart and capable defensive player in Aaron Nesmith. As you watch this clip, only focus on Nesmith, do not watch the ball. He’s literally directing traffic from the back of the defense (a role may 4 men and bigs have, might I add). He calls out the double screen action (a little late admittedly), then sees Hayes rolling hard to the rim with, gulp, Payton Pritchard on him. Nesmith then darts to the big, directs PP to switch on to Reddick in the corner, and finishes the play off with a beautiful rule of verticality contest on Ingram at the hoop, which allows Rob to fucking swat the ball into the future.
If we see more plays like that, instead of this (I mean seriously it looks like he pressed the wrong direction on his controller, Smart was beat Aaron, you gotta help man!), Nesmith may not just be a good fit for the starting lineup, he may a standout next to the Jays.
On-Ball Idiocy
Nesmith will probably never be an elite on-ball defender against quicker guards and wings. He’s not slow footed, but he’s not quick footed either. With that said, sometimes he does some of the dumbest stuff these quickly approaching middle-aged eyes have ever seen. Nesmith needs to realize that he’s long and athletic, he does not need to reach for the inside of a ball handler’s pocket to play effective defense. If he learns how to contain and play smarter, he can move himself from bad to average, which would go a long way for his defensive impact. First, let’s take a quick look at some of his numbers.
These are the stats for PPP Nesmith gives up on defense for the following playtypes.
Most of these are small sample sizes so we need to take them with a grain of salt, but I think it bears out the overall point here, he’s not bad, possibly even good, at defending the more traditional off ball plays, spot ups and off screens (only 10 possessions, but he runs hard following shooters). He is below average to dreadful defending the on ball play types, Isos and PnRs. Part of that is physical limitations, another part is fixable technique. Let’s look at the technique first.
This is one of the dumbest plays I’ve seen Nesmith make. Sorry for the janky recording, especially since this one happens fast. This is from Summer League, there is 10 seconds on the clock. Nesmith is guarding 5'11” Sharife Cooper who shot about 20% from 3 in college. Nesmith is literally guarding him at half court. Why? I have no fucking clue. Cooper cannot shoot, but he’s crafty and quick with the ball. Why Nesmith isn’t guarding him like a short Ben Simmons, I don’t know. You’ll never guess what happens, Cooper blows right by him and dishes off for an easy end of the half dunk. Maybe Nesmith gets roasted anyway if he sags off, but I guarantee it wouldn’t have been that easy.
Here’s another example of just plain defensive stupidity. This time Nesmith is against another small guard (sensing a trend?), Devontae Graham. Watch closely as Nesmith almost jabs or jumps at Graham. His plan is to get up high to force Graham into help once Zeller sets a pick. Here’s the problem, he does it WAY before the pick ever gets there. The result? Graham blows by Nesmith, toys with Rob and then finds Zeller for an easy dunk. Terrible and completely avoidable.
This play is a little different. After some hectic passing from the Spurs, Nesmith finds himself against Dejounte Murray. Murray is one of the quickest guys in the NBA. He doesn’t even make a move and blows right by Nesmith and gets a fairly easy (although not a bad recovery from Nesmith here) floater to go. Nesmith’s physical limitations are on full display on this one. He just can’t stay completely in front of Murray, and I’m not sure there’s ever anything he can do to fix that. That’s ok, he can still be a solid defensive player, but he will probably be prone to getting beat by some of these smaller, quicker guards his entire career.
With that said, Nesmith projects to be fairly versatile defensively. He will have weaknesses, but he does really well guarding up a position. If he’s against a larger, but slower guard or wing, he can stick with those guys and make their lives difficult. He’s done a great job against Derozan and Ingram, and held his own against Westbrook in iso and in the post. Nesmith is strong, and that allows him to defend guys that try to beat him with power. Hell, he’s even been switched on to Poeltl and did admirably. Jokub made that one, but it was a difficult deep hook shot because he couldn’t move Nesmith.
At this point, I think Nesmith’s on-ball abilities are much better suited to a 3/4 position than the 2/3. I’d rather see him compete against guys that are bigger than him than those that are quicker. He seems to fair a lot better in those matchups. This will also allow Tatum to guard a more perimeter oriented players, saving a lot of physical pounding through an 82 game season.
I also wouldn’t be too concerned about rebounding, Nesmith is a monster reboudner for his his size. 4 of the Cs’ top 6 two-man lineups in REB% include Nesmith, and if you take that number from 4/22 to the end of the year, it’s 5 of the top 5. Nesmith had a 14.6 DREB%, one percentage point worse than Daniel Theis. If Nesmith and Tatum (around 19% DREB%) share the floor with a big, I don’t think rebounding will be a problem.
After watching a shit load of film, I’ve actually come away very encouraged by Nesmith’s defense. While he’s got some glaring weaknesses, with some coaching and experience that glare won’t be quite so bright. He’s got the ability to stop a good range of players, not unlike our friend Teferi and his moat. Besides, only the very best defensive players have zero weaknesses. Hopefully he gets to a point where he’s consistently mucking up passing lanes, helping constantly, defending adequately on ball, and finishing possessions on the glass. If we get that, you better believe I’ll stop joking about a Nesmith erotic fiction and actually write one.
The Bench Makes Sense Without Aaron
I’m going to keep this very brief because this is already long as shit. I think it would be very difficult to play PP and Nesmith together on the defensive end. While I like Nesmith’s potential, I think it makes sense to protect him by surrounding him with 3.5 good defensive players on the starting unit, especially since the Jays will benefit the most from Nesmith’s spacing on the offensive end and his ability to guard 4s. If you run Schroder and Richardson on the bench, they cover up a lot of PP’s weaknesses on defense, while allowing him to absolutely gun with bench units. Horford also makes the spacing work, and Schroder/Horford pick and pops will be a nice foundation for the bench defense. Richardson can also handle the ball a little more with the bench, which is his main offensive utility, a role he could not play with the starters. The Jays need an off-ball gunner to open the floor for them, and Nesmith is the only one that isn’t 6'1” and limited athletically. With that in mind, I think it’s pretty clear we should #StartNesmith.
This is the shameless self-promotion portion of the post. If you cannot get enough Wayne Spooney content, you can follow me on twitter @Wspooney and find me on the Celtics Reddit Podcast (rate and subscribe!)
