The Celtics stood pat in the first round on Thursday night and wound up with a big man that was projected to be a lottery pick by most mock drafts in Robert Williams III. The sophomore out of Texas A&M averaged 10.4 points and 9.2 rebounds over 30 games this past season.
Williams III, 20, is considered one of the most athletic players in this draft class among the bigs. He's a great rim runner (63 percent shooting) and shot blocker (2.6 blocks per game) who has no real outside shot and struggles from the free throw line (47.1 percent). Character and attitude issues may have led to his slide to No. 27 on Thursday night.
Some instant reaction from Brad Stevens on the pick:
On what he brings besides rebounding: "I think when you look at guys with size and how they can impact a game now, he’s got good feet, he’s a good athlete, he’s got a 7-foot-5 wingspan, and he plays way above the rim. And the ability to block shots, the ability to alter shots, the quickness to catch up to guard shooting and taking a step, being able to still alter that…Obviously, if you can have four shooters on the floor and a guy like that rolling to the rim, you can just throw it up in the air and go get it, finish it. And I think that there’s a lot of things that he brings to the table, but those are the things that translate sooner rather than later. As he continues to improve and improve his skill and everything else, we’ll see where all that goes. But right now, he is an elite athlete and with incredible length."
On why he fell so far from projected mock drafts: “It’s not my job to know what the other 26 teams are thinking. They obviously all have a lot of people that work hard and try to find and target the right pick for their team. We thought that he was the right pick for us and we felt very fortunate to be able to get him tonight. Again, he’s a very good player. But there are a lot of good players out there and it’s not my job to assess that.”
On his fit within the offense as a rim-runner: “As far as handling and passing, I think he’s actually got a good foundation. I think that he will improve his shot and get right to work on that. But I think handling and passing, I think he’ll be able to do that and continue to get better at it. We put a lot of time into ball handling with our bigs from Day 1 once they get here and obviously into the dribble handoffs and a lot of the passing. He won’t have any better role models than the guys in front of him. And so I think that those are things that over time will certainly be there. But I think sooner rather than later. And then we saw this a little bit with Theis this year and Al in the playoffs quite a bit, and Baynes -- when you can get a step with size and just throw it up in the air, no matter how consistent the help is at being over, you’re going to draw something. You’re either going to be able to get lobs or you’re going to be able to skip it to the corners ebcause they have to overhelp because that threat is just so big. So I think that some of the best fives in the game are elite running athletes to the rim, and I think that certainly Robert has shown that he’s a very, very good athlete.”
Reaction from Williams III live at this draft party in Texas:
Here he comes @celtics! @rob_williamsIII pic.twitter.com/0riJyLV1xs
— KSLA News 12 Sports (@KSLASports) June 22, 2018