Is it time for Celtics to reduce Terry Rozier's role?

More often than not, Terry Rozier has not been a net positive for the Celtics this season when he’s been on the floor (12th on team in net rating). The eye test and the numbers back up this assertion.

Saturday night’s loss to the Chicago Bulls was the latest example on that front. Rozier played just 16 minutes but was a major liability in the team’s 126-116 defeat. He managed to get up nine shots in that span, misfiring on eight of his attempts to finish with just three points, three rebounds and an assist. He was a team-worst minus-16 in his brief stint and was on the floor during a game-changing 14-1 run by the Bulls at the start of the second quarter that the C's never recovered from.

The woeful shooting night was the latest dud performance in a season full of struggle for Rozier. The slump has been particularly ugly in recent games though. He’s 5-of-27 from the field over his last three games and just 2-of-13 from 3-point range. The 24-year-old guard is a better player than this but it’s clear right now he’s in a rut. The shot isn’t falling, his shot selection hasn’t been good and his defense leaves a lot to be desired on some nights. He has thrived a few nights in a starting role but that success has not translated to his bench role.

All of these developments are not surprising news. We’ve written about Rozier’s struggles this season on countless occasions here at BSJ, wondering what exactly Brad Stevens should do with the fourth-year guard. It was evident as early as November that this team missed Shane Larkin and Stevens, despite Rozier's woes, continued to give the guard an incredibly long leash to play through his struggles. Rozier looked great in training camp but it's been mostly downhill since mid-November for him on the court.

Somehow, despite these consistent hiccups, Rozier has played at least 15 minutes in every game he’s played this season. Stevens has not benched him once despite watching him take one ill-advised shot after another. Guys are going to go through shooting slumps like Rozier is right now but when you playing outside the flow of the offense in the midst of those slumps, it’s a problem. He is far from the only problem on this team this year, but it’s baffling that Stevens does not look to an alternative 60 games into the season on nights that Rozier doesn’t have it.

Brad Wanamaker is not a great player. He’s a journeyman point guard that is getting his first shot in the NBA at age 29. He lacks the athleticism and potential promise of Rozier. However, there’s a lot to like about what he’s done when he’s on the floor. He is shooting 51 percent from 3-point range! He doesn’t take bad shots! He can run a decent pick-and-roll! Perhaps most importantly, the Celtics score and defend at a better rate when he’s on the floor compared to Rozier (in a far smaller sample size).

I asked Stevens last month whether he would consider going to Wanamaker more given his above-average offensive numbers and he stated a renewed commitment to Rozier while dismissing the possibility.

“Really hard to do that with our lineup being what it is,” Stevens said of playing Wanamaker more. “I think that as much as you can, you want to try to get guys their regular minutes unless it’s a unique game or unique circumstance. They’re already in a position where they’re getting less, so I think it’s really important that when Terry Rozier’s coming off the bench that he gets as many of those minutes as possible. So, yes, the answer’s yes, you always want to play everybody more, but it’s just hard to do when you can only play five at a time and we’re fully healthy.”

It’s evident that Stevens has held this mentality with Rozier all year long, even going back to training camp.

“I just have to figure out how to get him as many minutes as possible,” Stevens said back on October 1st of Rozier. “He’s tremendous. And, not only in the way he plays when you guys all see him in the games, but just the way he goes about his everyday business. He works as hard as anybody on our roster. It’s immediate energy; it’s noticeable when he’s in the game. That’s just one of those things that’s going to be important for our team moving forward. To his credit, all he’s done is come in and work and played. That’s all he usually does.”

Nearly four months later, that attitude is costing the Celtics wins on some nights. Rozier is not the same player this year that helped carry this team to the Eastern Conference Finals last season. It’s unquestionably a tough situation for him but Stevens needs to stop being surprised when nights like Saturday happen and Boston’s bench gets soundly beaten by the likes of Wayne Selden and Ryan Arcidiacono. The second unit has been a liability on the road for most of the year with this group and Rozier has been the biggest culprit in that group.

It’s not clear Wanamaker would have helped matters on Saturday night in the win-loss column, but he certainly couldn’t have been worse than Rozier. At this point, the responsibility is on Stevens to find out whether Wanamaker can help on nights when Rozier doesn’t have it. The head coach talked about needing to hold his players more accountable after the loss to the Clippers a couple weeks back and he failed to do that on Saturday night.

“At the end of the day, and I’ve said this before, I’m disappointed in myself, and I’ve got to do a lot better,” Stevens said after the loss in Chicago.

Danny Ainge doesn't dodge some blame either. He probably should have addressed this problem already if Stevens doesn’t trust Wanamaker enough to play him over Rozier on nights like this. He could have added a point guard at the deadline or dealt Rozier to make the C's a more attractive buyout destination for guards, but passed on the opportunity, thinking no one on the market could upgrade the talent in this group. That’s a flawed mindset given how Rozier has looked for most of the year. He looks far more like the inconsistent player we saw in his first two years than anything we saw from him last year.

Ainge could still add a point guard via the free agent market but it’s slim pickings after Jeremy Lin went to Toronto. The best plan now might just be to play Rozier off the ball for the foreseeable future to minimize the offensive damage he can do with his shot selection. That tweak helped the C's earlier this year but Stevens has gone away from it lately while mixing up the rotation. Rozier is not going to get outright benched yet is my guess, but his role needs to be reduced in the offense until he gets himself back on track. Whether Stevens makes this shift could have a big impact on where this team lands in the East standings ahead of what will be a crucial postseason for the future of the franchise.