The Boston Celtics haven’t had a captain since 2014, when the torch was passed from Paul Pierce to Rajon Rondo.
Rondo was traded 22 games into that season.
Brad Stevens publicly stated that he didn’t want to assign a captain in order to preserve everyone’s right to have a voice in the locker room. It fit with his overall approach to everything; that good ideas come from everywhere and everyone should feel empowered to speak.
Ime Udoka, however, is breaking the seven-year captaincy drought.
"We've talked about it; I've talked about it with the staff,” Udoka said after the team’s Saturday practice. “You got guys who have been here, the core guys, with Marcus (Smart), Jaylen (Brown), Jayson (Tatum), they've been here forever. But you got a guy like Al (Horford) who's coming back and is a veteran presence, veteran voice that they all respect and listen to. We're going back and forth on that.”
Udoka says the team will probably have two captains this season. For some, earning that “C” would be meaningful.
“It would be an honor, the responsibility that you don’t want to take for granted,” Brown said. “Obviously we got a lot of great leaders on our team. Even if I weren’t selected I wouldn’t look at it as a bad thing. We have a great group dynamic and we’re all going to contribute in different ways. I think identifying voices to listen to, throughout the process is going to be fantastic. We’re definitely going to need, in moments of adversity, a strong voice to carry us through the waves.”
But to Smart, who, as the longest-tenured Celtic, may be one of the leaders to become captain, the designation is a bit overblown.
“It wouldn’t matter to me if I was a captain or not. Having that title of captain means nothing. It’s just a title,” he said. “We’re all captains out there. We lead and we show our captain-ism in different ways. I don’t think it was a problem last year because we didn’t have captains. We’re all grown here. Gotta go ahead and do your job, plain and simple.
“If we do put out the captains, that’s fine, that’s great. We don’t, same thing. Doesn’t really matter.”
Being captain of a team has always been special to most players, regardless of level, but it’s obvious that at this level, it doesn’t have the same exact meaning as it does in college or high school. Still, the designation does add some caché, especially in Boston where prior captains include Pierce, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, and Bob Cousy. Two names will be added to that list this season.
“My vote …” Brown said, “Al’s got my vote right now.”
OTHER PRACTICE NOTES
THE STARTING LINEUP
The clues keep building for Udoka’s first starting lineup on opening night.
“We just feel like with our versatility, with our size, we can guard a lot of positions,” he said. “We also want to make teams adjust to us. So something we’re stressing is using our size – and if we have Jaylen and Jayson at the 2 and the 3, they obviously have a size advantage there. So we’re going to determine a starting lineup that fits best and guys will know that’s an every night thing.”
If Tatum and Brown are at the 2 and 3, then that eliminates Josh Richardson from the starting lineup. It seems like he’s been made aware of that.
“A guy like Josh and Dennis (Schröder), we spoke to them about what they can bring to enhance the team in general,” Udoka said. “Whether that's starting or coming off the bench, they were receptive to that. We were straight up with them and they know that coming in.”
It’s becoming more obvious that Horford is going to be in the starting lineup, though we might not see that right away on Monday.
“We're going to look at different lineups,” Udoka said. “We had a scrimmage today where we're starting to look at lineups and look at different people we want to see different combinations together. So what you see game 1, and game 2 and 3 in preseason, will probably look different every night, and just want to see those lineups and see who stands out with different groups.”
Game 4, though, will be a different story.
“We’ll whittle that down probably the last game against Miami and kind of go forward,” he said. “What you see there will be what we have going forward into the season.”
GRANT “SLIM” WILLIAMS
“Grant looks great. He’s definitely moving well, his timing is on point,” Brown said when asked about Williams looking lighter. “I’m super excited for Grant. I’m looking forward to seeing the improvements he’s made in the offseason.”
It’s going to be an interesting road for Grant Williams this year. The depth ahead of him will make it tough for him to earn minutes, but the weight loss is helping him stand out a little more.
“It's allowed me to dunk the ball,” Williams said. “Other than that, it's been really nice to be able to float on the wing and play with a little bit more pop in my step and a little more pep. Just feeling pretty good out there.”
Williams has never been a high-flyer, but dunking never seemed to be a problem for him.
“It wasn't that I was unable to, it just wasn't as consistent,” he said. “Imagine jumping with a 20 pound weight vest on or 10 pound weight vest on on and trying to dunk all the time and move around like that it's kind of kind of draining, so being able to get back to this kind of lower weight and still going down just feels like a little bit more like light shoulders you know? Like moving like a feather, floating like a butterfly, sting like a bee a little bit.”
WNBA PREDICTIONS
Grant Williams was at Game 2 of the Connecticut Sun/Chicago Sky series on Thursday night. Williams is a noted WNBA aficionado, and is excited for the league to crown its champion.
“It's been competitive, really competitive,” he said. “The game I went to, you saw how talented these teams are. (Courtney) Vandersloot, it's my first time seeing her in person, she passes that ball like it's no other. Bruno (Fernando) and I were saying ‘wow’ every five seconds.”
Vandersloot had 18 assists as part of a triple-double in Game 1 of the semifinal series, and six more in the Game 2 loss.
“I really think that the Sun are moving on, just because I think the Sky don't really do well at home,” Williams said when asked for a prediction. “And then for the Aces to win in the West. I don't want to doubt (Phoenix Mercury guard) Diana (Taurasi) because she's the goat, but I just gotta roll with the Aces on this one.”
Both semifinal series are tied at a game apiece. Both play their Game 3’s tomorrow afternoon. The winners will meet in the WNBA Finals.