Celtics media day is at the end of the month, which means practices and preseason games are coming up quickly. With that in mind, and with the Celtics entering the season with the highest expectations, we’re spending the rest of the month looking at 10 big questions for this team heading into training camp.
Question Number 2: Can Robert Williams take another big step forward?
There's a moment when Robert Williams is on the floor when you see it coming. A defender steps up, or maybe helps a little too much, or perhaps there's some kind of brief miscommunication, but whatever it is, there's a flash of Williams, the rim, and nothing in between.
It’s sort of like when you see a pitcher hang a fat curve over the plate. The swing and contact are like Marcus Smart lofting the ball up towards the rim. There's the same anticipation when the ball is in mid-fight. The only difference is that Williams drops the thunder at the end, rather than the beginning.
The threat of Williams has become a critical element to Boston’s attack on both ends of the floor. His rolling down the middle keeps defenses occupied at the rim while the rest of the Celtics can find some space to operate. A diminished Williams is partly what allowed Golden State to sell out defensively the way they did in the Finals.
Most metrics show Williams not only improved in just about every area of his game, but he’s supremely important to Boston’s chances of success. And the most important statistic of all is the one people are most concerned about when it comes to answering this question.
Williams played 1804 minutes last regular season, almost twice what he had played the previous season and nearly 200 more than he’d played in his first three seasons combined. That's a significant jump for Williams, who has dealt with his fair share of season-shortening injuries.
His meniscus tear heading into the playoffs can be listed as one of the reasons why the Celtics are chasing a championship rather than defending one. I can make the argument that a healthier Williams helps Boston finish off the Bucks and Heat in five or six games rather than seven, giving Boston enough rest, and one more key weapon, to beat the Warriors.
When the tear was announced, there were a lot of “here we go again” kinds of reactions around the internet, which is both understandable but unfair. Frustration over multiple injuries is common, but sometimes people just have the dumb luck of tearing a meniscus in basketball. Yes, Williams was injured again, but he’d played 61 games at nearly 30 minutes per game, the most durable stretch of his career.
Williams was praised last season for taking better care of his body, something that should carry through the summer and into this season. His greater durability led him to the All-Defensive team, a taste of recognition that could just be the beginning for Williams if he can continue to stay healthy.
For Williams, good health comes with, yes, better preventative care on off days, but also better instincts on the floor. One of Williams’ best attributes now is that he’s shifting from a supreme athlete who is playing basketball to a basketball player with supreme athleticism.
A better understanding of the game allows Williams to use the threat of him blocking shots as a deterrent. Better positioning and timing turn players away from drives, meaning Williams can stay on the floor rather than launching himself into the air. It’s fun to watch Williams sky for blocks and dunks, but his body is just like an airplane in that most of the danger is during takeoff and landing.
Each time he launches himself, his legs spit in gravity’s face, but getting up that high takes a lot of leg anatomy working in tandem, and the reentry from orbit adds a lot of force on his joints. Every time he can avoid that is a win, and his recognition that he doesn’t always have to jump is going to be very important for the rest of his career.
But good health isn’t the only element to Williams taking another leap forward. Ime Udoka has to incorporate him into more of the offense to utilize his full skill set.
There was a real stylistic difference between Williams’ third and fourth seasons, and it can be seen in his assist percentage dropping from 14.2% to 9.7%. Brad Stevens used Williams in dribble handoffs and as a high-post distributor a lot more than Udoka did. Even though Williams’ assists went from 1.8 to 2.0 last season, if he’d kept his previous season’s assist rate, he would have averaged about four per game.
Williams can also help the team, and himself, by adding a little bit of a scoring element to his game. Some kind of post move and a counter to that move would help the Celtics by providing an outlet for some late-shot clock offense that's something other than praying for Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown to hit a shot.
Williams was simply less involved in the offense last season, and that has to change to some degree. His field goal percentage went up, but his points per 100 possessions went down by four and fell to its lowest point of the past three seasons. (18.7 in ‘20, then 20.7, and 16.7). Part of the drop can be attributed to the return of Al Horford, but Horford won’t be around for much longer. Williams needs to become at least a little more of a threat.
The year-to-year difference in this team will be fascinating to see. There are a lot of things to watch in that regard, but the potential for a Williams leap, especially on the offensive end, might be the biggest of them all.