Once again no full breakdown of this game, Bulls-Celtics went about 3 and a half quarters with runs both ways before Payton Pritchard went nuclear and made for much garbage time.
Unlike his 30-point effort in the previous game, Wilson’s 17 against the Celtics didn’t make for many highlight compilations on YouTube. While looking for one, I came across this shit:
Team wise, there are several worrisome early trends, though it’s so early they are not that worrisome. And since this is a rebuild with its first superstar-potential piece, even if the team trends were happening for longer, it still wouldn’t matter as much as Caleb Wilson highlights.
Stopping after Wilson’s initial stint in the 2nd half, in 23 minutes he had 11 points on 5/11 shooting, 3 assists, 3 rebounds, a steal, 2 blocks, and 2 turnovers. So still not much in way of outside shooting, and ultimately not the best production, especially in comparison to his last game.
But he showed cool flashes of potential. I think we can stop with the Patrick Williams comparisons already, but know that Williams not only never was producing regular box score stats, but he never even showed flashes of spectacular play like Wilson did in Boston.
This video (via Steph Noh on the app that won’t be linked) starts with the 2 blocks1 and then a series of examples of Wilson creating his own advantage and shot.
Then this from Will Gottlieb, 2 examples of Wilson operating as facilitator out of a pick and roll
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather just look at this stuff and not worry about ::waves hands around:: all the rest of it, at least not yet.
I also saw anecdotes of Wilson defending Jayson Tatum well
Patrick Williams had 2 cool dunk attempts his rookie year and one of them was the play he got injured on. Darkly funny
I've never heard a single example of anyone comparing Caleb to Patrick, except yfbb on this site, if only to say there is no comparison. We can probably stop bringing it up. It's silly.
I do really wish he would rebound better. For a few reasons in no particular order:
1) it's actually really useful for winning basketball games
2) he's 6'11" and one of the best athletes in the league. So grabbing boards seems natural and expected.
3) he's already a nasty transition player. Rebounding helps his own offense by getting him relatively easy opportunities both as a scorer and as a passer.
4) I think he could be a superstar, which I define as a top 5-7 player in the league. I think he can hit that level as a skilled big. I don't think he can as a big wing. Superstar bigs, even skilled ones, have to rebound.
Now there is an extensive track record of skinny big dudes getting way better at rebounding as they fill out. So even if his boarding is rather wan as a rookie I don't think all is lost. I just hope it's something the team strongly emphasizes to him.