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Your Morning Dump… Where James Young happened

Chuck - Red's Army January 6, 2015 James Young, The Morning Dump 22 Comments

Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big storyline. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

Late in the second quarter, the rookie received his first playing time since Dec. 5. His first-half minutes were largely uneventful, but he did make one nice pass and grab one offensive rebound (he missed the putback attempt). On the final possession of the half, he caught the ball while wide open in the quarter. The crowd wanted him to let it fly, but he wisely passed it to the top of the key so the Celtics could take the last shot.

The fans got what they wanted after halftime. Young scored 13 points. He knocked down three triples. He took a charge. One of his threes, with six minutes left, brought the Celtics to within six points and sent the TD Garden crowd crazy. For so long, the game looked like it would provide nothing fun. And then Young happened.

Later in the fourth quarter, he got a bit silly, taking a one-legged jumper from the left side. It dropped. Though Young had a few moments of rookie defense, his career-best 13-point performance (on 5-of-7 shooting) certainly will not dim calls for him to receive consistent playing time.

Mass Live

Life is more fun with James Young on the basketball court.

With all the stints in Maine, we assumed Young simply wasn’t ready to play with the big boys. Why else would the Celtics delay the development of a player with such potential?

But here’s what we know going forward – he’s good enough now to play with the big boys. He’s not going to guard his own player like a lost 7-year old in a youth league. He’s not going to give up layups because he’s distracted by the t-shirt toss. Sure, he’ll probably make some horrible decisions, but he’s steady enough to learn on the job.

So Coach Stevens, will James get more time?

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve got to figure out how to coach this team better,” Stevens answered. “I’m not doing a very good job. We’re not playing well, and we’re playing almost — it’s not good basketball. We’ve got to do a better job playing good basketball. I’ll figure out the rotations later, once we start playing good basketball and once we all are very focused on very good basketball. And that’s on me. I’ve got to do a better job.”

Stevens wasn’t in the mood last night to celebrate Young as a silver lining in the loss.

But Young has to play. I don’t care who loses minutes for that to happen.

On Page 2, the desperate Cavs just traded for JR Smith.

As part of the deal, Dion Waiters will go to the Thunder, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert go to the Cavs and three players with nonguaranteed contracts — Alex Kirk and Lou Amundson from the Cavs and Lance Thomas from the Thunder — join to the Knicks. Also, the Thunder are sending a protected future first-round pick to the Cavs and the Cavs are sending their 2019 second-round pick to the Knicks.

The Thunder are sending a protected 2015 first-round pick to Cleveland in the trade. The Cavs will get the pick if it falls outside the top 18 this year or if it falls outside the top 15 in 2016 or ’17. If it doesn’t convey in any of those years, it becomes two second-round picks, according to sources.

The Cavs are attempting to bolster their bench with the trade by adding Smith, a mercurial shooter, and Shumpert, who specializes in wing defense that the Cavs badly need. The Knicks had been attempting to trade both for some time.

ESPN

How big a pain in the ass is Dion Waiters? Big enough to make JR Smith seem like a viable option. The Cavs needed to absorb Smith in order to land the defensive minded Shumpert.

With 5 wins, the Knicks are tied with Philly and Minnesota for worst record in the league. A team with legit playoff aspirations in the off-season is now in full blown tank mode.

The rest of the links:

Globe – Hornets get past listless Celts | WEEI – Stevens takes blame for mess | Herald – Stevens scratching head over slow start

bill_nair

Young can shoot and we desperately need that. If he can do anything else besides score hes gonna have a nice role with this team moving forward. Young (like many of our young players) need more minutes. Id also like to see the ball in his hands to see how his playmaking skills are.

The Cavs must be pathetically desperate to go after JR. You’d think they could have gotten a big for Waiters. Shumperts a solid pick up though.
- Curt Hays
  
  Cleveland might be confident that they can pick up Jermaine O’Neal.
  - eddysamson
    
    Or K-mart, isn’t he trying to get in again?
    - Curt Hays
      
      He and TMac both.
      
      Someone still needs to pick up Ray Ray. I’m surprised no one has.
adam

To see the Knicks in so much pain brings me delight. Let’s see how good Phil Jackson is at building a team and how long it takes. Carmelo will be done before that happens I think.
- bill_nair
  
  Love seeing the Knicks and Lakers perform awful night in and night out. Its unfortunate one of the 2 will be gifted a nice pick.
  - Curt Hays
    
    You can always hope that the Knicks get screwed in the draft!
- Curt Hays
  
  Knicks are shedding players for picks…let’s see how that ends up. Maybe Danny can ship him some picks for something awesome.
Dirk Diggler

I was at the Garden last night behind the Charlotte bench in the Walter McCarty jersey going crazy (if anyone else was there).

When we were down 16-4 in the first quarter my friends and I started screaming “WE WANT JAMES YOUNG!”, making sure Brad heard it every time. Soon enough, JY is in the game and we told (shouted to the court!) James Young to start taking some shots because he started off really passive. Next shot was James Young sinking a deep one. He looked over at us and it literally gave him the confidence to have the game he had! And late in the third, I yelled to feed it to James, and then JY sank one with 3.6 seconds left. When JY cut it to six points, THE GARDEN WAS ROCKING. I was so proud of Celtics fans…AND the Celtics for NOT QUITTING and KEEP FIGHTING.

The fun is just beginning, Celtics fans. Banner 18 will be here soon.
- Curt Hays
  
  That’s awesome. Great tickets, huh?!
Curt Hays

I’m glad Stevens said it so that we didn’t have to. He is not doing a good job. I don’t want to fire him, but he does need to get it figured out.
- eddysamson
  
  My opinion on his rotations at least is being reserved until he gets a real roster to work with and not a collection of similarly-skilled assets.
  - Curt Hays
    
    That’s my temporary excuse too. I probably have ten other ones that I can’t even identify yet. #fandom
BIG_HITTA1

hey Dirk D, don’t steal my thunder. Yesterday morning on RedsArmy I posted the following. Apparently Stevens is listening to a higher power (aka da BIG_HITTA…..):

BIG_HITTA1• a day ago

BSTEVENS, are you listening???? You have nothing to lose. Cut loose
Young with a minimum of 20 mins per game. And play Kelly O at least 40
mins per game. We want to see these guys play and develop.
zippittyay

Can we just start the game down 20 points so I don’t have to watch how they got there?
KGino

1.) Happy to see Pressey getting Nelson’s minutes… His defense last night was INFECTIOUS!!

2.) PRESS IN THE FIRST Q. Why wait do be down 20+ and then unleash the hounds (pressey, smart, AB, crowder) only to cut it to single digits an lose? Why not start the game with a little press and build a double digit lead instead? I understand no one plays this way and it might tire the players out, but we look literally 10x better on defense when in the press. MORE PRESS!!!

3.) Can’t wait for the trade deadline. I’ll trade some of our players for nothing just to free up more time for Smart Crowder and Young!!
- swissflix
  
  Agreed especially on number 3. Giving Young 10-15 minutes regularly every game makes a lot of sense to me.
Andre

Everyone has bad games, but why can’t we get any consistency out of players for the last 2 years. I don’t even have to single anyone out, nobody is a night in night out kinda guy. KO disappears, Zeller, Sully, AB, Rondo, wth gives!?
- eddysamson
  
  Green as well. Bass and Pressey are probably our most consistent guys. Dunno about the Mavs guys yet but I know Nelson isn’t.
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