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The Celtics wrapped up their Summer League schedule in Las Vegas on Saturday, beating the Orlando Magic 94-77 to finish the tournament, which features rookies, G-Leaguers and other young players, with a 2-3 record.
For a tournament like this, the team record isn't really what's most important, though. What you really want to see are signs of progress from your youngsters. On that front, there was one especially encouraging development for Boston.
Jordan Walsh, the Celtics' second-round pick (38th overall) from last month, hit his threes.
"Cool," you might be thinking sarcastically.
This is actually important, though, because whether or not he can knock down shots could be the deciding factor in whether Walsh is ultimately able to contribute at the NBA level.
Walsh's scouting report coming out of the University of Arkansas had a lot of stuff you love to see: He's very athletic, he has great length for a wing (7-foot-2 wingspan), he's an NBA-ready defender, and he has good basketball IQ.
What you didn't love to see, though, and the biggest reason he was a second-round pick and not a first, were his shooting percentages: 43.3% from the field and just 27.8% from three while taking two three-pointers per game this past season.
In five Summer League games, Walsh shot a lot more threes (5.4 per game) at the encouragement of the Celtics' staff and hit 40.7% of them. He wrapped up with a 2-for-3 performance from deep on Saturday while scoring 12 points in 16 minutes. His best outing from deep came against the Miami Heat, when he hit 4-of-6 threes while shooting 6-of-11 overall and scoring 18 points.
Walsh's best game of the tourney was one in which he actually scored other ways and shot 2-of-7 from deep. Against the Los Angeles Lakers, he put up a game-high 25 points to go along with eight rebounds while shooting 10-of-20 overall in 31 minutes.
“When he starts doing that, the fluidity and he doesn’t think twice about it, the game’s just going to open up for him,” Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens told the Boston Globe of Walsh's catch-and-shoot game. “You saw all the things he does. He’ll get some junk baskets, he’ll get some transition buckets, some rebounds, some cuts. But he’s going to also always be active defensively. The way he gets his hands on balls and swipes at dribblers and those types of things, it’s pretty unique. And he plays with great effort.
“So he just has to catch and shoot that thing constantly. It’s not going to be because we didn’t all yell at him to do it. I don’t coach anymore, but I might even say that.”
A five-game sample is just that. Walsh still has a ways to go before he can be expected to help the Celtics at the NBA level. But what this past week and a half offered was reason to believe that Walsh is far from some sort of lost cause shooting-wise, and is instead a player with some real upside in that department.
If Walsh can continue to knock down threes and gain more and more confidence to take them, he certainly could develop into the kind of three-and-D wing/forward the Celtics just lost with the departure of Grant Williams.
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