Brad Stevens: Charles Bassey on Celtics Radar for Long Time | Summer League Interview

Brad Stevens: Charles Bassey on Celtics Radar for Long Time | Summer League Interview

I think the guys play really hard. Um, you know, like typical summer league, a lot of mistakes. Um, but no mistakes out of effort, which was great. Um, but yeah, it’s a good it’s a good group. I think we have, um, obviously we’ve got some young people that we’ve drafted, but we also have some good older players that have been through things. That helps. Obviously, it’s very early in Ugo’s transition, but what has kind of stood out to you about his mentality kind of approaching? Uh I I think he really wants he wants to be good. Um you can tell he’s got a good work ethic, a good compete level. Um there’s a care factor there and um you know, he’s just learning like his head was spinning in the first half. I mean, he there were a couple times he was looking one way and the guy was three steps behind him cutting the other way. So, he had a good day, but he he can do a lot of things better and and that he’ll he’ll get that quick, but you know, having five days of practice right after your season ends in the ACB is probably not ideal for this. How do things come about with Charles and and what’s kind of your view about where he could fit in? Charles has played a lot of NBA minutes obviously over the last couple years and um like like several other guys make the decision at the last minute to participate in a practice or participate in a series of practices and then ultimately um play with your team and I thought he did a really good job yesterday. I don’t want to speak for him um what his goals might be, but obviously, you know, um he’s a guy that’s that’s probably playing for what what’s next, right? And um and I just think he’s a guy that we’ve been, yeah, we’ve paid attention to from afar for a long time. I mean, we’re watching all these guys all the time. Um and uh I thought he did a really good job yesterday. Probably probably was, you know, the biggest reason we won the game, I thought. after you guys see a little bit of Yeah, he’ll he’ll sit one of the next two. Um I don’t know which one, but we’ll do some of that with him just because again, generally with a 19-year-old, you just throw him to the wolves and let it, you know, let it fly. But coming from uh Madrid and then you know just finishing it was is quite quite a lot to ask. Um he never he never we told him to take a long weekend and then come to Boston a couple days later and he got there you know 2 days after he was drafted. So he’s probably going to he’s going to be due for a rest here um after summer league’s over. So we’ll manage that appropriately. You know he plays really hard. Uh I thought the first two practices he was gassed. Um and uh and I thought yesterday at the end of the game he was gassed. You mentioned about I think you mentioned uh this past week that Jonas had some experimentation stuff out here in summer league. Um how did you kind of see that in game one here and just going over just looking ahead into the season like with Jason like injury obviously how much is that just like required now for Joe just to figure you know kind of figure out how to make it work? I don’t know if it’s necessarily experiment just for the sake of experimenting. I think it’s more this is this is the team you have. You play to the strengths of your team and you figure that out. Um you know and you’re not afraid to try things obviously but um you know we’ll see who’s all you know available and and when when you do you you figure out how to play to the best chance to give yourself a chance to win. Um, but I thought yesterday, you know, I think in a lot of these games there’s only four days of practice. I mean, you don’t you don’t see defense like you saw in the NBA finals, right? People are trying to pick up and trying to pressure more, but it’s a lot of drop with the fives and it’s like it’s pretty traditional in that sense all across the summer league. Um, because there’s not just there’s not enough time to do all that stuff. What do you see from the bats like Jordan and Baylor here? uh just play your role well and um try not to do too much get caught up in things don’t matter. I mean I said in our first meeting I’ve seen a lot of guys come to summer league and put a lot of pressure on themselves andor a lot of guys come after their second or third year and think they should do something they don’t normally do and it’s that’s fine but it’s just not going to be the way it is when the season starts. So you might as well play to your strengths. And I think Jordan’s been really focused on that and done a good job. Baylor was good. You know, tell the story all the time of Sam, you know, had a pretty good rookie year and then played his first game of summer league and couldn’t make a shot. You know, we don’t put a lot of stock into those games and those stats. You know, it’s more about are you progressing the right way. And with Max, Matt Reynolds talked about being excited to tap into his ability to just apply fullcourt pressure. You guys use that a lot out of him and Ugo yesterday. What have you seen from his ability to do that and just like how much of a benefit is it for him to force offenses to start later in the shot clock? Yeah, I mean he did a good job yesterday. The the thing that I was most impressed with was in handling the pressure. He doesn’t get sped up, you know, and for a guy that’s playing in his first summer league game as we just talked about like this. You got jitters and you you’re playing in front of everybody and you want to make a name and I don’t even think he attempted a shot until the second half, right? So, he’s not even thinking about all the stuff that doesn’t matter. He’s just like, “Okay, I’m going to get us into offense. I’m going to make the right read. I’m going to make the right play and then, you know, things will open up.” On the other end, you know, you you got to be able to do do something to separate yourself if you want to make it in this league. And being able to apply pressure and being able to get into the ball is a good thing to be able to do, especially for a guy with his size. He’s a little bit bigger than probably people realize. You probably see that out there. The sale is probably going to be approved like in the coming days here. What what kind of conversations have you been able to have with Bill over this kind of recent time and what kind of I don’t know input has he given you during the process of of kind of team building that sort of thing? Yeah, I mean Wick is obviously um still the governor and has been um you know obviously very very active, but I think you know Bill has been in pretty much every meeting or Zoom that we’ve had with with the governor as an ownership and everything else. So um he’s been great. I I’m I’m a big fan. I think he’s uh he’s got a great way about him. I think he’s very smart. Um he loves the Celtics. He’s not he’s not uh he didn’t take over at the easiest of times when you think about obviously the second apron issues that we talked about the other day and you know Tatum’s injury and everything else and um but he’s so levelheaded and he’s got such a good way about him. Um you know I’m I’m really excited to have him around. Thanks. Thank you guys.

LAS VEGAS — Brad Stevens spoke to reporters in Las Vegas about Hugo Gonzalez’ Summer League debut, expectations for Baylor Scheierman and Jordan Walsh, Charles Bassey’s outlook with the team and the impending sale of the Celtics to Bill Chisholm that’ll be finalized in the coming days.

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