The Boston Celtics guard went from a panned NBA Draft pick to the star of a dominant playoff team.
The iconic image of Terry Rozier so far is of the Celtics guard floating in mid-air before throwing down a hammer dunk with LeBron James trailing behind him. It was a brave, audacious, statement dunk in the third quarter of the Eastern Conference Finals against one of the greatest chase-down block artists of all time.
Yet, in some sense, the play was completely normal. Rozier’s fearless attitude hasn’t changed regardless of opponent or conditions:
“When I wake up in the morning, I’m not worried about nobody. When I go to work, I’m not worried. That’s not me trying to say how tough I am, but that’s just what it is. I have no fear.”
In the last round, Rozier got into a scuffle with Joel Embiid after the big man tried to take the ball out of his hands in the second quarter of Game 4. He even threw a shot into Embiid’s chest before the two had to be separated.
Against the Bucks, he went at it on the court and off with Eric Bledsoe, and wore a Drew Bledsoe jersey to taunt his opponent after the Bucks were eliminated.
I declared that Rozier was the greatest player of all time while I was watching him against the 76ers at a bar with a few friends. It was during that first game, when he arrived at the arena wearing the Bledsoe jersey and finished the game with 29 points, eight rebounds, six assists, two steals, and one block. He was all over the place, shooting threes, playing staunch defense, and running a one man fastbreak. The declaration was obviously hyperbolic — it started as a joke to annoy one of my friends who was cheering for the Sixers, and was bemused by Rozier’s ability to do any and everything — but Rozier embodies one of my favorite things about sports: surprises.
Since Rozier has been a backup for most of his career, and a lot about him, his potential, and his limits, is still unknown. Brad Stevens might have known what Rozier was capable of, but the general audience didn’t. They had no reason to believe that the guard could do anything close to what he’s been doing in the playoffs.
This unknown quality means that there are no true expectations for him. At most, people expect Rozier to play like a backup: to manage the game, get out of the way of his more talented teammates, and maybe do a few cool things along the way. That leaves Rozier with the opportunity to determine his own story out of a blank slate.
If Rozier fails, it’s not surprising — after the hammer dunk, LeBron got the chase-down block on Rozier soon after Rozier attempted a layup. But when Rozier succeeds, as he did on that initial dunk and in several games when he’s been dominant on both sides of the ball, it’s especially delightful, because no one has any idea where it’s coming from or what he will do next. For a few games in the playoffs, he becomes a myth: the trope of the fearless, hard working athlete who waits patiently for his chance and then rides a small opportunity to greatness. It’s Rudy but much better.
When Rozier was drafted by the Celtics in 2015 with the 16th overall pick, he was graded an F by CBS Sports. He was a fail. Celtics fans have been retweeting the grade as a way to taunt those who made it, because it looks ridiculous in the face of what Rozier has been doing for weeks. That grade also shows the problem with sports predictions in general, especially with college players: predictions look at the past, in a sporting world that is always in flux, and claim a hard and determined future from that evidence.
Grades and predictions tend to ignore what a change in conditions — like coaching, team environment, or even the player’s own determination to be better — can have on a player’s future. They look at what’s available and what can be measured at the time, which is entirely reasonable. But a player’s productivity, or lack of, can also only be true of their particular situation at the time. Changing that situation, for better or worse, can change what that player is. There is a long list of high and sought-after draft picks who have failed to live up to their hype, and at least as many low or dismissed picks who eventually became great.
Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili went 28th and 57th overall, respectively. Draymond Green went 35th with the criticism that he was undersized, and it wasn’t until David Lee’s injury that he was allowed to prove how tremendous he could be. Jimmy Butler wasn’t thought to be anything special, and it took Rozier’s former teammate Isaiah Thomas some years after being drafted in the second round to show how good he is.
That’s not to say that Rozier will become as great as the players mentioned — his run could come to an end at anytime — but that there’s so much unknown when it comes to player ability and potential, even in a world of lengthy NBA Draft scouting reports and video breakdowns. That’s what makes players like Rozier so fun to watch. It’s not just the hammer dunks and the scuffles — though those are great for their own sake — but what he is when he’s scoring 18 points against the Cavaliers and mean-mugging the camera.
Rozier is a counterpoint to exercise of forecasting. He’s a reminder that the element of surprise still exists in sports, and that the future is not written in stone. He is evidence that a player still has the power to write their own story, even if it’s only for these playoffs.