Avery Bradley is Not Not a Star

Minutes after the Boston Celtics seared the Washington Wizards in a critical Game 5, Isaiah Thomas sat alone at the podium for his post-game press conference.

Avery Bradley, who finished the game with 29 points (a personal playoff high) while holding John Wall to an inefficient 21 points and four assists on the other end, was, deservedly, a topic of conversation.

"Avery's the best on-ball defender in the NBA, I mean, hands down," Thomas said. "A guy like John Wall, you're not just gonna stop, you've just gotta try to contain him and make it tough on him. All the really good players in this league it's hard to stop because they get so many opportunities each and every night but he does a hell of a job on him. He makes it tough. Nothing's easy, and that's what Avery Bradley does, each and every night."

For the second straight series, Brad Stevens' decision to move Bradley onto the opposing team's most imposing scorer has made him look like a genius. Rajon Rondo's thumb injury was a pivotal event in Boston's first-round series against the Chicago Bulls. It also intersected with Stevens' decision to go small and insert Gerald Green into the starting lineup. The move was made to open up Boston's offense, but one major side effect it had was on the other end, sliding Bradley from Dwyane Wade onto Jimmy Butler.

Butler—Chicago's first, second, third, and fourth offensive option—still had superstar moments in the series' final four games, but his efficiency and scoring output dropped significantly. (Bradley tallied 10 more points than Butler in Games 5 and 6.)

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Stretches like that make evaluating Bradley harder than it should be. It's easy to slap a "super excellent defender!" sticker on his forehead and call it day, but when your defensive work changes the complexion of a playoff series, while you're also providing noteworthy contributions on offense, it gets a bit more complicated. Yes, a couple appearances on the All-Defensive team are enough to acknowledge his virtues as a disruptive ball stopper. But it's the other end where he's so much harder to define.

The Wizards felt like Bradley's 29 points were due to a variety of factors that were out of their control, if that makes any sense. Their defensive strategy currently revolves around stopping Thomas, who, after dropping 53 points in Game 2, has been held to 50 total over his last three games.

They overload to an almost embarrassing degree whenever Thomas starts to drive. Given how many options Boston's supporting cast provides, in Game 5 it was the basketball equivalent of Buck Showalter intentionally walking Barry Bonds with the bases loaded.

"[Bradley] did a great job, I mean, in transition, he got a lot of points early in transition. A lot of dunks, got wide open threes. So what we're doing to Isaiah didn't really make an adjustment to what they did, just give him credit he got hot early on," Wall said. "Role players play better at home."

That's all fair, but also interesting to hear Wall characterize Bradley that way. It almost calls back to the first round, when Bradley felt disrespected by Butler for saying the Bulls "can't let guys like Avery Bradley score 20."

Behind Thomas and Green (who only played 538 minutes), he had Boston's highest usage this season. That's meaningful, considering they won 53 games and finished with the best record in their conference. According to Synergy Sports, Bradley was also the most efficient pick-and-roll ball handler in the entire NBA when his man ducked under the screen. He annually improves his ability to make plays off the dribble, even if he's still relatively subpar at it.

For some players, it's more about the means than the end. Guards who don't create their own shot or make plays off the dribble are viewed through a different lens than those who do or will. Bradley scored 115 points off cuts during the regular season, which is 86 more than he earned in isolation.

Part of that is due to Boston's emphasis on ball and man movement, and part of it's because Bradley has never developed the vision or handle necessary to thrive in one-on-one situations. That's acceptable, both on the Celtics and in a vacuum. But it also cements his standing as a manageable offensive threat in the eyes of opposing coaches and players.

Still, it's a little strange, in a league that craves dependable shooting, how Bradley's offensive reputation hasn't caught up to the numbers. With a quick release that normally goes unbothered by his trailing defender, Bradley knocked down 38.4 percent of his pull-up threes this year. That's a ridiculous number, even if it's on a low volume, thanks to an Achilles injury that kept Bradley on the sideline for almost two months.

Aside from aching hips that bothered him early in the second round, Bradley is healthy right now, and even flashed a freestyle in Game 5 that hints he may be capable of becoming a more creative offensive player.

He's not quite a star, even in the less traditional sense. Bradley can shoot well enough from the perimeter, but he almost never gets to the free-throw line and had the same assist rate as Al Jefferson. Most advanced metrics have never been his ally: Bradley's PER has never flown above league average and he finished 261st in Real Plus-Minus this year—a drop from 139th last season.

Still, his offensive output is almost like a bellwether for these Celtics. When he's active, Boston is substantially more dangerous—even if he refuses to admit it.

"I don't want to say just me," Bradley said, when I asked him if he considers his shooting a barometer for Boston's success. "That's one of the strengths of our team. We have a lot of guys that can fill it up on any given night. It just happened to be me tonight and we just have to be prepared to be aggressive on the offensive end; it can't just be Isaiah Thomas every single night. And if we're able to understand that and he's able to believe in us I feel like the sky's the limit for us because we have a lot of players that are capable of having big games for us on the offensive end."

Defensively, Bradley has been an absolute menace in these playoffs. When engaged in isolation, he's forced a turnover 30.8 percent of the time, which ranks second among the 45 players who qualify, per Synergy Sports. Pick-and-roll ball handlers are shooting 21.6 percent when Bradley is their primary defender. He's allowed 22 points on 46 possessions, which places him in the 94th percentile. (Overall, Synergy Sports ranks him in the 88th percentile.)

Some of these numbers are directly related to Boston's help defense—as Thomas alluded to earlier—but Bradley's ability to make his man negotiate every inch is invaluable. After the Celtics started Thomas on Wall in Games 1 and 2, they moved Bradley over to try and plug a leak that nearly drowned them. Since, Wall's usage and assist rate are much lower when Bradley is on the court—numbers that indicate Boston has stopped helping as much off other Wizards.

All these stats are mud on a wall trying to decipher Bradley's bottom-line value. He scored 12 total points in Games 3 and 4. But at the end of the day, his best is good enough to alter the outcome of a playoff series. His worst is, too. All this makes Danny Ainge's job even more difficult as Bradley heads for unrestricted free agency in 2018 as a ripe, home-grown 28-year-old.

Several factors will go into whether or not Boston makes retaining Bradley's service a high priority (i.e. the 2017 draft and who they sign in free agency this summer). Heading into these playoffs and this season, it felt more likely than not he'd either be too costly for their cap sheet, or too redundant for their roster.

Based on how he's played in these playoffs, and how immensely valuable his skills are in a league that lusts after three-point shooting guards who can defend multiple positions at a high level, letting Bradley go—if they do, via trade or in free agency—may be one of the most grueling decisions this Celtics front office ever makes.

As the Cleveland Cavaliers await the winner of this series, Kyrie Irving is, in all likelihood, rooting hard for Washington to prevail.

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