Avery Bradley To Return A Better Player

With Marquis Daniels out for at least the next month, Danny Ainge and the Boston Celtics have called up rookie guard Avery Bradley from their D-League Affiliate Maine Red Claws. The rookie guard will join his Celtic teammates in Charlotte tomorrow for their game against The Bobcats. When Avery was sent down (technically up) to Portland he was struggling with his confidence, he had not really played since college, and had literally not played on his surgically repaired ankle outside of practice.

In Portland he posted impressive per game averages: 17 points, 5 assists, and just below 5 rebounds. Oh and by the way, he was leading the NBADL in steals with 3, and tied a single game record with 9. This kid is like very few before him. Avery Bradley loves to shut people down, he loves to play defense, this is a kid that over 75% of his fellow rookies voted as the BEST defensive player in the class of 2010. If you put #0 in the game he will give you 100% effort on the defensive end.

Everyone knew before he was sent down that Avery could defend at the NBA level. His major weakness was Free Throw shooting. Out of college, A.B. was a 54% shooter at the foul line, a number that pops off as being absolutely terrible. Despite the poor numbers in college, many scouts believe that he's a decent FT shooter. They believe his bad percentage is a result of his lack of of aggressiveness on the offensive end. Simply put -He doesn't get to the line enough. Imagine if you always missed at least one free throw, if you get there around 8 times a game that wouldn't be a problem as long as you converted on the rest, but Avery only got to the line about 2 times per game.


In the NBADL, Avery Bradley proved that he was a better foul shooter, he would convert on 85% of his Free Throws, including 100% in his last 3 games. That's not all Avery improved on. Bradley now appears to be a confident floor leader during crunch time. He also appears to no longer hang his head when the shots don't fall, whether he shoots a good percentage or not,≥÷ he still stays aggressive down the stretch of games. Bradley may be coming back up because of the injury to Marquis, but don't be mistaken... he is a different player than he was a month ago.