WALTHAM, Mass. – Questions about Jared Sullinger’s conditioning will persist most, if not all, season long for the Celtics big man as well as his coach Brad Stevens.
After a week of training camp, Stevens said he has seen progress conditioning-wise.
“He is running, especially at the end [of practice], well,” Stevens said. “We all probably need to continue to get into game shape. I don’t expect anyone to be in game shape [now]. That’s part of the process of getting ready. He’s just in another competition with a lot of guys for minutes.”
The 6-foot-9 Sullinger has appeared in 177 games for Boston in his three NBA seasons, which includes 98 starts. He has career averages of 11.4 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game.
Still, that means very little when you consider the caliber of talent he’ll be competing with for minutes.
In addition to Sullinger, Boston also returns Kelly Olynyk, Jonas Jerebko and Tyler Zeller in the frontcourt. Boston also added Amir Johnson and David Lee, who are both in the running to start, or at the very least, be in the team’s regular rotation off the bench.
“But he’s a good player,” Stevens said. “He’s done a lot of good things.”
In the Celtics’ open practice for season ticket holders at the TD Garden earlier this week, Sullinger was a non-factor scoring the ball in part because he was frequently double-teamed. And to his credit, Sullinger reacted to this by getting the ball into the hands of his teammates.
“He’s playing pretty well, but it’s stiff competition at that spot,” Stevens said.