Greg Stiemsma is a 6’11 center from Wisconsin who went undrafted in 2008. He’s also a former D-League defensive player of the year, and a current Boston Celtic (way to prove me wrong, Mr. Stiemsma!). That’s all I know about the 26-year-old rookie, and there’s a decent chance that you haven’t even heard of him yet… but if his basketball career continues down it’s current path all NBA fans will have become familiar with the name Stiemsma by season’s end.
How many NBA players can claim to have scored the game winner in their preseason debut, and blocked six shots in their first regular season appearance? I don’t know the answer to that question, but there’s at least one: Greg Stiemsma.
I bet those blocks surprised the hell out of you, didn’t they? They certainly exceeded my expectations. Prior to clicking play I had prepared myself for some Marco-Belinelli-drives-the-lane-and-flips-a-scoop-shot-into-his-forearm type sh!t. Instead, what I saw was some opposing-seven-footers-try-to-dunk-and-get-sonned type sh!t! Very, very impressive.
Stiemsma’s game winner and six blocked shots are currently the first and third volumes of his three-game NBA collection. A 7-point, 5-rebound, 2-block preseason performance completes the set, and inspired Doc Rivers to say the following…
“Oh gosh, he’s great. He played great, which is good. It’s good to see. It was nice because we played him with some of the starters, which we were trying to do, and you know he blocked shots, he could run the floor, he can make that shot from the elbow — that was great when he just jacked it. That’s what we wanted him to do — a good showing by him.”
During the time I’ve spent watching NBA basketball I’ve noticed that there are certain players who just seem to take advantage of opportunities. Greg Stiemsma appears to be one of them. With Chris Wilcox banged up and Jermaine O’Neal set to go down any day now, Stiemsma will likely be relied upon to come in and provide spot minutes for a team looking to win games, not develop young players. Relative to little-known rookies on teams like Toronto and Cleveland, he’ll be in the spotlight. All he has to do is contribute to a few winning efforts and he’ll be looking at some sort of future in the NBA.
I say we call him “The Steamroller.”
