Boston Celtics: Team awards for each season of the 2010s

2014-15 Awards

Defensive Player: Kelly Olynyk

The Kelly Olynyk that currently plays for the Miami heat is not the same Olynyk that played for the Boston Celtics five seasons ago.

Today, he is a marksman from downtown and can be a valuable sparkplug off the bench. Back in the day, Olynyk was a top defender on the talent-starved Boston Celtics.

His defensive rating was an extremely solid 98.9, and the team’s defensive rating went up to 103.9 when he was off the court. That kind of difference is a relatively large one.

He was top five on the team in steals per game (1.0) and third in blocks (.6).

Olynyk’s defense came in a 64 game sample size, so there was definitely nothing to worry about in terms of his play being an anomaly.

He probably won’t find his way onto this article again, but a defensive player award is not something I envisioned handing out to him before writing.

Fan Favorite: Isaiah Thomas

Isaiah Thomas may in fact be the fan favorite of the decade for Boston Celtics fans.

This season marked his first in which he played for the C’s. They picked him up in a trade where they gave up Marcus Thornton and a 2016 draft pick that belonged to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

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In the short span of 21 games with the team, he led them in points with 19, racked up 5.4 assists, and led the team in +/- with a rating of 5.5.

He accumulated all of those stats in just 25 minutes per game, too.

Fans were able to rally around IT because he was shorter than nearly every player in the league, but was almost consistently getting buckets on any and all defenses.

He played with so much intensity, and was a real example of the phrase “heart over height”.

MVP: Isaiah Thomas

It feels odd to give the team MVP award to a player that played just over 20 games for the team, but his impact could not be denied in those 20 games.

He led the team in points, was second in assists, and his usage rate (30 percent) was over seven percent higher than the next highest player.

Brad Stevens and the front office trusted him with the keys to the franchise, and he took them and drove the team in a wonderful direction.

Instead of driving down a dark street in a snowstorm, he drove the team down to the beach, in the blazing hot sun.

Metaphors aside, he greatly improved the roster, and the record improvement was evident.

On the day they made the trade, the Boston Celtics were 20-31, and were in 10th place in the Eastern Conference.

For the rest of the season, they went 20-11, moving up into the seventh seed in the conference, and ending their short stint of not appearing in the postseason.

Granted, they got swept by the LeBron James-led Cavs, but the future was bright in Beantown, and Isaiah Thomas was the reason why.