Who Is Dwight Powell? (newest member of the Boston Celtics)

As a second round pick recently acquired in a trade including mostly flotsam, most Celtics fans probably don't know much about Dwight Powell.

He is part of the growing legion of Canadian born NBA players, having played AAU basketball with Tristan Thompson and Corey Joseph. He is a four year player at Stanford  *insert obligatory comment about how he is smart* who improved in each of his years statistically.

One of my first thoughts when seeing his stats and height was to wonder why he was not listed as a Center.  It became clear pretty quickly he is a power forward.  He is 6'9" without shoes (do you really gain 2" with shoes?) and while pretty quick for a big guy, does not have the bulk to play Center.

Dwight can shoot passably from the outside, but not average or above average from behind the line (read: better than Sully), can put the ball on the floor and appears to have high basketball IQ (there it is!).  He was very athletic in college, although probably about average athleticism for a NBA player.

Powell is not a big name, so there aren't 15 different YouTube videos devoted to his favorite breed of dog and type of ice cream. If you are patient, you can catch some plays he makes in this video:

He is number 33 in red. Most of his highlights show up at the end. (Also see here for a pre-draft interview.)

While his dunk, hustle on D and his three point shot would grab the headlines, check out how he boxes out his guy for an offensive rebound a little earlier in the video.  The shots go in, so it is easy to miss, but I thought both were very intelligent plays by the four year college player.

Absent the non-guaranteed guys, this team seems devoid of a Brian Scalabrine or a Walter McCarty. Gerald Wallace is too grumpy, Marcus Thornton is too trigger happy (can anyone else envision several games of Antoine Walker-esq "no, no, no... Yeah!" three point shots?), El Hombre Drink and Drive seems to have lost his shot at fan favorite.  All the rest are either too good or here as a stopgap.  Based on very rudimentary searching, Dwight Powell I think has a shot to be that guy for me.

I'm officially rooting for him, are you?

Thanks for reading!