LOS ANGELES -- The night before New Year’s Eve, well after the rest of the Boston Celtics had departed from practice to get ready for the team’s New Year’s celebration, Semi Ojeleye was running sprints with a member of the team’s strength and conditioning staff at a remote gym on a side street in San Antonio.

Ojeleye putting in work after hours is a frequent occurrence. The second-year forward refuses off days unless he’s forced to take one by the team’s travel, even though teammates like Gordon Hayward have urged him to consider some rest.

“Last year specifically, I was always (at the practice facility in Waltham), because I wasn’t playing,” Hayward said. “He was still coming in after long road trips, and I was like, ‘Dude, you’re going to wear yourself out. Take a break.'”

Others around the team have thrown in the towel on convincing Ojeleye to put his feet up for a day.

“Oh, I gave up on that earlier this season,” said Celtics assistant Scott Morrison, the coach primarily assigned to Ojeleye. “Just knowing what he’s like. Even if it’s a tough travel day or we’re flying to a new city, I’ve got to make an effort to find a gym for him he can practice in. It’s just easier that way.”

Finding Ojeleye a place to shoot might be easier than arguing with him over rest, but it’s not always a simple task. In New York, Morrison and Ojeleye traveled 45 minutes to find a gym.

In Chicago, Ojeleye forgot his phone, and their Uber had to double back while they fired up the Find My iPhone app. According to Morrison, the app appeared to be tracking the movements of a group of people they saw bending over outside the gym, which led to a surreal scene -- Ojeleye vaulted a barricade in the street and sprinted after the group, who insisted they didn’t have the phone. But the app continued to follow their movements, and Ojeleye, Hayward and a trio of Celtics assistant coaches physically raced through a parking lot trying to figure out what happened (the phone was in the gym the whole time).

None of the Celtics coaches mind the lengths they go to for Ojeleye, in part because he’s just so likable.

“Most of the coaches would say he’s one of their favorite guys,” Morrison said. “For me, I’m fortunate he’s one of the guys I work with. Maybe some days, it’s a little tougher to get up and go to the gym when everybody else is off, but I’d much rather do that for a guy like Semi, who means well and wants to do all the right things and is just being patient for his time to come. I think everyone respects that.”

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Measuring Ojeleye’s progress in his second year is a little complicated.

Ojeleye was a star scorer for SMU before entering the NBA draft, but Boston -- at least for now -- needs him to be a 3-and-D role player who can switch everything and guard up. Ojeleye has shown flashes here and there of improved feel for the game, one of the areas in which the front office hoped to see an uptick, and the Celtics believe he’s improved as a defender in his second season after a solid rookie year.

But there’s only so much a player can show in limited minutes.

“I told Semi this the other day, I’m not sure he’s not our most improved player,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. “And the unfortunate part is because of our depth at those positions, the wing positions, it’s hard for him to find many minutes. Again, he’s as good of a human being and as good of a worker as I’ve ever been around.”

The Celtics have been consistent all season with their rotations. After switching the starting lineup on Nov. 26, Stevens has stuck with Marcus Morris despite a lengthy cold streak, and the bench minutes haven’t wavered despite Terry Rozier’s tough season. Stevens, like the rest of the team, knows how good the Celtics can be if everyone plays well at the same time.

But while the Celtics wait for everything to coalesce (and there have been plenty of positive signs over the last three games), Ojeleye is still waiting to get on the court. His numbers haven’t taken a noticeable uptick -- he’s on pace to play fewer games this season than last, he’s averaging five fewer minutes per game, and his 3-point percentage is down from 32 to 31.

Where the Celtics have seen growth is in Ojeleye’s on/off stats. His net rating is up from -7.5 to +9.3. According to Cleaning the Glass, the Celtics are +4.5 when Ojeleye is on the court -- the fourth highest total on the team, and the 77th percentile league-wide.

For his part, Ojeleye is largely uninterested in the on/off stats.

“That’s probably more for the fans, more for my agent than anybody else,” Ojeleye said, smiling. “But you try to make sure you make an impact when you’re out there, and sometimes it happens that you happen to be out there and guys start playing well. I don’t know. I guess that’s just an analytics thing.”

When Ojeleye does get minutes, he often finds himself in big lineups where the Celtics are switching everything, such as the monstrous group Stevens played against the Sacramento Kings. Ojeleye also gets minutes against players like Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, against whom the best strategy is to pack the paint with big bodies who are difficult to bully.

Whenever that happens, Ojeleye inevitably gets asked how he stays ready. He finds those questions amusing.

“It’s funny, because I think people think if you’re not playing, you’re just going home and chilling,” Ojeleye said. “But I didn’t know that either. When I was a college guy, I’m looking at all these NBA guys, pro athletes in other sports, and I’m like, ‘What do they do when they’re not playing?’ But you have to put in that much more effort so that when you get out there, you look good. It’s a blessing to have the opportunities, and you try to make the most of them.”

The Celtics’ locker room is connected to a weight room at TD Garden. After DNP-CDs at home, Ojeleye can be heard banging weights around while other players go through their media availabilities. While his teammates shower and leave, Ojeleye often maneuvers his way through the crowds of reporters drenched in a fresh sweat.

Ojeleye said he needs those lifting sessions to release all of his pent-up pre-game energy when he doesn’t play.

“I notice when I go home with that energy, it kind of messes up your mood," Ojeleye said. "Just trying to get it out real quick.”

Ojeleye’s mood suffers similarly when he can’t get shots up on the road.

“Anybody that likes to run every day, if they have a day where they can’t run because of the weather, it just throws them off,” Morrison said. “So I think he’s kind of like that. He likes to get his shots up, get his work in, and then he can enjoy the rest of his day. Not feel like he’s missing something or not something to get better that day.

"It’s kind of his therapy, just to be out there and shoot. If you don’t get that daily part of your routine, it kind of throws you off mentally.”

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Last season, Morrison was afraid to set shooting benchmarks in workouts for Ojeleye for two reasons. First, they might be there all day while Ojeleye missed shot after shot. Second, he knew if he set a number, Ojeleye wouldn’t rest until he hit it.

This year is different: Morrison is giving Ojeleye ambitious targets, and he’s forced to be creative to keep the workouts lively. That’s why he believes Ojeleye would shine with consistent minutes.

“The hard thing with Semi is that a lot of his minutes are at the end of a game where he’s sitting on the bench for 40 minutes, 45 minutes, and he might get one shot,” Morrison said. “So it’s hard to be a 40 percent 3-point shooter when those are your reps. You’re not regular. But I think he’s made the most of his minutes.”

Of course, Morrison and Ojeleye both understand why those consistent minutes haven’t been available yet.

“We’ve got a lot of great players, a lot of guys who have been in the league for a long time, so rightfully so,” Ojeleye said. “It’s kind of what it is, you’ve got to wait your turn, so until then I’ve got to keep working.”

“Any time I hear a story about a guy who was in his situation and did all his extra work, and then when his time came, it paid off for him, I try to remind him of those things,” Morrison added. “But that’s just more for my own wellbeing, because he knows all that stuff. It’s rare that he has to be reminded of something like that. He’s good.”

Until Ojeleye’s time comes, Morrison will happily continue booking out-of-the-way venues (and chasing down misplaced phones) for a player who is preparing for his opportunity, rather than waiting for it.

“Just being the kind of high character guy that he is, there’s no reason why he won’t be in the league for a long, long time because he’s no risk,” Morrison said. “I think if he does get a chance to play in a situation where he’s playing regular minutes and he knows where they’re coming, he’ll be able to relax a little bit more and you’ll see it in his numbers too.

"Everyone would like to see him get a chance to see him play more, but it’s just not possible right now. When his time comes, it will pay off for him.”