If Boston Celtics rookie forward Grant Williams hasn’t already carved a shamrock-shaped space in your heart with how he’s embraced his new team, the Tennessee product ought to after how he described what he thinks of this season’s Boston Celtics roster.

Appearing on the SiriusXM NBA Radio Show yesterday, the forward was effusive in his praise for his teammates, setting a high bar for them in his own estimation.

Williams pushed back against analysts expecting so little from the team after last season’s disappointing results, stating:

“I feel like we’re underestimated. [An] under-rated team, because we have a lot of veteran guys who may be young. We have Enes Kanter, who’s probably 28, 27 years old. You have Kemba Walker, you have guys with high talent in Jaylen and Jayson; they’ve proven themselves in the past couple years, so there’s a lot of talent on our team that I feel like is undervalued.”

He’s especially high on Tatum, noting how last season’s peculiar dynamics impacted his development:

“A guy like Jayson, who, the past two … years, has competed as a star in the league, still is considered one of those guys who may have had, quote, ‘a down year’, but you look at the team, he had to be a little more passive, less shot selection.”

This is not an unreasonable argument and while it may not explain all the warts that popped up with the Duke product’s sophomore season, it’s likely as much a factor behind both his and fellow third-overall pick Jaylen Brown’s lack of a “leap”. One that many players don’t necessarily make in their second or third seasons.

While Brown’s looming free agency will likely be impacted greatly by his performance this season, the Charlotte native isn’t at all worried.

Williams expects a lot from the more veteran new additions to Boston’s roster as well — especially former UConn star Walker, who he sees as having had his value depressed by virtue of his situation with his former team:

“… Adding a guy like Kemba, who’s a superstar already, but he may not have been considered a superstar because he was in Charlotte, because of them not necessarily winning as much.”

Williams optimistically set the bar high without calling for a banner outright, though he certainly cut it close, saying:

“Hopefully, we can add on to their portfolios by adding to the team, and get back to what Boston is known as, a team that is championship caliber, players every single year, and just fighting for that next banner that will make us even further away from the competition.”

While it’s easy to say this kind of thing in the season of hope that is every NBA offseason, it’s also the type of vocal leadership you hope to find from someone on the team. The fact that Celtics president Danny Ainge and company have assembled a team full of such players — many just entering the league — is quite an antidote from the leadership black hole at the heart of last season’s roster.