Assumptions
- The Celtics are pushing for more double-big lineups
- Both Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser need to improve
- Robert Williams needs to be somewhat healthy
- Kristaps Porziņģis needs to be healthy
Data sample
The data used is going to be all from Basketball Reference, Basketball Index, 538, DARKO since these are the free-to-use websites available.
The Double Big Conundrum
The main idea is that the Celtics are moving towards a bigger lineup by adding KP. In the 21-22 season the Celtics became extremely good defensively due to this lineup, they had figured out a death-lineup of sorts anchored by the rim protection of Robert Williams with the switchability of all the four players and the greatness of the DPOY Marcus Smart. In the 22-23 the Celtics seemed to have abandoned the double big in parts because of the decline of three of its cogs in Williams, Horford and Smart but also, as per Grant Williams, due to higher emphasis in the offensive side of things. So all for all, what was the difference between the two years from the bigs perspective?
For our information, the Celtics played a total of 19905 minutes in 21-22 which is the equivalent to 82 games and 9 OT. In 22-23 the Celtics played 19980 which is 82 games and 12 OT. For this we will use the basketball reference, I’ll be excluding JT in this as when he plays the PF it is not a double-big lineup. I will also limit myself to the regular season because that much more predictable than the playoffs. Also please be aware that players like Grant and Hernangómez might’ve played (per BBRef) as the SF a small percentage, so adding up the %s will not always be 100%. For the 2021-2022 season we had the following distribution:
| Player | G | MP | % as PF | % as C | MP as PF | MP as C |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Al Horford | 69 | 2005 | 1% | 99% | 20.05 | 1984.95 |
| Grant Williams | 77 | 1875 | 94% | 3% | 1762.5 | 56.25 |
| Robert Williams | 61 | 1804 | 42% | 58% | 757.68 | 1046.32 |
| Enes Freedom | 35 | 411 | 100% | 0 | 411 | |
| Daniel Theis | 21 | 393 | 32% | 68% | 125.76 | 267.24 |
| Jabari Parker | 12 | 112 | 28% | 72% | 31.36 | 80.64 |
| Juancho Hernangómez | 18 | 96 | 84% | 5% | 80.64 | 4.8 |
| Luke Kornet | 12 | 85 | 100% | 0 | 85 | |
| Bruno Fernando | 20 | 58 | 12% | 88% | 6.96 | 51.04 |
| Totals | 6839 | 2784.95 | 3987.24 |
From our 2022-2023 season this is the distribution:
| Player | G | MP | % as PF | % as C | MP as PF | MP as C |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grant Williams | 79 | 2045 | 86% | 8% | 1758.7 | 163.6 |
| Al Horford | 63 | 1922 | 8% | 92% | 153.76 | 1768.24 |
| Robert Williams | 35 | 824 | 46% | 53% | 379.04 | 436.72 |
| Luke Kornet | 69 | 804 | 100% | 0 | 804 | |
| Blake Griffin | 41 | 569 | 23% | 76% | 130.87 | 432.44 |
| Mike Muscala | 20 | 323 | 26% | 74% | 83.98 | 239.02 |
| Noah Vonleh | 23 | 171 | 20% | 80% | 34.2 | 136.8 |
| Totals | 6658 | 2540.55 | 3980.82 |
From our total minutes played on the combined PF and C position we played 85.9% of the time with the listed players in 21-22, 83.3% with the listed players in 22-23. The tricky part is now predicting this. I would bet we try more the double big, I would also bet that the numbers for 21-22 are skewed because of Robs injury to end the year and because we sucked to begin the 21-22 season. What also happened is that the minutes played as PF from the players listed for 21-22 represented 40.7% of the total minutes played by those players, that was down to 38.2% for the listed players in 22-23. For the center position this jumped from 58.3% in 21-22 to 59.8% in 22-23.
I had a few discussions about my idea of minutes distribution recently in this sub. One of which raised the idea of 7500 minutes between the bigs, which would be about 93.8% of the played time in 22-23. I’ll be a bit more conservative. I’ll propose 90% (7174.8) of the playing time of 82 games + 10 OT (7972MP) throughout the season. So how this could look realistically? Well the sad part is we need to figure out actually how conservative we want to be with the players. I’ll be very conservative.
| Player | GP | MPG | MP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kristaps Porziņģis | 65 | 31 | 2015 |
| Robert Williams | 55 | 24 | 1320 |
| Luke Kornet | 70 | 12 | 840 |
| Al Horford | 60 | 28 | 1680 |
| Oshae Brissett | 65 | 16 | 1040 |
| Total | 6895 |
Based on my ideal projections we’d be short 280 minutes and we would be able to play 86.5% of the minutes shared between the PF and C positions in my scenario. This wouldn’t be bothersome. You could hope for more games of Rob, more minutes of Al/KP/Brisset/Kornet. You could simply be more flexible and run a bit more single big throughout the season. The main difference is the amount of contributors. While you can combine Muscala and Vonleh as one contributor you’d still have 6 players capable of sliding in the C postion in 22-23. So it seems we’re missing still one big to be “safe” at least. The second question is who replaces Grant Williams? He played at least 1900 minutes in both years. Who can shoot like him and defend like him? The answer is quite straight forward: Al Horford. The question is whether Al has the legs to do so. Offensively even at age 37 Al Horford is more rounded than Grant. Defensively they’re similar but Horford is a better on-ball defender, Grant relies more on his BBIQ to predict a few things as well as quick hands. Unfortunately I am learning how to study tape in the NBA, so I’ll go from Timi’s highlights of the 2021-2022 for Grant and the 2022-2023 for Horford. I am doing so because I want the best Grant to date. In the majority of the defensive clips/highlights from Grant you have him helping to get a block or him being quick at reading passes, a few times Grant will be quick with his hand to force a steal. Meanwhile, Horford is more capable of defending on-ball to get the blocks.
Overall, I’d be worried about how reliable the bigs would be due their health, but if any of Horford, KP or Robert Williams is able to play more than projected with no issues, we might even have an embarrassment of riches in our hands.
The Thin Guard Depth
In order to get KP we traded away Marcus Smart. I’ll not get into the heart and soul, defensive impact, etc. I’ll stay with numbers of this. We lost 1957 minutes from Smart. We need to find these minutes elsewhere. What I propose is a combination of trusting Jordan Walsh playing a bit, Sam Hauser getting more burn, Jaylen playing more as the SG and Payton Pritchard being used more. I can’t predict much Walsh and Jaylen we know we can count on him. So lets do the projections and gets our hopes up for Hauser and Pritchard. The comparisons are straight forward. Hauser is Duncan Robinson, Pritchard is Jevon Carter. Please be aware that when I say these names I am not saying Hauser and PP are going to be 1-to-1 copies of Duncan and Carter. The idea is to be able to provide the same impact for the team (and similar minutes).
Sam Hauser has proven he has some decent defense and he is deadly as a three point shooter, though some areas can improve. One of the missing points of Hauser’s offensive skill is indeed the ability to dribble and shoot, this can be with a single dribble or even running the PnR. I’ll be more conservative with Hauser, even though Hauser is now at the age Robinson had his best season playing 31.4mpg. Hauser is entering the age Robinson peaked statistically in DARKO, Hauser also came in slightly younger so this is happening later in games played. I want to project Hauser to play at least 22mpg because I think Hauser can be a bit less one-dimensional than Robinson. He has shown ability to dribble and cut even and it seems a few decent writers from this sub (now mostly on CelticsBlog) also like this cutting ability.
The second bet I want to have is Payton Pritchard playing at least 17mpg. This is more or less what Jevon Carter played as a 4th year for the Bucks. The counting stats comparison between them is the following (please note tm == Boston is PP):
| Season | Age | Tm | Pos | G | GS | MP | FG | FGA | FG% | 3P% | 2P% | eFG% | FT% | ORB | DRB | TRB | AST | STL | BLK | TOV | PF | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 23 | MEM | PG | 39 | 3 | 14.8 | 1.4 | 4.7 | 0.303 | 0.333 | 0.265 | 0.395 | 0.813 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 1.4 | 4.4 |
| 2019-20 | 24 | PHO | PG | 58 | 2 | 16.3 | 1.7 | 4.2 | 0.416 | 0.425 | 0.402 | 0.543 | 0.852 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 2 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 1.5 | 4.9 |
| 2020-21 | 25 | PHO | PG | 60 | 1 | 12 | 1.6 | 3.7 | 0.422 | 0.371 | 0.528 | 0.547 | 0.571 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 4.1 |
| 2021-22 | 26 | TOT | PG | 66 | 3 | 13.7 | 1.5 | 3.8 | 0.387 | 0.388 | 0.386 | 0.518 | 0.833 | 0.2 | 1.5 | 1.7 | 1.5 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 1 | 4.2 |
| 2021-22 | 26 | BRK | PG | 46 | 1 | 12 | 1.3 | 3.8 | 0.333 | 0.331 | 0.34 | 0.454 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 1 | 3.6 |
| 2021-22 | 26 | MIL | PG | 20 | 2 | 17.7 | 2 | 4 | 0.506 | 0.558 | 0.444 | 0.658 | 1 | 0.3 | 1.9 | 2.2 | 2.5 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.4 | 1.1 | 5.6 |
| Season | Age | Tm | Pos | G | GS | MP | FG | FGA | FG% | 3P% | 2P% | eFG% | FT% | ORB | DRB | TRB | AST | STL | BLK | TOV | PF | PTS |
| 2020-21 | 23 | BOS | SG | 66 | 4 | 19.2 | 2.8 | 6.3 | 0.44 | 0.411 | 0.482 | 0.562 | 0.889 | 0.5 | 1.9 | 2.4 | 1.8 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 1.6 | 7.7 |
| 2021-22 | 24 | BOS | PG | 71 | 2 | 14.1 | 2.3 | 5.3 | 0.429 | 0.412 | 0.461 | 0.564 | 1 | 0.5 | 1.4 | 1.9 | 2 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 6.2 |
| 2022-23 | 25 | BOS | PG | 48 | 3 | 13.4 | 2.1 | 5.1 | 0.412 | 0.364 | 0.495 | 0.527 | 0.75 | 0.5 | 1.3 | 1.8 | 1.3 | 0.3 | 0 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 5.6 |
They’re interestingly placed in career. It seems they both need some consistent playing time to be effective. Their DARKO projections is somewhat similar (more so in GP than age). They’re also placed similarly in advanced stats, PP is a better rebounder and less TO prone. Jevon Carter is a better defender it seems from his STL% and BLK% and that translate directly into their DARKO projections, LEBRON and RAPTOR. The interesting thing is that 21-22 Pritchard is deemed much better than any version of Jevon (including 22-23) by RAPTOR while rookie PP in 20-21 is deemed better than any Jevon Carter by LEBRON. Even though Payton and Jevon have similar builds in height, wingspan and weight, Jevon does have athleticism on his side. He has a very fast first step and he is strong to be posted by guys like our own Jayson Tatum. He is truly a pest on defense. We have seen similar offensive attacks from Payton even as a rookie, he was also a pest on defense at that time. Please be aware that PP is doing this Kylian Hayers, Jevon did to guys like DeRozan. Some compilation of better players include Harrison Barnes, Middleton, Ish Smith, Clarkson, Sabonis, annoying Denver. I do think he can be trusted defensively under the correct circumstances. Offensively we know what we’re getting, he will be much more of a shooter than play maker but that’s alright if he needs to be Jevon Carter only.
Having somewhat defended what I envision for Payton and Hauser, there is a clear problem that is called Malcom Brogdon Health. We can realistically have enough PG minutes by having Brogdon playing the same minutes as last year, 26MPG and 67 games. We’d need to up a Derrick White’s minutes to 32mpg (similar to Smart). We would need to count with Banton to give us some minutes as well, I’m proposing a bit more than the 31 games at 9MPG he had last year. I am not counting on Justin Champagnie at all to help us with the SG role. The last thing is we’d need to have Jaylen Brown to play much more SG than SF, basically swapping what happened in 22-23 with 21-22.
The Wings
The whole strength of this Celtics team is having two elite wings. The problem is, in my opinion, we rely way too much on them. We need to reduce at least a bit their minutes. That’s what I propose. You don’t need much, I’m reducing Jayson and Jaylens minutes by about 3 minutes per game. To do so we need to have a few guys to pan out. Delano Banton, Oshae Brissett, Sam Hauser and Jordan Walsh need to be effective. How much that is is the tricky part, it seems Brissett can be good, but recently he hasn’t really so I don’t want to count too much on him. Banton seems to be the less important one here given he isn’t even guaranteed. Walsh is my wildcard, a specialized player the Celtics drafted with a lower pick. We had a few of those since 2016.
- 2020-2021: Payton Pritchard 19.2MPG, 66 GP. Aaron Nesmith 14.6MPG, 46 GP,
- 2019-2020: Grant Williams 15.2MPG, 69 (nice) GP. Romeo Langford: 11.6MPG, 32 GP
- 2017-2018: Semi Ojeleye 15.8MPG, 73 GP. Abdel Nader 10.9MPG, 48 GP
I will ask/hope Walsh to give us 50 games on 12 MPG. That’s all, if he can do better I will gladly accept.
The consolidation move
Compiling a bit of what I think is fair for our team I came up with one table that rule them all, or the baseline table
| Player | GP | PG% | SG% | SF% | PF% | C% | MPG | PG (MPG) | SG (MPG) | SF (MPG) | PF (MPG) | C (MPG) | PG (Total) | SG (Total) | SF (Total) | PF (Total) | C (Total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Derrick White | 82 | 71% | 29% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 32 | 22.72 | 9.28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1863.04 | 760.96 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Malcolm Brogdon | 67 | 61% | 39% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 26 | 15.86 | 10.14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1062.62 | 679.38 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Payton Pritchard | 55 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 17 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 935 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dalano Banton | 40 | 36% | 64% | 5% | 0% | 0% | 9 | 3.24 | 5.76 | 0.45 | 0 | 0 | 129.6 | 230.4 | 18 | 0 | 0 |
| Sam Hauser | 80 | 0% | 45% | 55% | 0% | 0% | 22 | 0 | 9.9 | 12.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 792 | 968 | 0 | 0 |
| Jayson Tatum | 74 | 0% | 13% | 65% | 24% | 0% | 34 | 0 | 4.25 | 21.93 | 8.16 | 0 | 0 | 314.5 | 1622.82 | 603.84 | 0 |
| Jaylen Brown | 67 | 0% | 54% | 46% | 0% | 0% | 33 | 0 | 17.82 | 15.18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1193.94 | 1017.06 | 0 | 0 |
| Oshae Brissett | 65 | 0% | 1% | 17% | 83% | 0% | 16 | 0 | 0.16 | 2.72 | 13.28 | 0 | 0 | 10.4 | 176.8 | 863.2 | 0 |
| Jordan Walsh | 60 | 0% | 0% | 30% | 70% | 0% | 12 | 0 | 0 | 3.6 | 8.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 216 | 504 | 0 |
| Kristaps Porzingis | 65 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2015 |
| Al Horford | 60 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 79% | 21% | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22.12 | 5.88 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1327.2 | 352.8 |
| Robert Williams III | 55 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 47% | 53% | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11.28 | 12.72 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 620.4 | 699.6 |
| Luke Kornet | 70 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 840 |
| Consolidation player | 65 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 3990.26 | 3981.58 | 4018.68 | 3918.64 | 3907.4 | ||||||||||||
| Positional time | 3986 | 3986 | 3986 | 3986 | 3986 | ||||||||||||
| Missing time | -4.26 | 4.42 | -32.68 | 67.36 | 78.6 | ||||||||||||
| 113.44 |
In this table we’re missing minutes on the C and PF position. This can be easily solved by giving extra minutes/games to Robert Williams, Horford, Kornet, Brissett or KP. We could also consolidate the roster, because I’d like to have about 2-3 games of extra minutes available for all the positions, which is a good 700 or so minutes. This is specifically if we can’t count on a few of the assumptions, from health to the players improving to the players (Walsh/Banton) being good at all. The idea is give this guy 60 games, 15mpg. Thats 900 minutes. I know this is an embarrassment of riches, but we are all somewhat worried about not having enough good players this year so I am being extra cautious here. My idea is this guy needs to be able to play anywhere from the 2 to 4 position being able to at least slide 30 into one position up or down. A very quick draw of a 2-3 consolidation player can be seen here:
| Player | GP | PG% | SG% | SF% | PF% | C% | MPG | PG (MPG) | SG (MPG) | SF (MPG) | PF (MPG) | C (MPG) | PG (Total) | SG (Total) | SF (Total) | PF (Total) | C (Total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Derrick White | 82 | 71% | 29% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 32 | 22.72 | 9.28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1863.04 | 760.96 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Malcolm Brogdon | 67 | 70% | 30% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 26 | 18.2 | 7.8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1219.4 | 522.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Payton Pritchard | 55 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 17 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 935 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dalano Banton | 40 | 36% | 64% | 5% | 0% | 0% | 9 | 3.24 | 5.76 | 0.45 | 0 | 0 | 129.6 | 230.4 | 18 | 0 | 0 |
| Sam Hauser | 80 | 0% | 45% | 55% | 0% | 0% | 22 | 0 | 9.9 | 12.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 792 | 968 | 0 | 0 |
| Jayson Tatum | 74 | 0% | 0% | 67% | 33% | 0% | 34 | 0 | 0 | 22.78 | 11.22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1685.72 | 830.28 | 0 |
| Jaylen Brown | 67 | 0% | 54% | 46% | 0% | 0% | 33 | 0 | 17.82 | 15.18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1193.94 | 1017.06 | 0 | 0 |
| Oshae Brissett | 65 | 0% | 0% | 5% | 95% | 0% | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0.8 | 15.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 52 | 988 | 0 |
| Jordan Walsh | 60 | 0% | 0% | 20% | 80% | 0% | 12 | 0 | 0 | 2.4 | 9.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 144 | 576 | 0 |
| Kristaps Porzingis | 65 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2015 |
| Al Horford | 60 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 67% | 33% | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18.76 | 9.24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1125.6 | 554.4 |
| Robert Williams III | 55 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 47% | 53% | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11.28 | 12.72 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 620.4 | 699.6 |
| Luke Kornet | 70 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 840 |
| Consolidation player | 60 | 0% | 70% | 30% | 0% | 0% | 15 | 0 | 10.5 | 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 630 | 270 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 4147.04 | 4129.9 | 4154.78 | 4140.28 | 4109 | ||||||||||||
| Positional time | 3986 | 3986 | 3986 | 3986 | 3986 | ||||||||||||
| Missing time | -161.04 | -143.9 | -168.78 | -154.28 | -123 | ||||||||||||
| -751 |
I know its a lot of numbers, its a bit annoying to read and all. But having the table in excel this is really quite easy. These consolidation moves can be from the most diverses. Most of them seem to lead to cutting Champagnie IMO though. You can have Lets get into the second appron moves like trading for Kenrich Williams. You can have vet signings like bringing back Javonte Green and Blake Griffin/Taj Gibson or something like that. You can have middle of the pack ones like giving the MLE to Derick Jones Jr. It can simply be that Hauser, PP, Brissett, Walsh and Banton all pan out, or at leas a few ones. There is a lot of possibilities out there for this consolidation. I personally, as a very scared Celtics fan, would like to have one of Kenrich Williams or Derick Jones Jr. I know it would be a lot, but again I am a scared Celtics fan.
Conclusion
The main conclusion of this is pretty simple. The Celtics have the tools to have a very good roster and even distribute the minutes very well. The main question is wether these tools work or not at all or for most of the season. I personally would love to see some kind of consolidation signing still. It would leave us with at least one spot open anyhow as I don’t see how you keep Champagnie. Guys like Hauser and PP will need to step up this year. Guys like Brissett, Banton and Walsh will need to prove themselves. If not, the load on the the top8 can (and will in my opinion) be quite significative.