Before the NBA season was suspended due to coronavirus, the Celtics projected starting five (Kemba/Brown/Hayward/Tatum/Theis) started just 16 games together over 64 regular-season contests. Outside of Daniel Theis and Jayson Tatum, every single member of the starting five was down for a substantial stretch of the season at one point, or in the case of Gordon Hayward and Kemba Walker, multiple occasions.
For a team that featured such a top-heavy rotation with the vast majority of its firepower among its top six players, particularly in the latter months of the season, it was a minor miracle the Celtics managed to put together a 43-21 record despite the constant injuries. However, as a lengthy NBA hiatus appeared poised to last well until the summer at the minimum, Hayward highlighted the only real positive the Celtics can take from what will amount to close to a full offseason if play is cleared to resume: A presumed clean bill of health for the entire roster.
“I think that’s one positive from this whole thing is that everyone’s been able to recover,” Hayward said. “I mean, we haven’t been able to do much so hopefully everyone will be healthy whenever and if ever we get back this year. The only issue is we haven’t been able to do treatment. So it’s really just time that’s been healing everything, which is like I said a good thing. But sometimes you need a bit of treatment too. But certainly, I think this has been good for everybody’s body.”
Outside of the Philadelphia 76ers (Ben Simmons was out indefinitely due to a back injury), there is perhaps no team in the NBA that could get a bigger boost than Boston if the season resumes from an extended layoff. The physical issues involving their current roster were lengthy when play was halted, even if many of those players were continuing to perform despite injuries.
Kemba Walker: The All-Star point guard was dealing with a sore left knee for the majority of this season that had caused a dramatic drop-off in his offensive play for much of February and March. On the heels of an incredibly long season that included months of play at the FIBA World Cup, a few months of rest to get Walker’s knee back closer to 100 percent could be a critical development for when play resumes.
“The knee is doing well,” Walker said last week of his recovery. “It’s difficult because I don’t have anyone around to get me some treatment or anything like that, so I have to do my own stuff, which I’m trying my best to do as much as possible. Still trying to stay on top of things, so at this point it’s all about discipline.”
Enes Kanter: Like Walker, Kanter was not the same player for the Celtics in February and March after suffering a bruised hip injury that forced him to miss two weeks. The big man did his best to play through the pain but it was evident his physical mobility and effectiveness were nowhere close to what we’d seen in December and January when he regularly posted double-doubles off Boston’s bench. Kanter played under 10 minutes in five of his last ten games and averaged just over 4 points per game in February/March, a far cry from what the C’s are looking for from an offensive-minded player. While physical fitness will undoubtedly be an issue for everyone when they return from such a lengthy layoff, Kanter will presumably be fully recovered from his hip injury, which should allow himself to play himself into shape at 100 percent health.
Gordon Hayward: The veteran swingman had carried one of the heaviest minutes load of his career (career-high 36.8 minutes per game in February) despite dealing with a sore foot that sidelined him for a couple weeks in December.
Jaylen Brown: The swingman had missed three straight games with a strained hamstring in March prior to the stoppage and was on pace to play a career-high 34 minutes per game.
Robert Williams: Was just cleared to resume to play after several months of recovering from a hip edema. A few more months of rest should only help with that recovery process.
The bigger question now with the whole team likely to benefit from a clean bill of health is exactly how much time will be needed for everyone to return to form after spending months without getting shots up. Hayward was poised that very question on Friday.
“It’s hard to say exactly, but it’s already been four weeks, or a little over four weeks, and guys really haven’t been able to get on a court and hoop or anything,” he explained. “So from a safety standpoint – I’m not qualified to answer that, we have people on staff who could answer that better than me – but at least two to three weeks of training and being able to run fullcourt and jump and be able to play basketball before you could see anybody without putting yourself at risk or getting injured. This is new to everybody, and that’s something that has to be taken into consideration – the health of the players and not putting people at risk, and not to rush the season back or play too many games in a short period of time. That’s something that needs to be taken into consideration.”
In the meantime, there is also the issue of NBA players being able to maintain some type of physical fitness amid the current pandemic. While teams like the Celtics have managed to send some fitness equipment around and are sending around video workouts from trainers, it all falls on the player to try to maintain the discipline from a physical and mental standpoint to maintain fitness. That’s a serious challenge according to Hayward.
“I think physically it’s one thing,” he said. “When it’s been nice out I’ve been running outside. And we have a Peloton so I’ve been doing the Peloton bike. And the team was able to bring over some weights, so I’ve done a lot of body-weight stuff and then some dumbbells and a little bit of kettle bells – as much as I can from the physical side of it. But I think the mental and emotional part is certainly going to be something we’re all going to have to work through when we get back, because you just get in this mode and this mindset when you’re in the middle of the season.
"And then to just kind of not have that for however long a period this is going to be, it’s going to be an adjustment to get back into that. Especially if we get back and it’s almost right into the playoffs. You’ve gotta be to really turn it on there and get really locked in and focused again. Something that I think the staff and the coaches for us have talked to us about a little bit, and we’ve done some Zoom calls as a team, trying to still stay connected. And I think that will help us out when we get back.”
If play is ultimately cleared to resume for the 2019-20 season, we will see a unique kind of sprint for a postseason that will essentially eliminate the impact of the regular season when it comes to wear and tear. While it will be a challenge for any player to reach a maximum level of fitness in time for the postseason after such a lengthy layoff, teams will be better positioned to put their foot on the gas with their top talent with a shortened stretch of playoff games, particularly if a format is reduced to best-of-five or even best-of-three. We are several months away from seeing that (even in a best-case scenario) but the good news for the Celtics is that they will finally have a chance to see this group’s core fully healthy for a postseason, something that has not happened for more than a decade with this franchise.
Other NBA News and Notes
- Paul Pierce will face off with Zach LaVine on Sunday night in the opening round of the HORSE Tournament which will be televised on ESPN starting at 7 p.m. The eight-player tournament will feature current and former players from both the NBA and WNBA matching up on their own home hoops for a game of HORSE. No dunks allowed but the guess here is Pierce will be calling bank at some point.
- The Bulls hired Arturas Karnisovas as their new vice president of basketball operations this week to help rescue a franchise that has been floundering for years since the departures of Tom Thibodeau and Jimmy Butler. The former Nuggets GM was a star overseas for several years before beginning in post-playing career working for the NBA before moving into scouting with various teams. He is widely across the league and will have several crucial choices to make in Chicago involving young talent to build around or trade, including Lauri Markannen and Zach LaVine.