There are a lot of players who can step up and help the Boston Celtics get back on track next season, but there are two in particular who can have the biggest impact on how quickly the team rebounds.
Aaron Nesmith and Romeo Langford.
Obviously, they are not the most important players on the roster in a traditional sense. A leap into MVP territory for Jayson Tatum and a perennial All-Star in Jaylen Brown is obviously something the Celtics will sign up for before anything else. However, getting two impactful wing players off the bench without having to find those players elsewhere would be a massive development.
“They need to put in a great offseason of work,” Brad Stevens said when he was still the team’s coach. “They’ve gotta make that jump in a lot of ways.”
The Celtics got nothing from either of these two for most of last season, for very understandable reasons. Langford was prepared to come back from his right wrist surgery in March, but then caught COVID-19. That pushed his NBA return, one made without the benefit of a single practice, to April.
So of course he struggled. Very few players who had already been active were able to walk right out of Health and Safety Protocols and into a productive role on the floor, so it would have been ridiculous to expect Langford to do it. He finally started to catch a little groove in May and in the playoffs.
“(Romeo has) to build off that momentum. He’s gotta work hard,” Stevens said. “All of our players do, period. But specifically those younger guys because they saw the level they have to meet. And that’s a real level.”
That real level started with the play-in game and then ramped way up against the Brooklyn Nets.
“It was a lot of fun to be able to play in a game with that kind of atmosphere,” he said after the play-in game. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to play in a high-pressure situation like that where it’s a must-win situation, so it just makes the game a lot more fun.”
Those games were much more fun than the majority of Nesmith’s season. His struggles were also understandable, though. It always felt more surprising when rookies did well this season than when they struggled. Nesmith, clearly, plays with so much energy that he needed the game to slow down for him a bit.
Once they did, we started to see what Danny Ainge saw in him on draft night. After the All-Star break, Nesmith saw a big uptick in opportunity and he started to make the most of it on both ends of the floor. Offensively, his true shooting percentage jumped 37% after the break (58.6%) and up over 60% in April (61.1%) and May (64.1%). The “best shooter in the draft” emerged, and gave the Celtics something to look forward to on that end.
The oddest part of this is how much two offensive-minded guys are going to be relied upon for their defense. Nesmith especially impressed with his energy level that always seemed to threaten his personal safety, and Langford was called upon to use his length against Kevin Durant.
The collective learning experiences from both could set them up well for this upcoming season. This is why steps forward from each of them is so important. Both can become 3-and-D guys for the Celtics next season, and very key elements for making life easier on Tatum and Brown.
If one or both of those guys can grow into lead defensive roles, then the Celtics can use Tatum and Brown on lesser players and let them become elite help defenders. If Nesmith and/or Langford can be unleashed on the opposing team’s best or second-best players alongside Marcus Smart, Brown and Tatum can focus more on playing passing lanes and shutting down the outlets the opposition will be looking for.
Think back to Tatum’s huge defensive season in 2019-20 and the lasting memory should be of him expertly pick-sixing his way to breakaway dunks. This past season, he and Brown were forced to carry a much bigger defensive load, and that took away from their offensive focus. Too often, they devolved into “my turn, your turn” on offense as they tried to carry the team on their shoulders.
Nesmith and Langford don’t need to do too much to be extraordinarily important. They need to be tough individual defenders, and they need to make their open 3-pointers. Beyond that, they need to be smart about moving the ball when their shot isn’t there and cutting when Tatum and Brown draw too much defensive attention. They can each average between 12 and 15 points a game just by hitting a few catch-and-shoot 3-pointers and cutting backdoor for layups.
If both can come back next season as reliable players who can do these things, the Celtics could be a vastly different team. If one of them can elevate himself to a starter, then Boston can keep either on the floor the whole game, taking pressure off the stars to do the dirty work and let them focus on doing what stars do best.
If they can’t, then Boston will be trying to climb out of an even bigger hole. A Kemba Walker trade could bring some help, as could re-signing Evan Fournier, but nothing is going to fill the gaps left behind if Nesmith and Langford simply become misses. Langford needs to stay healthy and Nesmith needs to get more comfortable, but each can be a huge help if they take steps forward, or huge burdens if they don’t.