The Celtics are hoping this summer can bring the moves, staff hires, and internal improvement to get them the next couple of steps forward needed to win a title. This series looks at questions that need to be answered for that to happen.
Question 2: How will the Kristaps Porzingis trade impact the Celtics?
This is a sudden entry into the conversation. It suddenly rises right below question number one -- What will the new CBA do to this roster? -- while also providing one of the answers to that question.
Trading Marcus Smart, indirectly, for Porzingis, is as much financially motivated as it is basketball-motivated.
“It definitely is factoring into every decision that we make,” Brad Stevens said in a recent appearance on the Celtics Talk podcast. “This is not ‘watch film, and all sit in a room and figure out what you want to do.’ This is ‘put your version of Excel spreadsheets on the four screens in the room, and figure out what you want to do, and how you can manage it all the way through an extended period of time.’”
Smart going out is only the first step of a multi-pronged plan to, as Stevens has put it, rebalance the roster. It is also Boston navigating the new Collective Bargaining Agreement -- an agreement so new and complex that it STILL has not been fully written and distributed to teams. Smart, in essence, has become one of the contract’s first casualties, along with Jordan Poole in Golden State.
As Stevens tries to sort out what’s next for Boston’s front office, Joe Mazzulla has to figure out how to use his new star big man. At 7’3” and coming off a 38.5% shooting season from deep, Porzingis can give the Celtics some new wrinkles on both ends of the floor. But whether he does depends on the answer to another question:
Was Porzingis’ performance last season due to him stepping up in a contract year, or is he hitting a new level of play as he enters his prime?
His 2022-23 season was the best of his career. He was his most efficient, with a career-bests in overall shooting percentage (49.8%), 2-point percentage (55.9%), effective field goal percentage (56.5%), and true shooting percentage (62.7%). He gets to the line a lot (6.4 FTA last season) and hits them at a high rate (85%).
Part of that efficiency came in the post, where Porzingis went from scoring on 46.1% of his post-ups while in Dallas the previous season, to scoring on 60% of post-ups in Washington this past season. He scored on post-ups more often than Joel Embiid.
Is that a sustainable number? One on hand, there is a steady climb upward from 40% post-scoring three seasons ago in Dallas, to 46.1%, then 58.4% in 17 games after being moved to Washington, to the 60% over 65 games last season. Some of that certainly has to do with situations and team makeup, so we’ll see how he handles the post-ups being surrounded by two All-NBA players to give him space.
Some of that might have to do with him simply entering his prime. He turns 28 before the season begins, and for a guy as big as he is, there is something to be said physiologically about a 7’3” guy reaching the peak of his hand-eye coordination. Prime athletic performance means the time between a player’s brain deciding to do something and his body doing it will never be quicker. If there's ever a time to employ a 7’3” unicorn, this is it.
How Boston uses him will be interesting, and will probably depend on yet unmade moves by Stevens. One can assume, at least for now, that Derrick White, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown are the starting perimeter players, with Porzingis as the fourth starter and a big silhouette with a question mark for a face as the fifth.
“Kristaps can play with any combination of our players,” Stevens told reporters after the trade was finalized. “He can play with (Robert Williams), he can play with Al (Horford), he can play as a standalone 5. … He brings a lot to our team. You can envision as I can envision some of the lineups we can put out there size-wise right now, pretty intriguing and not without dropping any skill at all, so that’s a good thing.”
There does, however, exist the possibility of Porzingis putting forth his best effort in what he knew would be a contract year. He had the player option on his deal, so he knew he could opt out and become a coveted free agent. It’s possible he gave a little extra to pump up his value and will regress.
If that is the case, then Boston can play the short game with him, giving him a two-year extension that takes him to 30 years old, gives him a chance at one more big contract when the new TV money rolls in, and keeps him motivated in the short term. Considering that would take him into the first year of Tatum’s extension, it would also give Boston a potential big expiring contract to play with should they need to move salary but keep Brown.
They could go into the second apron to keep a championship team together if that's where they find themselves at that point, but Stevens also values flexibility.
“You also have to just be cognizant of once you get to that second apron, there are going to be tools that are taken away, especially in future years,” he said on Celtics Talk. “At the end of the day, we also have to be cognizant of not taking away too many tools now as a result of the new CBA.”
While Stevens figures that out, Boston will have to figure out how to make sure Tatum, Brown, and Porzingis can all work together. Mazzulla and his new coaching staff will put together the scheme, but will White be able to execute it?
He’s coming off a great season, and he did a lot of things well, but he’ll be asked to play a little differently this year and be much more of a point guard than a shooter. Losing Smart takes away Boston’s best passer, but if White can step into that role effectively, then he can mitigate that loss.
The loss of Smart also hurts the Celtics defensively, but the addition of Porzingis and his rim protection can help make up for that as well. Of all the players who defended seven or more attempts within 6 feet of the rim last season, only Brook Lopez allowed a lower field goal percentage (Porzigis allowed 53.5% shooting, Lopez 51.7%).
“I think the best teams have been able to maintain size while being able to defend both the 3-point line and the rim,” Stevens said on the View From The Rafters podcast. “Our other bigs are very agile, Kristaps is agile, but we should always have a deterrent at the rim now when two of them are in there together. You can kind of envision the lineups with a couple of our wings and Kristaps and another big, and those are huge lineups.”
One of the keys to great perimeter defense in the NBA nowadays is having size behind the guards to prevent teams from even taking shots at the rim. Porzingis and another big behind him could force teams into a lot of jump shots, which would give Boston more opportunities to win.
Ultimately, there are a lot of theoretical reasons to think Porzingis can help, but we will have to wait to see how the theoretical matches with the practical application. Porzingis can help on both ends due to his size and the quality of his teammates, but until we see (a) the rest of the moves Stevens makes and (b) how the Celtics handle the intangibles lost by Smart, we won’t know how it will actually work.
The Celtics have become somewhat experimental after this trade. There's a lot we don’t know anymore, and it might be Christmas before we can unwrap the real answers. The potential is there for Boston to be significantly better, but the potential is also there for it to not work out as well as we think it can.