The annual Celtics tradition of trotting out their recent draftees at a community event continued this year, with Hugo Gonzalez, Max Shulga, and Amari Williams helping the team dedicate a new floor at the Huntington Avenue YMCA on Tuesday morning. It was a quick turnaround for the new Celtics rookies, especially Gonzalez.
"I've been here less than a day,” he said of his immersion into Boston. “Just having some dinner yesterday night and just waking up today at 6 a.m. because of the change of schedule and everything. But pretty beautiful, I already like it."
Gonzalez may only be 19, but his years in the Real Madrid system in Spain matured him quickly. He’s already feeding the media quotable nuggets at a five-year vet level.
“Playing for Real Madrid Academy since I was 10, it was almost like playing for a team that winning was a must every year for every title,” he said. “So I’m pretty used to team success. It’s the first and the main thing for the whole season. It’s nothing that I need to learn. It’s something that I already have in my DNA. So I think that’s going to help a franchise like the Celtics too and I hope that it does.”
This is where Cedric Maxwell would ask for a napkin to wipe the drool from his mouth.
Gonzalez is no draft-and-stash. He said he will be playing at the Las Vegas summer league, which begins on July 10, and is excited to start working on this next phase of his basketball career. Gonzalez officially signed his rookie-scale contract, which is believed to be starting at $2.8 million, on Tuesday. Before he joined his new team, his old teammates at Real Madrid, which include former NBA players like Sergio Llull, Mario Hezonja, Facundo Campazzo, and Serge Ibaka, gave him some helpful advice.
“What they just told me is, ‘Be yourself. How you play, you’re going to have success,’” he said. “And I’m having that feedback really on my mind because they’ve got a ton of experience, way more than that and if they tell me that they know what they’re saying. So I appreciate that.”
Gonzalez will be joined by Williams and Shulga, who will both be on two-way contracts with the Celtics. Williams is a slick-passing center, and that court vision is what the Celtics are hoping to build on.
“He’s been one of the best passing big men in college for a long time,” Celtics VP of Basketball Operations Mike Zarren said after the draft. “He’s got incredible vision … Your big guys have to be able to do all sorts of things. Sometimes we play through big guys at the post, with the guys we have had on our roster, and Amari should fit into that pretty well.”
Williams says his passing ability comes naturally, but there are also other elements that have helped it along.
“A lot of people are saying (it was because of) playing soccer growing up,” he said. “That was my first sport and just not having a growth spurt till late. I feel like those two things kind of helped my skill set and something that's helped me get to this level.”
Williams was born in the UK, but his immersion won’t be as dramatic as Gonzalez’s.
“Thankfully I was able to go to Drexel first for four years before I went to Kentucky,” Williams said. “But he seems like he knows a lot of great English already so he's definitely ahead of some other people. But just being around each other always helps and I think that's going to help all of us mold back into being in Boston."
Max Shulga followed a similar path. He’s from Ukraine but he played in college at Utah State (where he was teammates with Neemias Queta) and Virginia Commonwealth, so he’s very familiar with how things work here.
Shulga’s path to the NBA actually started on the officiating side because of his father.
“My dad was a ref and he’d go around Europe and stuff like that officiating games,” he said. “So basketball was always on the TV and so I would just watch it every day, all day long, and kind of just fell in love with it ever since then. I started playing when I was maybe 7, 8 years old, something like that.”
Despite that close connection to the officiating side of things, Shulga isn’t giving any added deference to the zebras.
“Nah, not really,” he said with a laugh. “Still player-ref relationship, yeah.”
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The Celtics made a minor move on Tuesday, signing 6-foot-8 wing Josh Minott. The 22-year-old played sporadically with Minnesota. Minott reportedly requested his release from the team to pursue a better opportunity, which makes his landing in Boston interesting.
Minott is a super athlete with a plus wingspan and a high motor. He entered the draft with a reputation of being able to shoot, but he hasn’t gotten enough opportunity to prove that. In three years with Minnesota, he’s only taken 59 3-pointers, hitting 34% of them.
The two-year deal for Minott was for about $5 million.
