A lot of these deep offseason discussions about players center on one common theme: How will this guy play with more opportunity?
Jaylen Brown will have the ball more. How will he play as the number one option?
Derrick White won’t have to cede touches to as many good teammates. Can he play at an All-Star level?
Payton Pritchard will get more minutes. Can he play at a starter level?
It goes on and on. They're all legit questions that are perfect for August debates, but more opportunity is both a blessing and a curse. How that opportunity has come about plays a major role in how much a player can thrive, or fail, in those extra minutes.
Obviously, we can look at the extrapolated numbers and say Pritchard’s Per 36 numbers (15.5 points, 5.5 assists, 5.2 rebounds) make an obvious case for him to take advantage of an elevated opportunity. Sam Hauser’s Per 36 are tantalizing at 14.7 points and 5.7 rebounds. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of expecting linear growth and similar performance over more minutes.
Brown will be double-teamed more than he’s ever been over his career. He will get more touches, and one will assume he can get more than the 17.9 shots per game he got last year, but how many more shots will he really get with how he’s defended?
The same will apply to White, who won’t just get to live in the space created by Brown and Jayson Tatum driving, Kristaps Porziņģis spotting up or posting, and Jrue Holiday in the corner. There will be plenty of minutes on the floor when White’s “added opportunity” will mean operating as the focus of the opposing defense.
For Brown to get more looks and chances to pump up his scoring average, he’s going to have to live up to his “play faster” demands we’ve heard over the regular season. He’s going to have to draw double-teams, give the ball up, and cut to get the ball back. He’s going to have to start off the ball and catch on the move to avoid getting blitzed. And he also has to shoot better than 70-something percent at the free-throw line.
You get it by now. Yes, there is more opportunity, but there is also more attention, which requires more discipline, more game planning, more skills, and more effort. More than anything, it will require everyone to be on the same page.
With about a month or so to go before media day, the Celtics are starting the process of figuring out what they have that can carry forward as they wedge their championship window open for, they hope, at least a couple more seasons. There will be a healthy motivation from the team, and a lot of fans, to prove a lot of people wrong.
But who they're proving wrong might be different for different players. What some guys are trying to prove might run counter to what others want to accomplish. Some of that might be influenced by the Anfernee Simons situation and what the Celtics hope to accomplish with him if he starts the season in green. There's no doubt that the front office’s interests might compete with the team’s desires sometimes. That will be a tough road for Joe Mazzulla to navigate.
Mazzulla, like others on the team, hears everything about gap years, mediocre records, and tanking debates. He is undoubtedly using that as fuel for himself and his team. But what if the best lineup for winning games competes with the best lineup for gathering data or showcasing talent? Is there a risk that guys will feel like their opportunity is being taken away due to an edict from upstairs.
The Celtics will lose plenty of games this year, not just because Tatum is out for at least most, if not all, of this season. They aren’t constructed to win and compete with the best of the NBA’s best, but they still have enough talent to be better than the worst of the worst. They will have games where Brown, White, or Pritchard get scorching hot and carry them to wins. They’ll have nights where they hit 22 3-pointers and can’t be denied.
They’ll also have their 27% nights with Hugo Gonzalez playing an entire fourth quarter. Losing is a wedge that can be driven between teams in the right circumstances. A lot of those circumstances begin with added opportunity that goes unrealized.
This is more than just a season to figure out complementary pieces around Tatum and Brown. A lot of these guys are spending their summers around people pumping them up for what’s ahead, and even the most disciplined players are going to have a tough time getting those voices out of their heads. There are leaders, role players, and fringe guys, all with their own thoughts about how things will go this season.
Some of it will work out. Some if it won’t. A hidden danger in this blessing and curse of more opportunity is what happens with the guys who don’t have things go their way. The Celtics locker room has been damn near perfect these past two seasons, but there was really no reason for it not to be. One of the biggest tests of this team is staying together when the reasons for frustration hit.