3 players who could break into Celtics starting lineup
The Boston Celtics are still frontrunners in the East, but the lineup will look vastly different next season. Who might break into the new-look starting five?
The Boston Celtics‘ season ended on a flat note. On the doorstep of history — one game from becoming the first team ever to come back from down 0-3 in a series — the Celtics got eviscerated on their home floor in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. To make the sting even worse, the loss came at the hands of No. 8-seed Miami.
Now the Celtics enter the new season with a new lineup. Kristaps Porzingis has joined the fray as a defensive anchor and stretch-five. Meanwhile, the Celtics’ shipped their heart and soul to Memphis, with Marcus Smart joining the Grizzlies’ title chase in the West. Joe Mazzulla’s group will have a vastly different feel to it next season. We just don’t yet know if it will be for better or for worse.
Based on comments from Mazzulla, we have a decent understanding of what the starting five will look like next season. Derrick White is expected to fill Marcus Smart’s shoes as the starting point guard. Porzingis will definitely start; will Al Horford, who started all 63 of his appearances last season, start alongside him in the frontcourt? We think so.
For our purposes, let’s presume Mazzulla’s baseline starting five consists of Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Al Horford, and Kristaps Porzingis. The Celtics are one of the deepest teams in the NBA, however, and there’s ample room for change.
Here are three players who could feasibly crack the starting five.
No. 3 player who could break into Celtics starting five: Payton Pritchard
This is a stretch, but not an entirely implausible one. Payton Pritchard has essentially demanded a trade from Boston in search of a bigger role, but the Celtics haven’t made any discernible effort to move him. Now Smart is out of the picture and it would appear that Pritchard finally has a path to minutes in Boston.
Pritchard has thrived in his limited time on the floor for Boston. The No. 26 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, Pritchard is a career 40 percent 3-point shooter with serious dynamism pulling up off the dribble. Smaller guards tend to struggle in today’s league, and Pritchard faces definite defensive challenges at 6-foot-1. That said, he’s strong and scrappy with a generally favorable reputation on that end.
The Celtics have also been lacking in the traditional playmaking department for a while. Both Jayson Tatum and especially Jaylen Brown are flawed decision-makers with the ball. Smart made serious strides but he was never a natural-born point guard. Neither is Derrick White, for that matter.
Boston could see value in Pritchard’s ability to set the table, run pick-and-rolls, and collapse the defense. Pritchard doesn’t have the most explosive first step, but he’s a poised playmaker who loves to probe the middle of the defense. He’s a constant threat to pull-up and stick a jumper in his defender’s face, and he frequently made advanced passing reads at Oregon. The opportunities have been spread thin in Boston — his minutes have declined steadily in each of his three NBA seasons — but those are attributes the Celtics’ offense would benefit from in theory.
It would take a very specific set of circumstances to launch Pritchard into the starting five, but if the Celtics find themselves lacking confidence in the two-big approach around Porzingis and the desire is to keep Brogdon with the second unit, Pritchard could be the logical next man up.