Celtics Announce Summer League Roster

In the midst of the free agency frenzy, the Boston Celtics have announced their Summer League roster

Not one player stands above 6’9″ on the Boston Celtics Summer League roster this year. Second round pick Ben Bentil and undrafted rookie Mouphtaou Yarou are the only 6’9″ players on the team.

Besides R.J. Hunter, Terry Rozier, Jordan Mickey and James Young, the rest of the roster is made up of rookies. Surprisingly, Young is still the third youngest player on the team, despite this being his third Summer League appearance.

Last year’s second round pick Marcus Thornton will also be on the team, as well as this year’s draft picks Jaylen Brown, Guerschon Yabusele, Demetrius Jackson and Abdel Nader. With a lot of NBA-caliber players on the Celtics, a lot of eyes should be on them and they’ll be the favorites to win the Las Vegas Summer League Tournament.

Even though winning the tournament would be a nice reward, the development of young players is what Boston is looking for. Specifically Jaylen Brown, who is expected to see meaningful minutes off the bench right away. He’ll have a big role and a lot of the team’s game plan should involve him. Terry Rozier is also a player to keep an eye on as he has the most NBA experience on the team.

While the rest of the roster is compiled of undrafted rookies hoping they receive their NBA shot, it’s unlikely it will happen with the Celtics. Boston already has a very deep team, and too many young players as it is, therefore it’s extremely unlikely they’ll pick any of them up following Summer League play.

There will still be a lot of NBA scouts from around the NBA though, so getting discovered by another team is also an option for the young NBA hopefuls.

The undrafted free agents the Celtics added are: Yarou (Villanova), Malcolm Miller (Holy Cross), Jay Vaughn Pinkston (Villanova) and Corey Walden (Eastern Kentucky). As you can see, the Celtics brought in two former Villanova players and two players from mid-major schools, although I would keep an eye out for Malcolm Miller.

He has decent size at 6’7″ and played well in the D-League last season. Miller averaged 12.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game. He was also a very good three-point shooter – 39.8 three-point percentage. There’s a chance he could catch a team’s eye and latch on as an end of the bench player for a team if he performs well in July.

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The Celtics will begin Summer League on July 9 against the Philadelphia 76ers.