In year’s past, ball-dominant point guards have been integral to the Boston Celtics offense. For the upcoming 2019-20 season, that will not be the case in Beantown.
The Boston Celtics gave Kemba Walker a max contract this past offseason to be a leader in a way Kyrie Irving proved incapable of being. Though Irving was an All-NBA second-teamer and an All-Star starter, he didn’t raise the games of his young teammates.
Part of the leadership Danny Ainge is looking for at this point is knowing when to take a step back. Ainge has built a perennial playoff threat on the strength of high lottery picks (mostly acquired in the Kevin Garnett–Paul Pierce trade).
He didn’t use a #2 selection on Jaylen Brown and a #3 pick on Jayson Tatum just to have them become spectators. Irving had the duo looking like non-factors in the playoffs against Milwaukee just one season after looking like world-beaters in the 2018 postseason. Brown’s scoring went down from 18 points per game to just 14 this pay May. Tatum similarly saw his scoring fall from 18 points per game to just 15 per game in a second round gentlemen’s sweep at the hands of the Bucks.
The 2018 playoff run will live on in the hearts of Boston Celtics fans for years. It was organic and served as a breath of fresh air in the Golden State Warriors-dominated NBA super-team era. In order to get that back, Ainge needed to replace Irving with a point guard who wasn’t going to get in the way of the development of his guys in Brown, Tatum and even Marcus Smart.
Walker isn’t going to have the keys to the offense that Irving will in Brooklyn. He won’t even have autonomy of the offense like Terry Rozier will now have on the same Charlotte Hornets team he replaced Walker on.
What he will have is a championship-ready roster for the first time in his career. Walker has the support of his teammates, and he seems open to the idea of sharing the spotlight with his teammates.
Whatever the case is, the Boston Celtics offense will not look similar to last year’s team. The same ego issues that sunk last year’s ship will not plague their offense. All of this will more than likely result in less impressive counting stats for Walker, but if the team is achieving more success across the roster, the death of hero-ball in Boston is something that should be lauded.