Boston Celtics: “Hot or Not” on 3 of C’s top roster battles
By Mark Nilon
Boston Celtics basketball is right around the corner folks, and we at the Houdini are absolutely thrilled.
With just under three weeks to go between now and October 20th’s regular-season tip-off against the New York Knicks, fans and media alike will be monitoring both training camp and the upcoming preseason rather closely to see what rookie head coach Ime Udoka will make of this re-tooled and revamped shamrocks squad.
Though what happens during this time period will not have any impact on how the Cs ultimately finish the season, there are still plenty of storylines for the team’s faithful to pay close attention to, and the numerous position battles that will be taking place are believed to be the biggest attention draws.
According to the folks at Bleacher Report, there are 3 roster battles, in specific, that they believe should be watched closely as we trudge on through this time on the calendar.
This piece got our creative juices flowing and, in turn, inspired us to delve a bit deeper into this discussion and play a new game we’d like to call “Hor or Not”, where we look at these recently listed rotational battles and discuss whether we believe them to be of high interest or if they’re not really worth monitoring all that intently.
So, without further adieu, let’s get started:
Boston Celtics battle No. 1) Backup power forward
For the better part of the past few years, the Boston Celtics have rolled out lineups with illegitimate power forward options.
The player most often used at the four has been franchise cornerstone Jayson Tatum who, though he’s seen great success whilst predominantly logging minutes at the position (2x All-Star while boasting averages of 24.9 points, 7.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.3 steals, and just shy of a block per game on 45.5 percent shooting from the floor and 39 percent shooting from deep since 2019-20), is a natural three.
Coming into this season, it would appear that Tatum will likely be used in this role within the starting rotation once again. However, the talent pool behind him has seemingly improved thanks to the moves made by the front office over the past several months.
This depth found in back of Tatum is something that writer, Zach Buckley, believes to be one of this year’s must-watch roster battles, for the coaching staff is still trying to find out who will wind up being the primary backup at this four spot:
"The only thing the Celtics don’t have in abundance are power forwards. Tatum will see a lot of his time there, and Horford could if Boston wants to go really big, but it gets a little scarce after that. Grant Williams, Juancho Hernangomez, Jabari Parker and Sam Hauser all have the chance to change that. The 6’6″ Williams plays bigger than his size, but that doesn’t make him any bigger. Hernangomez is a shaky shooter and limited defender. Parker is a smooth inside-the-arc scorer, but he doesn’t offer range or consistent defense. Hauser is a good shooter, but he’s unproven at this level and might always be a liability on defense."
Undeniably, power forward is the weakest position on this Boston Celtics team for, like we and Buckley have stated already, they have no trustworthy legitimate fours in tow.
Though we many believe that Hernangomez could actually be a legitimate option to slot in at the C’s starting four spot, the competition for who will be the main backup to Tatum in the rotation is one that simply has little impact on the overall success of this team moving forward.