Boston Celtics: 3 things to know about newest Celtic, Nik Stauskas

Factoid No. 2) Nik Stauskas has some NBA experience

Nik Staukas has logged 337 games played in the NBA for six different teams(Kings, Sixers, Nets, Blazers, Cavs, and Heat). The Boston Celtics may be his last real chance to become a household name in this league.

A career of 6.8 points per game on sub-40 shooting and just 35% from distance does not give C’s fans much confidence that his game translates to the big leagues well. It is fair to ask why he has moved around a bunch?

The Lithuanian guard was drafted eighth overall in 2014 by the Sacramento Kings. He spent just one season there and never really found any footing with his shooting stroke.

He did get the nickname Sauce Castillo thanks to a closed captioning error on a Sacramento broadcast. The next two seasons he would spend with the Philadelphia Sixers and had the opportunity to start in 62 games where he saw his averages increase as well as a slight rise in efficiency.

In Staukas’s third year, he averaged a career-high in scoring with 9.5 points per game on 39.6% from the field and near 37% from distance. The perimeter play he was drafted for started to translate.

In his fourth season, he split time between the Sixers and Nets for 41 games played where he shot a career-high 40% from three, but saw his minutes shrink substantially.

In the 2018-19 campaign, his time would be divided again between being a Blazer and a Cavalier. The minutes rose to around 15 per game and his efficiency rose to over 42% from the 3-point line with the Cavs and in his Portland stint, he topped 41.9% overall from the field.

After this season, Nik would fall out of the league and have to claw his way back through a series of overseas play, G-League stints, and one COVID-19 hardship 10-day with the Miami Heat.

In just two mere games with the Heat, the guard averaged 5.5 points per game on 50% shooting from three.

This is somewhat a synopsis of how he got to the Celtics, good or bad.