Former Boston Celtics big man somehow finds himself amongst BR’s most underrated of last decade

Over the past decade, the Boston Celtics have benefitted from finding diamonds in the rough that happen to fit well into their rotation. The Cs have made the NBA Playoffs each year since 2014-15, marking the league’s longest active streak.

During that streak, you could say that they had a few “underrated players” put on the green and white. Names like Evan Turner, Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart, and Jae Crowder all might come to mind.

However, in a recent list posted on Bleacher Report of the top 10 most underrated players of the last decade, none of those names made the cut. One former Boston Celtics big man who did make the list surprisingly was Enes Freedom.

B/R’s Andy Bailey made the case for Freedom as one of the most underrated of the last 10 seasons:

"Much of the chatter on Enes Freedom’s game has understandably revolved around his defense over the years. On that end of the floor, he’s often looked slow-footed and struggled with more agile players on the perimeter.As is often the case with NBA discourse, overanalyzing one aspect of a player can cause people to lose sight of a lot of good. That’s exactly what happened with Freedom. In the right role—a relentless post player and rebounder off the bench, like he was with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers—Freedom can be dominant for stretches.Over the last 10 years, he’s averaged 19.9 points and 13.7 rebounds per 75 possessions. No one else in the league matched or exceeded both of those marks over the same stretch. He’s also among the top 10 in NBA history in both career rebounding and offensive rebounding percentage.For all of the talk about his negative impact on defense, Freedom’s general awareness on that end seems to be catching up to his ability to control the boards. Since the start of the 2019-20 campaign, his teams were plus-6.4 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor and only plus-2.6 with him off."

In fairness to Bailey, he doesn’t mention Freedom’s two underwhelming seasons in green. During his two stints with the Boston Celtics, Freedom averaged 6.4 points and 6.4 rebounds per game in about 15 minutes.

Freedom’s numbers in those categories are significantly lower with the Cs than they are for any other team he’s played for. He struggled to find any sort of consistent role in Boston due to the pairing of the team’s defensive identity and his lack of defensive ability.

However, there will always been the clinic he put on against the Los Angeles Lakers back in January 2020. Freedom made his presence felt in that game, pouring in 18 points and pulling down 11 rebounds in 24 solid minutes. Boston won that one in a 139-107 rout.

Boston Celtics fans may not be sold on the idea of Kanter being one of the most underrated, but the numbers certainly back up a reputation that may have been more compromised by Devin Booker’s infamous pick-and-roll comment (‘pick-and-roll at 00 every time’) than anything that actually happened on the court in his career.