The Athletic is one of the last media outlets offering hard-hitting, unbiased journalism, and senior writer Fred Katz is one of the best in the business. A long-time Knicks reporter, Katz now covers the entire league for The Athletic and does so quite well.
The publication recently put out an article ahead of the season with one big burning question for every team in the league, with a number of staff writers contributing. Katz took the lead for the Celtics and pegged their biggest question as whether Derrick White can regain his shooting stroke that completely abandoned him last season.
All eyes on Derrick White's shooting this season
It’s a fair question for sure, and one that many Celtics fans are wondering. But with so much focus on his poor shooting season, many are missing the boat on all of the other areas where White excels, and he continued to do so last season, even as he struggled to put the ball in the basket with any consistency.
But Katz perfectly captured the situation and explained why White has become extremely underrated based on poor shooting splits.
“The only skill White struggled with last season was the one that stands out most. He was the best rim-protecting guard in the league, one of the best ever. Boston positioned him on defense away from the ball more, and it paid off. He cuts. He runs an offense. He rarely makes low-IQ plays.
“But he couldn’t hit a shot, not just from 3 but from inside the arc, too. If White’s scoring recovers with the return of Jayson Tatum — who will make his life easier — as the rest of his invaluable skills remain, then the Celtics’ guard will have an argument as one of the best players in the Eastern Conference.”
Katz completely nailed it. Shooting and scoring are the easiest things to watch in a basketball game, so it’s no wonder that the perception was that White had a down year. But he was elite in almost every other aspect of the game and still made a hugely positive impact for the Celtics on both ends of the floor.
A return to shooting form could make Derrick White an All-Star
The fact that he was that effective while shooting so poorly should have the rest of the Eastern Conference worried because White’s shooting struggles were so unusual. This season, there’s no reason to believe he won’t bounce back in that regard, and if he does, he should be recognized as one of the best all-around players in the conference.
That may sound crazy to some, but those people are probably over-indexing on conventional counting stats without looking at White’s advanced stats and things that go beyond the box score. If the traditional numbers catch up this season, there’s a real chance that White takes the All-Star leap that’s been building for the last few seasons.
Every other part of his game is already there, and we’ve seen his ability to shoot the lights out in the past. It’s the perfect time for everything to click and fall into place at the right time, and with Jaylen Brown in Philadelphia, there should be more opportunity than ever for White. This is his time to shine, and it’s great to see that well-respected people around the league like Katz are seeing the vision.
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