NEW YORK — It will take a circus act to save the Boston Celtics from the seemingly inevitable roster implosion set to take place this summer. As they gear up to make another title run, talks of their second-apron troubles continue to swirl. "You can't stay in the second apron," Wyc Grousbeck said during an appearance on WEEI's The Greg Hill Show. "Nobody will. I predict for the next 40 years of the CBA, no one's gonna stay in the second apron more than two years."
The 2024-25 season marks Boston’s second straight as a second-apron team, making Grousbeck’s prediction more of a proclamation: The Celtics will have to make changes this offseason.
Two summers ago, the Celtics sold out for Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday. They traded future financial flexibility. They traded depth. They traded picks. All three are individual assets, yet they are as intertwined as ever.
With Porzingis and Holiday on the roster, Boston is slated to have the most expensive luxury tax bill in NBA history next season, though one of the two being traded seems imminent. Trading depth meant the Celtics would have to rely on depth and development in order to solve their roster crunch. Trading picks meant they had fewer rookies to work with in hopes of finding cheap players on cost-controlled contracts to fill those same voids.
Now, every pick the Celtics make in the draft has become more and more crucial. And with that, the development of said selections is essential. That’s where Boston’s unsung hero steps into the picture: Craig Luschenat.
Craig Luschenat is helping save the Celtics' future with player development, from Payton Pritchard to Sam Hauser to Luke Kornet to (now) Baylor Scheierman
Luschenat is the Celtics’ head of player development. The Andover, Massachusetts native started in Portland with the then-Maine Red Claws, where he coached from 2018 to 2022. He then jumped onto the player development staff in Boston, where he quickly rose up the ranks before being promoted to an official assistant coach ahead of this season.
On the surface, fans have gotten to witness the emergence of Boston’s new rotation in real-time. Payton Pritchard—a late first-round pick who just set the NBA record for threes off the bench in a single season. Sam Hauser—an undrafted free agent who’s grown into a top-10 shooter in the NBA. Luke Kornet—a G League project who’s emerging as one of the league’s best backup centers.
All three entered the Celtics organization as relative unknowns. Certainly not sure-things. Yet they’ve matured into the core pieces of Boston’s championship rotation. And Luschenat’s fingerprints are everywhere.
“Craig is just always pushing us,” Pritchard said at Celtics shootaround in New York on Tuesday. “Showing us new areas that we can keep growing. And we do a good job of being receptive to that. Learning and listening and then attacking the workouts that he has set up for us to show us, like, 'How can we impact the game more and more?'”
Pritchard inked a four-year, $30 million contract extension prior to the 2023-24 season, and now he’s the odds-on favorite to win Sixth Man of the Year. At the time he signed his new deal, Pritchard was fresh off a season where Ime Udoka had him glued to the bench. Now, it’s hard to pull him off the court.
He’ll make less than $9 million in each of the next three seasons and under $8 million in both of the next two. When former Celtic Jeff Van Gundy made a comment to Brad Stevens about how impressed he was with Pritchard and Hauser’s work toward improvement last year, the former immediately pushed the attention onto Luschenat.
"It's a credit to Craig,” Pritchard said on November 26 via CLNS Media (h/t Bobby Krivitsky). “Every day, coaches are guarding us and put us in different live reads; it can be like three-on-three, stuff like that. I'm a fan of it because then, when it comes to the games, we've already seen it 100 times, so we know the reads, what the shots look like, where should we get to on the court, and if we get the opportunity, don't hesitate."
Payton Pritchard working with Craig Luschenat on threes off the dribble as the pick-and-roll ball handler after Celtics practice on the heels of Game 2. pic.twitter.com/095NcKyS78
— Bobby Krivitsky (@BobbyKrivitsky) April 25, 2024
Hauser followed a similar pipeline as Pritchard, earning his first big-league extension shortly after the Celtics’ 2024 Championship victory. He put pen to paper on a four-year, $45 million deal to stay in Boston.
Dating back to high school, Hauser has shot at least 40% from three-point range every single season, and he’s on pace to do it again this year. When asked about the player development staff’s role in his progression, Luschenat was one of the three guys he listed.
“I've had a lot of people throughout my three years, three and a half years now, that have helped me,” Hauser said on December 17. “Alex Barlow, Craig Luschenat, and DJ MacLeay have been three guys that I've worked with closely.
“They just helped me understand the NBA game as opposed to the college game. And where I can find shots, how I can play off these other guys, and also how I can just get on the floor. So, a lot of credit goes to those guys, and they work their tails off every day.”
Here’s a look at the pregame hand-eye coordination drills Sam Hauser does with Craig Luschenat before every Celtics game. pic.twitter.com/2VZAEl3D4O
— Bobby Krivitsky (@BobbyKrivitsky) December 4, 2024
Barlow was an assistant coach in Maine during Hauser’s time there, and MacLeay has been an assistant in Boston since 2022. The year after Hauser and Kornet's Maine stint, Barlow was promoted to the head coaching role.
And though Kornet mainly works with the Celtics’ big-man coaches, his relationship with Luschenat and fellow player development specialist Ross McMains dates back to different stints in the G League.
“Those two, especially, I feel like I've got a great relationship with and really been able to kind of like develop different parts of my games throughout the years with them,” Kornet said on May 19 of last year. “Especially for us guys who maybe played in the G league or kind of had times when we're not playing, we have a lot of time to really work on the little things that you're going to be getting better at.
“And so I feel like their ability to kind of enter in with where you're at in your career and kind of be able to work on it day by day and have like a much longer term picture I think, helps a ton.”
Kornet and Hauser were in Maine when Luschenat was an assistant there, and the Celtics center crossed paths with McMains in New York. Both were in Westchester with the Knicks’ G League affiliate during Kornet’s rookie season.
Now, Kornet is poised to earn a very lucrative contract extension this summer after taking a one-year minimum deal last offseason to remain with the Celtics.
Three Luschenat guys. Three contract extensions. Three cost-controlled, high-level role players added to Boston’s supporting cast.
And another may be making his way up the ranks.
Pritchard, Hauser, and Luschenat are constantly working together. Getting up shots on the court, running drills pregame, and watching film. It’s been that way for a while now. This year, rookie Baylor Scheierman has been added to the group.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Pritchard said sarcastically skeptical when presented with the fact at shootaround on Tuesday.
“Baylor, I feel like these last couple of months, I feel like he's grown a lot, too,” he continued, casting the jokes aside. “Just being more confident. But yeah, he's part of it.
“He's like the little bro, but he's going to keep developing. And I love to see his fire on the court, though. That's why I'm most happy for him. It's like it seems like he's confident, he's being himself, so it's great to see.”
The Celtics drafted Scheierman with the 30th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, marking Stevens’ first first-round selection since taking over as the GM in Boston.
Right away, the Celtics knew who to pair him with.
“Working on my shot. Continuing to tune up things. Trying to get it off quicker,” Scheierman said back in September of what he’d been working on since Summer League. “Been working with Craig [Luschenat] a lot and Sam Hauser a lot, and they've been giving me a lot of great tips and tricks to try to do that in a game.”
Early in the season, Scheierman spent a lot of time with Maine. Playing alongside JD Davison and Drew Peterson, and under former player development guy Tyler Lashbrook, he was able to get some reps in.
But even nearly 110 miles away, Luschenat was still right there.
“A lot of time, I'm just here. Being where my feet are. I don't really hear a lot from what's going on in Boston,” Scheierman said on January 16 of his time in Maine. “Me and Craig watch a lot of film, and I probably talk to him the most. But outside of that, it's kind of just focusing on here and focusing on getting better and being where my feet are.”
How? FaceTime.
“Yeah, it's FaceTime,” Scheierman said. “We normally FaceTime the day after every game and just go through film. Things I did well, things I can improve on, and try to apply that to the next game.”
In 14 regular-season G League games following an up-and-down Tip-Off Tournament, Scheierman averaged 20.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.5 steals while shooting 42.1% from the field and 40/8% from deep on 10.1 three-point attempts per game.
Looks like Baylor Scheierman has adopted the same pre-game drills as Sam Hauser with assistant Craig Luschenat.
— Jack Simone (@JackSimoneNBA) October 13, 2024
They just worked with the tennis balls, now, defense. Scheierman said he’s been working closely with Hauser and Luschenat earlier in training camp. pic.twitter.com/i2Z7InZIsB
For Scheierman, the chance to be a part of the Pritchard-Hauser-Luschenat core has been invaluable.
“Obviously, Craig being the guy that I work with a lot here, and Payton and Sam, it kind of allows us to bounce things off of each other about, just things they've gone through and things they are going through, and for me, just to soak up that information and learn and grow as much as possible from that,” Scheierman explained at shooaround on January 17.
From January 29 to February 1, Scheierman played in three G League games with Maine, but since then, he’s been with Boston. And his developmental progress has been on full display as a member of Joe Mazzulla’s extended rotation.
Scheierman has appeared in 19 games with the Celtics since then (after just nine appearances up to that point), playing 14.1 minutes per contest. He’s averaged 4.1 points, 1.9 rebounds, and 1.2 assists while shooting 41.9% from the floor and 41.2% from three-point range.
The stretch has been underlined by a 15-point game against the Philadelphia 76ers on March 6 and a 20-point, highlight-riddled, game-altering performance against the Brooklyn Nets on March 18.
And once again, Luschenat found himself in the middle of the story.
“I think that just comes with time,” Mazzulla said of Scheierman’s growing confidence after his big game against the Nets. “It just comes with understanding the system, understanding, really different lineups that you play with. But I think he's just a tough kid who continues to work.
“I think it's the culture. Our player development staff does a great job. Craig and the guys do a great job just creating an environment of learning, an environment of work ethic, regardless of what's going on, and keeping those guys ready. So, Baylor's next on the list, along with the other guys, and he delivered tonight. So it's a credit to him, credit to the staff.”
Boston is staring down one of the most grueling battles against the salary cap that a team has ever encountered. The new CBA has made contending with an expensive roster extremely painful, and there are very few ways to get around the issue.
One of them is to draft well and develop talent on cheap contracts. And for the past five years, that’s been the Celtics’ focus.
From Pritchard to Hauser to Kornet to (soon-to-be) Scheierman, they’ve found guys on cheap contracts who have been able to play big-time minutes.
And Luschenat has silently led the charge from behind the scenes.
“He just works so hard," Pritchard said in May of last year, via Bobby Krivitsky. He watches so many hours of film and then also studies a lot of different people in different fields. Other great basketball players, coaches, whatever, and takes all the knowledge and then puts it into us, and so just helping expand our games and making us most ready when we get on the court to perform.”
He’s not only helping save the Celtics’ future from a tax-induced demise—he is the future.
“Craig is an unbelievably hard worker, and he's going to be successful for years to come,” Pritchard said on Tuesday. “What I admire about the most is [that] he's not a trainer that just thinks he knows everything. He's always picking people's brains, learning, and then adding.
“So, this guy is the future.”