LAS VEGAS — Luka Garza signed with the Boston Celtics for a reason: Opportunity. As he navigated free agency, it was at the top of his priority list. That’s why Boston made sense. “It's huge,” Garza said in Las Vegas while supporting the Celtics’ Summer League squad. “I feel like I've learned so much from my time in Minnesota from being around those types of guys. I think it was time to find that opportunity to get on the floor.”
This time last year, Kristaps Porzingis, Luke Kornet, and Al Horford were rocking championship hats as the Boston Celtics’ frontcourt leaders. Fast forward to 2025 Summer League, the position couldn’t look any different.
Porzingis was traded to the Atlanta Hawks, Kornet signed with the San Antonio Spurs, and Horford is projected to leave in free agency (or retire from the NBA). That leaves Neemias Queta and Xavier Tillman as the lone holdovers from last year’s center room.
Enter Garza.
Luka Garza joined the Celtics for opportunity
The 26-year-old has spent his last three seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, enjoying back-to-back runs to the Western Conference finals. But for Garza personally, there wasn’t much wiggle room to get on the floor.
Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid dominated Minnesota’s frontcourt minutes, but now, he’s searching for something more.
“I felt like in the limited opportunities that I was able to get, I was able to show well and maximize those, but for me, it was a priority for me to get to somewhere where I could get more of those opportunities,” Garza said.
Garza is perhaps most well-known for his time at Iowa, where he is the all-time leading scorer with 2,306 points—190 more than second place on the list (Roy Marble)—and a feat that he still gets praise for to this day. “I mean, s***, from the Iowa days, I think we all know he’s unstoppable on the offensive end, for sure,” said Josh Minott, Boston’s other free-agency addition who has spent the past two seasons with Garza in Minnesota.
Limited mobility has held him back on the defensive end, but he’s found ways of adapting, including finding a niche as a charge-taker.
"Obviously, there are always adjustments you have to make at every level you go through,” Garza said. “But for me, I think, number one, just the skill that I had more than anything is playing hard. I think that helps me, it makes up for a lot of the things that I don't have, but obviously through being in a league four years, I've learned a lot more and have a better understanding, a better IQ of angles, different things that can help me out there, especially on the defensive end.”
His back-to-the-basket game rivals plenty of other bigs in the NBA, but at just 6-foot-10, he doesn’t always have the size to make the most of it. Instead, an evolving three-point shot and improvements as a screener have aided Garza’s NBA journey.
“Then I think offensively, that's a side that I have a lot of confidence in,” Garza said. “I can really help the team in many ways, just create good offense, create good flow within it, and always help get shots up, whether it's for myself or my teammates through screening, passing, whatever it is. I feel like that's a strength of mine that I've been able to show in the times that I've had.”
That’s precisely what he’ll have to bring to the table in Boston. In Kornet and Horford, the Celtics lost not only the best two screeners on their roster, but two of the better screeners in the NBA as a whole. And Horford and Porzingis’ jumpers were crucial to the high-powered, three-point-heavy offense Boston has employed.
Garza doesn’t have the size to replace Porzingis, the three-point shot to replace Horford, or the body to replace Kornet. But he has the will to try. And if he’s willing to learn on the fly and play the role Boston needs him to, he’ll have a chance to contribute.
“I met some of the guys, not everybody, but I'm excited to meet the rest of the year and get to work,” Garza said.