The dust hasn’t even settled from the Celtics’ most recent trade, which sent Anfernee Simons to Chicago with Nikola Vucevic coming back. In fact, as of Thursday morning, the trade hasn’t even been made official yet, and the players are stuck in a bit of purgatory for now.
But life in the NBA doesn’t stop for the Cs, or any other team, to take care of their business, and since this deal was announced, Boston has played two games, a road back-to-back on Tuesday and Wednesday, with impressive wins over the Mavericks and Rockets.
Even though we haven’t seen Vooch suit up for the Celtics, it’s already clear that the biggest beneficiary of this trade is Payton Pritchard. PP broke out last season, winning the league’s Sixth Man of the Year Award, but was thrust into the starting lineup with Jrue Holiday leaving town and Jayson Tatum tearing his achilles.
Pritch started the first 48 games of the season, and played well, but was clearly a third option behind Jaylen Brown and Derrick White. But once Simons was sent out the door, Joe Mazzulla wasted no time in putting Payton right back into his old familiar role.
Ant had more or less taken on that job, being the main ballhandler and scoring punch off the bench this season, doing an admirable imitation of what Pritchard brought to the team a season ago. But with Simons now gone, there was no clear candidate to step into the backup point guard role, so Mazzulla went back to the guy he knows can get it done.
Pritchard already looks like the best 6th man in the league again
And through these two games, the results couldn’t possibly be better. Pritchard has come off the bench and immediately sparked the offense each night, putting up 27 points and 7 assists on Thursday in Houston and 26 and 7 the night before in Dallas.
He has looked extremely comfortable and aggressive, and it already looks like this is a more natural fit for PP and the team. When he’s with the starters, he’s more of a table-setter, and has to pick his spots while getting everyone else involved, not only the two stars, but Sam Hauser needs to get going, and Neemias Queta’s roll-game has been a big part of the early offense.
It’s vital for the point guard to get his teammates going, and while Pritchard has done a good job of it, his own offense has taken a backseat at times. Coming off the bench again seems to have immediately changed all that.
Joe Mazz has delivered the message, and Payton has responded. His role now is to come off the bench and carry the offense when the team needs some juice. This is the part PP was born to play, and it’s no surprise he has gone back to crushing it right away.
Pritchard's move to bench is not a demotion
Some would likely take this move as a demotion, but it sounds like he completely understands and embraces the situation. It’s not like his minutes are going to take a hit, and he’s surely still going to be in the lineup to close games.
Besides, whenever Jayson Tatum does return from injury, the natural move is to have Pritchard go back to the bench anyway. This just moves up the timeline and shifts everything into a better balance. Guys like Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez, Jordan Walsh, and others have proven capable of getting the nominal “starting” role (Baylor has started the two games since the trades), but this is all about maximizing the talent on the floor for 48 minutes.
At the end of the day, it’s all about winning, and whatever best sets up the team to do that is what should be one. In this case, it’s moving Pritchard back to the bench, and so far, like most of Joe’s moves, this has worked to perfection.