Three months ago, Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens sat at the podium at the Auerbach Center and ripped his team in the most polite way possible. He mentioned the team’s poor record against the NBA’s other elite teams, their poor first-shot offense, and more.
Following Stevens’ exit interview, the buzzword circulating through the Celtics community was “rim pressure” -- which he wove into answers throughout his half hour with the media.
“The biggest thing is: can we generate looks at the rim?” Stevens said. “Yeah, everybody wants to do that, and every one of us would prefer a dunk over that, over a three. Every single one of us. Those are hard to get, and we struggle to generate them… we’ve got to do a good job as we build out the roster to have more options.”
Of course, at the time everyone just thought this meant they were going to go after Giannis Antetokounmpo, which ultimately turned out to be true. Unfortunately, Antetokounmpo ended up with the Miami Heat, and Boston was left needing to pivot.
Their pivot wound up being a trade that sent Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George, a 2028 first-round pick swap, Philly’s 2031 first-rounder, and two second-rounders. In the month since, fans and media have managed to make sense of the deal and point to George’s catch-and-shoot efficiency and defensive prowess as skills that make him a great fit with the Cs.
We’re going to have to wait and see how it pans out, but that makes plenty of sense to me.
Jaylen Brown generated rim attempts for the Celtics
Ironically, Boston’s biggest move of the summer wound up being one that went against what Stevens preached at the podium. Brown was the best driver on the Celtics’ roster last season. If more drives and attempts at the rim are what the front office wanted, then they just gave up the best individual “get to the rim” guy they had.
Last season, Brown averaged the second-most drives in the league at 19.1 per game, trailing only Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija. According to Databallr, Brown ranked in the 91st percentile with 4.8 rim attempts per game. He converted those at a 69.1% rate.
For what it’s worth, this could simply be a “Jaylen had the ball a lot” type of stat. You don’t average almost 20 drives per game if your offense is well-balanced. Those drives came out of necessity, as the Celtics didn’t have as much creation as they did in years past.
The Celtics might want a different dose of dunks next season
Maybe it isn’t the volume of attempts or number of drives that the front office is worried about. Maybe it’s the ability to create cleaner looks at the rim. To his credit, Brown managed to generate plenty of open dunks or layups for himself. But, there were just as many tough finishes through traffic at the end of his drives -- there’s always going to be a healthy mix of them when a player is attacking one on one.
Perhaps the rim pressure Stevens is hoping to generate is more of the low-usage attempts that the team will get from newly-acquired center Mitchell Robinson. Robinson, as a pure catch-and-finish or rebound-and-finish guy averaged 3.1 rim attempts per game last season for the New York Knicks.
He’ll likely get even more looks in Boston as he screens and rolls alongside Jayson Tatum and Payton Pritchard.
Ultimately, what the front office did this summer told us all more than Stevens did at the podium. Big shock, I know. But, there’s still some truth rooted in what he had to say. Boston wants attempts in the paint. They just want those attempts to come off of ball movement rather than consistent isolation.
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