One of the most exciting and surprising things to come out of last season was the emergence of all of the young wing players for the Celtics. Part of the reason to trade away Jaylen Brown was to give these guys more of a shot and see what they can actually bring to the table with extended opportunities, but even after the deal, that’s going to be very difficult.
The Celtics are all about positionless basketball, and I totally understand that, but for the sake of discussion, I’m essentially talking about anyone who’s not playing point guard or center. Boston will fill 48 minutes at each of those positions with the point guard trio of Payton Pritchard, Derrick White, and Mike Conley, and the center triumvirate of Neemias Queta, Mitchell Robinson, and Luka Garza.
Celtics are absolutely stacked on the wing
I’m talking about the guys in between them who play the 2-4 positions and range from shooting guard to power forward. You’ll have at least two of these players on the court at all times, often three, and in some cases, you could even get away with four. But for the most part, Boston has 144 minutes per game to play with and a lot of players who want and deserve those minutes.
For one, the Celtics’ best player, Jayson Tatum, plays on the wing. The guy they brought back in the Jaylen Brown trade, Paul George? Also a wing. Considering those two will likely start with Pritchard, White, and Queta, that means Joe Mazzulla is going to have to find wing minutes off the bench for Sam Hauser, Baylor Scheierman, Jordan Walsh, Hugo Gonzalez, and Ron Harper Jr.
Celtics have too many good wings to play them all
That’s five guys who could all make a solid case to start, close, and play heavy minutes in between, but it’s simply not going to work out that way. Sure, PG and Tatum will miss some time and have minutes managed, but still, that’s five wing players off the bench who could all give you 30 minutes on any given night, but may not crack the rotation on others.
How Mazzulla manages that situation and keeps everyone happy and engaged is anyone's guess, but it’s not going to be easy. Ultimately, it’s a good problem to have as the Celtics appear to have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to role-playing two-way wings, a player type that any team in the league would kill to have more of.
But Boston needs to establish what’s what here and figure out a pecking order before it’s too late. They can’t keep all of these guys forever, and they can’t even play them all in the interim. They could all be good NBA players, but it’s unlikely they all do it together in Boston. The team and the front office need to establish which ones are building blocks and which are expendable.
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