Last season, one of the major silver linings from the injury to Jayson Tatum and subsequent roster moves was that the Celtics got the opportunity to develop a lot of young players. Guys who hadn’t really gotten a chance to play were able to get their feet wet, and luckily, almost all of them emerged as clear NBA rotation players.
Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez, and even Ron Harper Jr. all had breakouts on some level, and by the time JT was able to return, it became hard for Joe Mazzulla to keep everyone involved. Throw in the fact that he still had Sam Hauser and Jaylen Brown, and there ended up being at least one odd man out on a nightly basis.
Things boiled over in the playoffs when Mazzulla largely iced out his young trio of Walsh, Baylor, and Hugo, and it clearly hurt the team. Those guys were all making an impact, but there weren’t enough minutes to go around, and Boston suffered.
It’s hard to imagine that the Celtics’ offseason decision to trade Brown wasn’t at least partly influenced by the confidence in the young wings and a desire to increase their roles and responsibilities.
Celtics still have a logjam on the wing
The only snag in that plan is that in trading Brown, the Celtics brought back another wing player in Paul George, and based on game one, he’s going to play. A lot. PG logged 30 minutes on opening night, even with some foul trouble, and looked like one of the team’s best players. He may not tally the 2400+ minutes that JB did last season, but it’s already clear there isn’t going to be some massive vacancy on the wing.
And at least in game one, it proved to be an issue, similar to what we saw at the end of last season. Walsh started each half, but played just 13 minutes total. Scheierman and Hauser each came off the bench and clocked in for 18 minutes, Gonzalez was in for only 9 minutes, and Harper Jr. didn’t play at all.
Mazzulla needs to figure out his rotation
This was just one game, and certainly players will be in and out of the lineup, but it’s a good reminder that there’s still a bit of a logjam on the wing. And if none of these chaos-creators are even going to play 20 minutes a night, it’s going to be very difficult for them to get into a rhythm and make an impact.
Not every game is going to be this intense; against a tough team like the Pistons, that goes right down to the wire. There will likely be a lot of opportunities for the team to open up the lineups a bit.
It’s early, but it’s already looking like Joe is going to have to make some tough decisions at some point. Maybe the cream will rise to the top. Maybe he’s just going to have to make some hard choices that may not be popular with everyone. Maybe it’s picking one or two guys to get DNPs each game. But I’m not sure this 11-man rotation with hockey-style substitutions is going to be feasible for building a reliable, championship-contending rotation.
Add us as a preferred source on Google