Neemias Queta not getting the respect he deserves for anchoring Celtics' defense

By most advanced metrics, Neemias Queta was one of the 5-10 best defensive players in the NBA this season. He came out of nowhere, outside of the rotation last season, to become the Celtics’ starting center from day one, and responded by steadily anchoring one of the league’s best defenses from the middle.

But when the All-Defense teams were announced on Friday night, Queta’s name was nowhere to be found. Out of 100 voters, Neemy appeared on just seven ballots, receiving 1 First-Team vote and 6 Second-Team votes.

Boston did get some representation, as Derrick White was voted to the First-Team, but Queta should have been right there with him. Together, they made the Cs into an elite unit, and as great as D-White was, there’s nothing more important to NBA defense than a team’s center. Entering the season, Queta was, at best, a complete unknown.

Yet, by season’s end, he had established himself as one of the best defensive centers in the league, and he deserved to be recognized for that. Maybe the voters didn’t want to select multiple players from the same team. Maybe they just weren’t familiar enough with Queta’s game. Or maybe it was something else. But no matter how you slice it, they got this one wrong.

In terms of defensive net points, a metric created by ESPN stat guru Dean Oliver, Neemias ranked third in the league, behind only Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren, who finished first and second in Defensive Player of the Year voting. He also led the Eastern Conference in individual defensive rating.

Despite rocky playoffs, Celtics should believe in Queta

The playoffs obviously could have gone better for Neemy, but to be fair, those were his first real playoff minutes. He struggled to avoid foul trouble, and it took him some time to adapt to the speed and physicality of playoff basketball. But there’s no reason to think he won’t continue to learn and improve.

This was his first year as a starter, or even a consistent rotation player, and he played in 77 games, put up 10.2 points and 8.3 rebounds per game with elite rim protection on the best team in the league at deterring rim scoring.

Rather than being deterred by a subpar playoff series, the Celtics should be enthused by this breakthrough and work on building him up even more. They found a legitimate starting center off the scrap heap, and abandoning him now because of a few bad games would be borderline malpractice.

Sure, it would be nice to fortify the center depth. And I’d love to have a legitimate stretch-big, and a defender who can do more than play drop. But Queta should be a huge part of the center rotation going forward.

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