Every time the Boston Celtics have asked more out of Payton Pritchard, he has delivered for them. It hasn't always been right away, nor has it been perfect, but with each passing year, Pritchard has proven Boston was right to believe more and more in him. Now, from the look of it, they're asking him to fill in the void Jaylen Brown left.
Paul George has a lot more good basketball left in him than people think, but talent-wise, he's not on the same level as Brown. No one's saying Pritchard is either for that matter, but he is talented enough to step into a bigger role to mitigate Brown's departure. In fact, he put up All-Star numbers in the games Brown missed last year.
Per StatMuse, Pritchard averaged 25.2 points, seven assists, and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 48.5% from the field and 44.4% from three in the 10 games he played without Brown last season. Boston went 9-1 in these games. Make that what you will, but those are unquestionably All-Star numbers.
The majority of these games were against some of the NBA's worst teams, but a few of them were also against playoff teams. It's fair to believe that Boston would have lost these games if it hadn't been for Pritchard's efforts.
As for Pritchard's numbers with Brown last season, per StatMuse, he averaged 15.8 points, 4.9 assists, and 3.8 rebounds while shooting nearly 46% from the field and 36.6% from three. Don't view that as Brown holding Pritchard back, but rather that when the Celtics asked Pritchard to take on a bigger workload, he proved to them he can.
It's a small sample size, but the numbers are impressive enough that Boston should absolutely see through the full extent of Pritchard's abilities
Pritchard might be the No. 2 scoring option behind Jayson Tatum
Something also to keep in mind about the aforementioned sample size is that a few of them happened when Tatum returned. Even so, Boston has seen enough from Pritchard both from last year and over the last few years how good he is when they expand his duties.
When the Brown trade happened, among the most prominent rationales for the deal was that Pritchard could have a Jalen Brunson-like jump. No, the bar for Pritchard should not be set at the level of the superstar Brunson is, but likely the player Dallas would have had him be if he had stayed there.
No one is saying that this experiment will succeed, but there's enough encouraging data that it shouldn't be dismissed until it's clear what Pritchard's limits are. What makes it exciting is that we really don't know and won't until we see what the post-Brown Celtics look like.
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