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Tim BontempsESPN
Boston Celtics, president of basketball operations, Danny Ainge, grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and after a stellar four-year career at BYU, earned his living over his 14-year NBA career as a tough, hard-nosed guard who could shoot.
Decades later, Ainge fell in love with another child from Oregon during the drafting process. And while freshman Payton Pritchard did not go to Ainge’s alma mater, he had a decorated four-year career at the University of Oregon and had an NBA-quality leap like Ainge’s.
This led to Ainge Pritchard drafting with the 26th pick in the NBA draft last November, a choice he and the Celtics were likely hoping to become a small part of coach Brad Stevens this season. Instead, Pritchard became an important part of Boston’s hopes of making a deep playoff game again.
Pritchard showed the Raptors Thursday night why he scored 20 points, while being 6-for-8 from the 3-point series to help the Celtics beat the Toronto Raptors 120-106 on a night when the two stars of the team this season, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, combined to shoot 8-for-27.
“They draw such a crowd, so they’ll have to pull a double team or something,” Pritchard said afterwards. “So it’s our job to space the floor and find openings for it.”
As a four-year-old college player with a deft shooting touch, Pritchard definitely fits in the form of the type of player who can make an early impact in the league. Still, it’s a high standard for a rookie to step into a team with championship aspirations, like Boston, and become an essential part of the team’s rotation. Fellow rookie Aaron Nesmith, for example – the 14th choice in the 2020 draft – played almost nothing.
Pritchard, on the other hand, is now clearly the team’s sixth man. He played healthy in every game this season – and for more than ten minutes in every game, but the game in which he had an MCL fight against the Philadelphia 76ers on January 22nd. Even with the missed games, he has earned more 3 points than anyone except Tatum and Brown at the Celtics this season, while his cut of 46.9% behind the arc takes second place after Memphis’ Desmond Bane (48.2%) among rookies who take at least three three times per game and a tenth place all players who have taken so much per game this season.
And while he admits Pritchard is not expected to score six tries per game, Stevens said he can immediately see the rookie having an impact this season.
“Before the training camp started,” Stevens said.[the draftees] came a few days after the draft, and after a few tests could do group work, and you could see that he was quite advanced. ‘
Part of what made Pritchard so important is the lack of options on Boston’s bench. No one questions the Celtics’ top talent on the perimeter between Tatum, Brown, Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart (who are currently out with a calf strain).
Behind them, however, the options are limited. Jeff Teague was signed to be the team’s leading rugby point guard, but after scoring 19 points in the Celtics’ opening game of the season, he shot 30% from the field (including an awful 28% on 2-point- shots) and was dropped from Stevens’ rotation, with Pritchard taking his place as the first guard off the bench.
While Semi Oeieye had a career high of 24 points on Thursday, including his own 6-for-8 performance of three points, it is far from a common event as he averaged less than one try per game on Thursday entered. Boston’s other regular rotation players off the bench – Tristan Thompson, Grant Williams and Robert Williams – all bring different skills, but no one can be counted on right away.
No one else on the team can undoubtedly join in for the immediate offense as Pritchard did on Thursday – and also the entire season. And although he was a capable point guard in Oregon, he played with Walker in a Boston team, but Tatum and Brown allowed Pritchard to move in perfectly as a field ball player whose shot should respect opposing defense. He gives the Celtics’ primary points options an important space to work on and was good enough to be defensive.
And in a game in which Tatum and Brown missed 19 shots, the distance – and the hot shooting of Pritchard, Ojeyele and Walker – which reached 5-for-8 from 3-point, enabled them to score 19 help.
Questions will continue about Boston’s depth. While Pritchard has clearly established himself as the head guard off the bench, and Boston’s quartet of big men – Daniel Theis, Thompson and both Williamses – will play a role, the team still has no depth behind its trio of wings in Tatum not. , Brown and Slim.
Considering both the $ 28 million trade exception created by the departure of Gordon Hayward during the off-season, and his status as one of the few candidates in control of the first-round pick, Boston has the ability to make a piece to add between now and next month’s trading deadline. And because the East looks wide open at the moment, such a move could give the Celtics a chance to finally break through and return to the NBA Finals after beating the Eastern Conference Finals in three of the last four. seasons.
However, Pritchard’s play helped ease concerns about points from outside Boston’s top options. As a result, less than two months into his rookie season, Pritchard anticipated Ainge to bet on another four-year-old Oregon college kid.