Sadly, Kristaps Porzingis will be riding the maple for the first few months of the season. The good news is that we just saw the Celtics earn a championship parade without him for most of their entire playoff run. President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens has built a team so deep and so talented that they can withstand a long-term loss at any position, but filling a 7’3” hole does require some changes.
There will be new challenges and fresh opportunities, so Boston’s path to victory must take some different loops without Porzingis around.
1) Five-out, two-big lineups are a thing of the past — aren’t they?
The luxury of having both Porzingis and Al Horford is that the Celtics could play big without sacrificing shooting — the two logged more than 1,200 possessions together and obliterated the league with a +14.3 net rating. The combination of shot-blocking, size, and spacing proved too much for the league to handle.
But without Porzingis, Horford is the only center on the roster with a viable three-pointer. None of Xavier Tillman, Luke Kornet, or Neemias Queta can do what Porzingis did on offense. We’ll likely still see some two-big lineups, but the Celtics will run with one center far more often than they would normally.
One thing to watch: they used to call Luke the UniKornet for his ability to shoot threes and smack shots, just like Porzingis. In fact, Kornet used to have one of the highest three-point attempt rates in the league for a big man. His first two years in the league in New York saw him launch more than four triples in just 17 minutes per game, a huge number, and convert 36%. He wasn’t afraid to station himself a few feet behind the arc, either. Look familiar?
The three-pointer has not been part of Kornet’s arsenal in Boston, even when KP missed time last year, but I’d love to see him turn back the clock and approximate Porzingis’ role in small doses.
2) The Jays will pick up the scoring burden, but Derrick White may suffer
Both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum saw their scoring average leap nearly three points per game in the roughly 20 games they played without Porzingis (despite playing the same number of minutes).
Porzingis took the third-most shots on the team, and most of his usage gravitated toward the team’s stars when he sat. This may be of particular interest to Brown in his quest for another All-NBA nod, as his 25.0 points, 6.4 rebounds (also a big leap), and 3.7 assists without Porzingis will catch the eye of national media voters looking to right past wrongs.
White’s scoring slightly increased as well, but more than any other starter, he saw a massive dip in efficiency without KP. White’s FG% dropped from 48.3% with KP to 41.6% without him, and his three-point percentage fell from 41.8% to 35.0%.
That decline might just be a small sample blip, even over 21 regular-season games. But we saw the same trend in the playoffs, too: 51.1% from the field and 45.0% from three in seven games with Porzingis to just 41.5% and 37.6% in 12 games without. At this point, it’s a big enough sample to be worth monitoring.
White and Porzingis had special two-man chemistry, particularly in semi-transition, where White loved to use the trotting unicorn as an impromptu screen-setter. Sometimes, White would even use the trailing Porzingis’ defender as a tool to blow by his man:
3) Offensive rebounding will become a major strength
In addition to posting up mismatches, Porzingis’ value to the offense came from his ability to hit shots from beyond the arc — often way beyond. That depth opened up driving lanes for everyone else, but an unfortunate byproduct was the death of the Celtic’s offensive rebounding.
The Celtics cleaned up 29.9% of their misses last season without Porzingis, a well above-average mark. That fell to just 23.6% when Porzingis was on the floor, a number that would’ve ranked 27th in the league.
Kornet and Neemias Queta are both hungry, hungry hippos on the offensive glass, and an increase in their minutes should make the Celtics an elite O-rebounding force (as long as the team’s transition defense doesn’t suffer). Putbacks and second-chance attempts help compensate for the lack of Porzingis’ scoring, and it’s a big part of why the team’s offense didn’t slow even without KP.
4) The defense will decline (slightly)
This is an obvious one, but it needs to be pointed out. Boston’s defense was Alcatraz with Porzingis on the floor, surrendering just 110.5 points per 100 possessions, but it gave up nearly three more points per 100 when Porzingis sat, turning an elite defense into merely a good one. In particular, Porzingis-led lineups only allowed a 60.3% conversion rate on the few layups that did go up, a number that skyrocketed to 66.5% without Porzingis.
Porzingis does a great job using his length to contest (and block shots) while avoiding fouls. Kornet has a similar statistical profile (against mostly backups), but he’ll have to prove he can sustain it over dozens of regular-season games. Queta, of course, will have to cut down on his over-eager physicality to maximize his prodigious defensive gifts. Horford and Xavier Tillman aren’t really above-the-rim shot-blockers.
The Celtics are terrific at deterring rack attacks in the first place with or without Porzingis — that’s what happens when everyone on the roster can keep their man in front of them — but there’s no doubt that the air around the hoop will have a little less traffic for ballhandlers to worry about.
Overall, the Celtics should be just fine without Porzingis, although it does leave them more vulnerable to another injury. There may be a bigger risk in the team stumbling in Porzingis’ first few games back, as the other Celtics re-acclimate to the stylings of a unique player and he gets his sea legs back under him, but the current estimated return date gives Boston plenty of time to work him back into the lineup.
It’s never ideal to start the season with a key player injured, but no team is better prepared to weather such an absence.
