Season 5 of the Luke Kornet Experience in Boston almost didn’t happen.
“The free agency stuff, there’s definitely looking around and hearing what other teams said,” Kornet told CLNS Media/CelticsBlog this week.
Kornet heard from multiple teams interested in adding him when he became an unrestricted free agent in July. With a chance to cash in for the first time in his NBA career after playing an important depth role with a championship team, he instead re-signed with the Celtics on a one-year, minimum contract (which carries a de facto no trade clause). Austin Ainge had previously said over the summer that some of Boston’s returning players turned down more money elsewhere to stay, but Kornet was memorably the first signing of free agency in the entire league.
Now, after receiving three preseason spot starts with Kristaps Porziņģis out and Al Horford ramping up slowly, Joe Mazzulla didn’t rule out Kornet’s starting role persisting into the regular season. He averaged 9.0 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game in four preseason appearances, shooting 73.9%.
Kornet has remained in Boston through three head coaches, two Finals runs and learned the team’s systems on both ends well enough to become an ultra-reliable option inside — even into the postseason. Off the court, he’s helped glue together the team’s diverse personalities with a zany sense of humor. It’s hard to imagine these Celtics without Kornet.
“I kind of knew the whole time it’d be hard to go anywhere else,” Kornet said. “I knew that Boston, in terms of what was available for us too, was kind of limited, but to be able to play with this team — and my family’s been here. There were some great options to go other places, but you notice … is there anywhere else I’d want to play with a different group of people? I feel like the group that feels like you’re making the most out of what you’re trying to accomplish and being able to compete at the highest level. Honestly, the five years that I’ve been here have made it difficult to want anything else, especially with the group having basically everyone back. It’s an honor to be able to play here and play with these guys.”
It took fans time, a long time, to see beyond Kornet’s appearance. Some still haven’t gotten there. Tall, skinny, scruffy and a bit lumbering on the floor, he looked like a throw-in to the Daniel Theis salary dump who’d be out the door quickly in what was fast becoming a lost season. But Brad Stevens, then coaching the team, said the Celtics had liked Kornet for a long time. He got into games and made plays defensively. On offense, he rained threes in a comeback win over the Thunder. And one of the first things noticeable about Kornet was how well he covered ground defending pick-and-rolls.
That following summer did not prove as robust of a free agency experience for Kornet. Not even the Celtics had room for him as Stevens ascended to become president. Horford and Enes Freedom returned while Kornet settled for a Maine Celtics contract. There, he changed his game, moved closer to the basket, honed a screening game that captivated their coaching staff and focused on facilitating more than scoring. Kornet played for Milwaukee and Cleveland while players on those teams missed time with COVID, even starting against the Celtics in 2021-22.
“Some of the stuff (Kornet) did then, is stuff that NBA teams will teach now, but it wasn’t being taught then. He was just doing purely off of IQ and feel for the game and reading different coverages,” former Maine and current Boston assistant Ross McMains said during the 2022-23 season.
“(Marcin Gortat) used to do all this different stuff where he’d screen a zone, he’d start rolling and then he’d go screen a zone and the Celtics started doing a bunch of it a couple years back with Daniel Theis. Luke found ways to do it in multiple different coverages, so he did it versus the drop … where you’d hard roll and then you’d go screen your zone, but he found ways to do it versus switches, where he’d be able to screen his zone, or he’d be able to screen, slip and then come back and set a second screen on both players.”
Many called for an upgrade at depth center when Kornet returned to the active roster in Boston for the 22-23 season. Robert Williams III had gone down with surgery, Horford’s age concerns existed even then and Blake Griffin hadn’t signed yet. That’s the first time the team began experimenting with the idea of playing Kornet with the starters, playing him in a rare scrimmage visible to the media at the beginning of that camp. It might’ve never fully come to fruition and Kornet fell with an ankle injury, Griffin arrived and Horford ultimately started. Kornet still flashed, playing 69 games and averaging 11.7 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 2.1 blocks per 36 minutes while shooting 66.5%.
Even through those spurts, he didn’t resemble success the way other centers showed. He’s not a post-up guy, or a physically imposing rebounder or shot-rejector. He plays angles, sees the floor, sets all the right screens and takes away space on defense. Last year, he improved his offensive rebounding, finished at a 70% rate and more often ditched the famous Kornet Kontest that drew many laughs in 2023 for a more versatile defensive approach. Boston won all seven games that he started last year before he played solid playoff minutes through the first two rounds with Porziņģis out.
Kornet started both games in Abu Dhabi legitimately drawing multiple bodies to the rim as a roller, competing admirably against the best player in the sport in Nikola Jokić and grabbing 11 rebounds in the first game. He meshed seamlessly with the starters, and if the Celtics want to naturally scale back Horford’s minutes, play him with Xavier Tillman Sr. in the second unit and court a bigger starting center like they eventually will when Porziņģis returns, Kornet fits.
In true Kornet fashion, he downplayed his individual success against Denver, citing their aggressive defense freeing him up. When he raced out to 11 points in the opening six minutes of Saturday’s exhibition against the Sixers, he signaled ‘10’ to the bench before later noting that Philadelphia courted a smaller bench lineup against Boston’s starters.
“I feel like it’s business as usual for us,” Kornet told CLNS/CelticsBlog, adding that he and Mazzulla haven’t discussed him starting in the regular season. “Joe and the staff trust me to know that I’ll fill whatever needs to be done … that’s the identity we have and I feel like that goes for every person on the team, top to bottom, being ready to step in and help the team win is what the focus always is. Whatever that dictates at different parts of the year. I think we showed it last year, different nights of me or Neemy or Xavier, whatever the lineups are … we have a mindset of winning the game no matter who’s available.”
