Should the Celtics consider bringing Porzingis off the bench?

Kristaps Porzingis has played in less than half of the Celtics games this season, just 32 of 66 so far. With his varying availability, it’s made it difficult for Boston to find their rhythm with him in the lineup. Now, the Celtics are in the home stretch as they look to build momentum heading into the playoffs.

Could Boston benefit by sending Kristaps to the bench? Nate, Nirav, and Oliver make their cases:

Nate’s case for starting Al Horford

This argument is a simple one; start the player that is a member of the best lineup in basketball.

The unit of Holiday/White/Brown/Tatum/Horford has a stellar 121.4 offensive rating, elite 101.9 defensive rating, and a league-best 19.4 net rating, among 5-man pairings with at least 200 minutes played. Their net rating is 3.1 points better than the next closest on the list.

Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

The counter argument—and one that I’ve juggled with myself—is that If you rewind to last season, Porzingis over Horford actually produced a more effective starting lineup. This is a good enough reason to be patient, and allow the unit to regain its chemistry. The problem, however, is that these lineups have been unrecognizably bad this year, and while Kristaps might not be the driving factor, the numbers are not kind.

With Holiday, White, Brown and Tatum on the court, Boston has a 7.18 net rating. Add Porzingis to that equation, and it drops to a depressing -1.64.

A wise man once said, “Abandoning this unit so quickly is an overreaction and works against the purpose of the regular season.” This wise man was me, back in January. While I still believe the statement to be true, Porzingis’ illness has really crushed their ability to get in a rhythm. Meanwhile, Horford took his yearly trip to the fountain of youth and looks ready for another deep playoff run.

It might be time to plan for the scenario where Mazzulla’s preferred starting group doesn’t recover to the level of play from last year. Fortunately, Horford has been consistent in showing that he can elevate his play in big games, and he was also the starter for the majority of the championship run.

There’s a pretty substantial discrepancy in team and opponent 3PT% with either big on the floor, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to explain it all away as variance and bad shooting luck. Horford’s switchability helps limit 3PT attempts, while Porzingis’s focus on rim protection has allowed cleaner looks and more fruitful results for opponents from deep.

While the case for Horford hinges on his own impact and the sense of stability he provides, the other piece to it is that Porzingis off the bench feels like an incredible way to take advantage of his talent. This opens the door for Kristaps to be prioritized against second units, and could help rediscover some of the synergy he had with most of the rotation.

KP as the super sixth man positions him to spend more time working as an offensive focal point alongside either of the Jays, depending on which one takes a break first. His combination with Brown was especially potent last year, and while still a positive, it could be beneficial to have those two play off each other again.

Somewhat ironically, Porzingis’s most effective partner this season is Al Horford. Swapping the two in the starting lineup doesn’t limit their minutes together, and it could be quite effective to have Porzingis closing out the first quarter after Horford hypothetically helped them get off to a good start.

For all of the indicators that point to a drop-off, Kristaps is still having a strong individual year, when he plays. The idea of KP punishing the other teams 2nd unit is very enticing and feels like a chance to optimize his role for this team.

Mazzulla is not one to overreact, and if he believes Porzingis provides them with the highest ceiling, then that’s likely the direction he’ll go. It’s becoming impossible to ignore the numbers though, and Horford is not only the safe choice, but the one that got them across the finish line already.

Nirav’s case for starting Luke Kornet

To begin, I have to clarify that having Luke start does not mean that he will be earning more minutes than either Al Horford or Kristaps Porzingis. This is purely meant to vary at which points they provide their usual workload.

There are two main philosophies behind the argument to start Luke Kornet: remaining unrelenting on both sides of the ball, and investment in the future.

For the first philosophy, clearly the Celtics are an elite two-way team. At this point in the season, they hold the third best offensive rating (ORtg) in the league at 120.1. On the other side of the floor, they hold the league’s fifth best defensive rating (DRtg) at 111.2.

When we take a look at the individual on/off ratings of Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet, there’s some interesting data. Luke not only has the highest Net On/Off Rating (NRtg) at +6.58, Al Horford’s being +4.15 and Porzingis’s at -8.04, the team also has the best offensive and defensive ratings with him as the primary big.

With Luke on the floor, the Celtics have an ORtg of 123.3, and a DRtg of 110.27, both better than the team’s averages for the season. For comparison, with Horford on the floor, Boston’s ORtg stands at 121.31, and their DRtg at 110.41, meaning that the team is slightly worse offensively, but slightly better defensively with Al playing, still just a smidge below where they’re at with Kornet, though. With Kristaps, the team holds an ORtg of 116.37, and a DRtg of 113.44, meaning the team plays below their average on both sides of the ball with him on the floor – at least as far as the numbers say.

In Luke’s case, the eye-test seems to match. Our colleague, Azad Rosay, recently wrote an excellent piece about Kornet’s ability to help Boston generate high-level offense despite not being a threat form three-point range.

I don’t think there’s any question about who the best player is between the three. Kristaps is called The Unicorn for a reason, as he’s more often than not a matchup nightmare for opposing teams. Al Horford is also still an extremely valuable player, as he showed recently against the Lakers and Thunder. Though, if the numbers hold true, the Celtics should be able to get out to stronger starts by including Luke in the starting lineup.

Not only that, but they give themselves the ability to strengthen their second unit by having Kristaps shift down, as Nate has suggested. Between Jayson, Jaylen, and Derrick, opposing teams will still have their hands full trying to contain Boston’s starters. When the reserves come in, the opposing defenders’ lives won’t get much easier when they have to deal with the likes of Pritchard, Hauser, and now Porzingis.

And, ultimately, basketball games don’t come down to how you start them; they come down to how you finish them. If the Celtics find themselves in clutch minutes, they’re going to want to have their five best players on the court. That’s when Kristaps and/or Al are most important. By varying their places in the lineup, Boston can spread out their extremely potent offensive potential while maintaining a high-level defense throughout the game, thus, remaining unrelenting.

As for the second philosophy of investing in the future, Boston has to grapple with the fact that Al Horford and Luke Kornet will be free agents at the end of this year, and Kristaps Porzingis at the end of next. On top of that, the team’s tax bill is astronomical, and it’s incredibly hard to maneuver around the penalties associated with being a team over the second apron, especially if that’s true for consecutive seasons.

While I believe Al still has at least one or two more years in the tank, as does his mom, he won’t be with this team forever, unfortunately. As he ages, his minutes and role are going to decrease. With Porzingis having the fourth-highest salary on the team next season ($30.7M), his spotty availability, and the upcoming sale of the team, it’s not out of the question for him to be moved. At the very least, he’s made it harder for the team to maintain consistency.

Luke Kornet is in his third full season with Boston, with two additional shorter stints coming between the 20-21 and 21-22 seasons in which he played a combined 30 games for the Celtics. He also spent some time with Boston’s G-League counter-part in Maine. Since he made his way over, Kornet has shown immense growth. He went from being an end-of-bench guy to a critical rotation player for Joe Mazzulla.

Luke had the opportunity to go to another team in free agency this past offseason, but chose to rejoin Boston on a minimum contract. I find it hard to believe he’d do the same next year, as he’s more than shown his worth in this league. By elevating Luke to starter status, it sends a clear message that the team trusts him. Brad Stevens would obviously still have to give Luke a raise (hopefully one big enough that he can finally pay off his mortgage), but solidifying his role on the team is the most meaningful way to give the Celtics a chance to retain him until then.

As Nate said, Mazzulla isn’t going to overreact. In the end, it comes down to putting the team in the best position to win basketball games this season. The numbers seem to suggest Luke Kornet would be the man for the job, though I can admit it’s a bit farfetched.

Oliver’s case for starting Kristaps Porzingis

As with most of my contributions to this site and society more generally, my argument for starting Porzingis will be based not on careful analysis of lineup scores, play-by-play data or the ever-valuable Xs-and-Os analysis of clips. Instead, I am relying on the unshakable doctrine that playing your best players is the great advantage in sports. Porzingis is undeniably the best player of the bunch, and thus, should play the most.

There are both analytical and statistical reasons to bench Porzingis, as outlined by the Nate and Nirav, whose basketball opinions I continue to hold in high esteem. And they very well may be correct, though they are foregrounded by what I believe is a needless micromanaging of the Celtics’ rotation. Save for Horford’s occasional on-ball defensive prowess, Porzingis’ skills are an order of magnitude above both other possible starters. His elite rim protection is a premium feature that neither Horford or Kornet can apply in a similar quality, with Al lacking in size and Luke in athleticism.

“However, benching Porzingis does not eliminate him from the rotation, and his skills may be more effectively applied when used as a change-of-pace guy,” one may contend. Yet that forgets that who starts also contends with the opposing rotation. To bring Porzingis’ skills off the bench would force Kornet and Horford to fight an overmatched war against the cream of the opposing crop. Kristaps’ elite skills must heave-ho in the opening tug-of-war. Otherwise, the rest of the Celtics’ rotation will be overwhelmed.

“Yet you forget the need to preserve Porzingis!,” one contends again. “Perhaps playing fewer minutes will prevent him from missing so many playoff games, as happened last year.” Maybe so, but only in a vacuum. The Celtics already prodigiously manage Porzingis’ workload, and so what is the merit of holding him back in games the Celtics need them most? So long as we take this argument to mean “start or bench Porzingis in the biggest games,” there is no merit to speak of.

Thus, I do not see why the Celtics would shake up their rotation so radically. Porzingis the Celtics’ third-most important offensive player and probably their single most important defensive player; his benching removes basically all interior defense from the starting lineup. This same argument stands for those who would bench Jrue Holiday for Payton Pritchard, when the latter is liable to get played off the court defensively, as he did against the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday. In specific spots, perhaps there is a reason to micromanage. But in most of them, and certainly the biggest ones, Boston must always ensure they are playing their best players. In this case, that means starting Porzingis.

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