Celtics 2025-26, Season Thread – (Media Day = Sept. 29, 11:00AM)

[Fierce1]

I'm gonna just guess the minutes distribution factoring in the deeper bench. Assumes they don't play more than 10 guys in a regular season game.

PG: Pritch 32 / Anfernee Simons 16

SG: Derrick White 34 / Simons 14

SF: Jaylen Brown 36 / Sam Hauser 12

PF: Chris Boucher 30 / Sam Hauser 10 / Josh Minott 8

Center: Neemias Queta 30 / Luke Garza 18

That's a 9 Man rotation.

Leaves out Hugo Gonzalez, Baylor Scheierman (somehow I think Joe will get him in), Jordan Walsh (if he makes roster and plays, proof they are angling for a Top 5 pick) and Xavier Tillman (essentially an undersized 3rd string center who didn't look like he had his legs last year). I think that this is Tillman's last season on an NBA Team, even though he actually played meaningful minutes in the playoffs during the Celtics Championship season (before his knee surgery).

I think Hugo or Baylor will be part of the rotation.

Joe might go with a 10-man rotation this season.

[redslastlaugh]

I'd rather keep Pritchard, White and JB around 28-32 minutes if possible because I want the young guys to play as much as possible.

I am hoping for a redo of the 04-05 season where the Celts made the playoffs with a veteran starting group (GP, PP, Antoine, LaFrentz and Ricky Davis) but the young guys found sufficient time too. That season Perkins and Delonte each got 500 minutes and then Al Jefferson, Marcus Banks, Tony Allen & Jiri Welsh all played at least 1000 minutes

Your projection here, doesn't really project any of Walsh, Hugo, Scheierman, Minott, Amaris or Shulga to get any minutes outside of injury -- except for Josh Minott getting 10 mins a game which is 820 minutes if he plays every night

I dunno .... I hope we get a lot more of minutes from the young guys this year!

I'm gonna just guess the minutes distribution factoring in the deeper bench. Assumes they don't play more than 10 guys in a regular season game. If they do, the tank is on.

PG: Pritch 32 / Anfernee Simons 16

SG: Derrick White 34 / Simons 14

SF: Jaylen Brown 36 / Sam Hauser 12

PF: Chris Boucher 28 / Sam Hauser 10 / Josh Minott 10

Center: Neemias Queta 30 / Luke Garza 18

That's a 9 Man rotation.

Leaves out Hugo Gonzalez, Baylor Scheierman (somehow I think Joe will get him in), Jordan Walsh (if he makes roster and plays, proof they are angling for a Top 5 pick) and Xavier Tillman (essentially an undersized 3rd string center who didn't look like he had his legs last year).

[Fierce1]

I'd rather keep Pritchard, White and JB around 28-32 minutes if possible because I want the young guys to play as much as possible.

I think that's what will happen.

Baylor or Hugo will get a chance to play this season.

[Jammer]

I'd rather keep Pritchard, White and JB around 28-32 minutes if possible because I want the young guys to play as much as possible.

I am hoping for a redo of the 04-05 season where the Celts made the playoffs with a veteran starting group (GP, PP, Antoine, LaFrentz and Ricky Davis) but the young guys found sufficient time too. That season Perkins and Delonte each got 500 minutes and then Al Jefferson, Marcus Banks, Tony Allen & Jiri Welsh all played at least 1000 minutes

Your projection here, doesn't really project any of Walsh, Hugo, Scheierman, Minott, Amaris or Shulga to get any minutes outside of injury -- except for Josh Minott getting 10 mins a game which is 820 minutes if he plays every night

I dunno .... I hope we get a lot more of minutes from the young guys this year!

I'm gonna just guess the minutes distribution factoring in the deeper bench. Assumes they don't play more than 10 guys in a regular season game. If they do, the tank is on.

PG: Pritch 32 / Anfernee Simons 16

SG: Derrick White 34 / Simons 14

SF: Jaylen Brown 36 / Sam Hauser 12

PF: Chris Boucher 28 / Sam Hauser 10 / Josh Minott 10

Center: Neemias Queta 30 / Luke Garza 18

That's a 9 Man rotation.

Leaves out Hugo Gonzalez, Baylor Scheierman (somehow I think Joe will get him in), Jordan Walsh (if he makes roster and plays, proof they are angling for a Top 5 pick) and Xavier Tillman (essentially an undersized 3rd string center who didn't look like he had his legs last year).

Well, the way to subtly tank is to not play Brown, White, Pritch and even Boucher into the ground. If Brown is cut off at 32 vs the 36 they need from him, he'll be in better shape the next season. If White is cutoff at 30 to 32 instead of 34, Pritch at 28 to 30 instead of 32, well, it opens up minutes. Boucher getting less than 30 at PF opens up minutes for some combination of Hauser / Minott / Scheierman since Hauser is probably the best backup for Brown but can also play PF and Minott is an unknown for Extended minutes.

It will be interesting. I think the best strategy is aim for a Top pick, and maybe you come out close to where Dallas did in this year's lottery.

[cloverleaf]

Ha, Tatum gets what he deserves with this one: https://nesn.com/2025/09/jayson-tatum-earns-gift-patriots-afc-east-rival-jets/

[Parliament10]

Read on Twitter

[cloverleaf]

The timing of the NBA's 2 1/2 months of dead time is a gift to the NFL.

[Gant]

Good insight from Wolves writer Jon Krawczynski on Luka Garza and Josh Minott.

Krawczynski says Garza is more predictable and has that one great skill. He's a bona fide scorer, but needs to be in lineups that allow him to play despite his weaknesses. Minott has a legit and long NBA body and has shown real skill, but has been inconsistent. Both are working hard.

Watch on YouTube

[Hal14]

Good insight from Wolves writer Jon Krawczynski on Luka Garza and Josh Minott.

Krawczynski says Garza is more predictable and has that one great skill. He's a bona fide scorer, but needs to be in lineups that allow him to play despite his weaknesses. Minott has a legit and long NBA body and has shown real skill, but has been inconsistent. Both are working hard.

Watch on YouTube

Joe seems kind of similar to what this Wolves reporter is describing Chris Finch as..prefers playing the vets and if a guy isn't grasping the schemes well enough, he doesn't play him as much.

Seems like Minott might be buried on the bench. Our schemes are pretty complex. If Minott can't pick up on them quickly, Joe won't play him.

Perhaps Minott can improve in that area, though. He's still young, getting better. Improvement could certainly happen for a young player going from year 3 to 4. Whether he's able to improve at this could determine how successful he is here. Along with how well he can shoot it.

Certainly seems like a guy who could have benefitted from staying in college for another year (or 2 or 3) to develop more before getting to the NBA.

[Gant]

‪Michael Scotto‬

The Boston Celtics and Jalen Bridges have agreed to a deal, league sources told @hoopshypeofficial.bsky.social. Bridges will compete for a two-way spot in training camp. Bridges was a two-way player with the Phoenix Suns last season, appearing in eight NBA games.

[165bows]

Wonder if the second rounders could be on the bubble, like how they cut ties with that goof ball from the northwest. Ie, specifically Amari if he doesn't look like he can hack it.

Between their recent move to cut guys early if they aren't working and their success with these "2nd draft" kind of guys, feels a bit like an open competition between Amari, possibly Shulga, Luis, Bridges etc.

[Hal14]

‪Michael Scotto‬

The Boston Celtics and Jalen Bridges have agreed to a deal, league sources told @hoopshypeofficial.bsky.social. Bridges will compete for a two-way spot in training camp. Bridges was a two-way player with the Phoenix Suns last season, appearing in eight NBA games.

Interesting.

Luis was undrafted. He missed summer league due to "knee soreness" and I just ran a search and was not able to find any evidence that he has returned to full contact basketball activities. Not seeing him out there on the court in any of the offseason workout clips the team has posted on social media.

Maybe he's just been trying to rest up until training camp? But it might a question mark - how good he is (went undrafted, was not considered a real NBA prospect prior to last season, didn't play summer league) and how healthy the knee is. So maybe Bridges is like a backup plan. Like if Bridges is better and healthier in camp they could just hand that 2-way spot to him.

If that happens, it's no real loss for the Celtics since 2-way contracts are all non-guaranteed.

[165bows]

The eyebrows on Garza, that's like a 6th man right there.

[redslastlaugh]

Celts signing Bridges and Kendall Brown to camp deals with the possibility of a 2-way, I have to say I was impressed with Kendall Brown in the summer league. Bridges was fine, didn't really pop for me, but I know some people really liked him before the 2024 draft

[Hal14]

Interesting

We're now at 22 guys on the offseason roster:



That's not allowed lol, we can only be at 21.

So I'm assuming someone (probably Aaron Scott? Maybe Gray, maybe Luis? Maybe Harper? Is about to get waived in order to make room for the Brown and Bridges signings.

It's probably Scott, Gray or Harper about to get waived since they are just going to be on regular g league contracts so they don't really need to be at camp..

[redslastlaugh]

Unless we are ready to do an Anfernee Simons trade and it's going to be a 2-for-1, eh? When can we aggregate?

We're now at 22 guys on the offseason roster:

That's not allowed lol, we can only be at 21.

So I'm assuming someone is about to get waived in order to make room for the Brown and Bridges signings.

[Hal14]

Unless we are ready to do an Anfernee Simons trade and it's going to be a 2-for-1, eh? When can we aggregate?

We're now at 22 guys on the offseason roster:

That's not allowed lol, we can only be at 21.

So I'm assuming someone is about to get waived in order to make room for the Brown and Bridges signings.

Sure, that's a possibility. I think waiving either Gray, Harper or Scott and routing them to Maine is more likely though.

[bucknersrevenge]

Good insight from Wolves writer Jon Krawczynski on Luka Garza and Josh Minott.

Krawczynski says Garza is more predictable and has that one great skill. He's a bona fide scorer, but needs to be in lineups that allow him to play despite his weaknesses. Minott has a legit and long NBA body and has shown real skill, but has been inconsistent. Both are working hard.

Watch on YouTube

Joe seems kind of similar to what this Wolves reporter is describing Chris Finch as..prefers playing the vets and if a guy isn't grasping the schemes well enough, he doesn't play him as much.

Seems like Minott might be buried on the bench. Our schemes are pretty complex. If Minott can't pick up on them quickly, Joe won't play him.

Perhaps Minott can improve in that area, though. He's still young, getting better. Improvement could certainly happen for a young player going from year 3 to 4. Whether he's able to improve at this could determine how successful he is here. Along with how well he can shoot it.

Yeah this was a insightful watch. One of the things I took from Krawcynski as interesting is that Minnesota players have to learn basically two distinctly different defensive schemes. One for when Gobert is on the floor and one for when he is not. Gobert covers for wealth of weaknesses when he's on the floor but the dropoff between him and the next person is always gonna be significant. It didn't occur to me that that might present challenges to the other players playing around him when they're asked to play without him. Minott is only 22 years old. He's still a baby. Practically a rookie still. There are already built-in challenges at that age but having to learn two different ways of playing defense on top of all that is a lot.

Here this will not be the case. Pretty sure we'll be running a drop scheme regardless of the personnel on the floor whether that's Garza, Neemy, or even Boucher (though I think Chris has some switchability that the others don't have). That should help Josh at least in terms of consistency of approach. I'm just a big believer in Minott. It's gonna hurt if he lets me down. Physically, he can already switch 1-3 easy. Possibly 4 depending on matchup (also why I want to see him add some muscle). I just see him as an absolutely wrecking ball on defense. Boucher too. The length, athleticism, and versatility they have is not something we've see a lot of outside of the Jay's, and definitely not from the bench.

[Hal14]

Wonder if the second rounders could be on the bubble, like how they cut ties with that goof ball from the northwest. Ie, specifically Amari if he doesn't look like he can hack it.

Between their recent move to cut guys early if they aren't working and their success with these "2nd draft" kind of guys, feels a bit like an open competition between Amari, possibly Shulga, Luis, Bridges etc.

Eh, I doubt it.

Watson was waived in March of last year. He was here for basically the entire season. It would be a much different story if we waived a draft pick before the season even started.

It's very rare (and poor asset management) to draft a guy and then waive them before the season starts.

Using a draft pick on a guy is a big investment..it means you see something in them, long term potential that you want to develop. Teams typically give 2nd rounders at least 1-2 seasons to develop and prove themselves before waiving them.JD was here for 3 seasons. Walsh has 2 full seasons of experience. Baylor made it 1 full season. Watson was just about 1 full season. Waters was here for 2 full seasons.

There's basically no precedent for cutting a draft pick this soon.

And why would you say "specifically Amari" ? He was drafted 11 spots higher. Amari proved himself last season vs the top teams in college basketball like Duke, Florida, Alabama, etc. while Shulga played mid major ball. Neither was great in SL but I'd say Amari was better.

[djFan71]

Unless we are ready to do an Anfernee Simons trade and it's going to be a 2-for-1, eh? When can we aggregate?

We're now at 22 guys on the offseason roster:

That's not allowed lol, we can only be at 21.

So I'm assuming someone is about to get waived in order to make room for the Brown and Bridges signings.

lol, you're brave. I was thinking it but didn't wanna say.

Just FYI, It's not aggregating just if we send out 2 players. It's only aggregating when you need to combine (aggregate) multiple players' salary to take back a player. If we send out Simons and X and take back a player making less than Simons it's not considered aggregating. Moot, cuz I think we could aggregate him now.