Preseason, Multi-Game Thread, 2025-26 – Record: 3-1

[redslastlaugh]

Not to pile on Brad when we still don't know the final outcome on his picks
but...

People say Brad has managed five drafts and only had picks in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s and that every GM bats a low average on picks that low.

But Danny's first five drafts, he selected the following players in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s :

Kendrick Perkins
Delonte West
Tony Allen
Ryan Gomes
Rajon Rondo
Leon Powe
Big Baby Davis

I mean, that's a supporting cast for two Finals teams over the same number of drafts as Brad Stevens has had and I'm not counting any top 20 pick by Ainge

Brad has been horrible in the draft. Hugo is the only bright spot in his entire history drafting.

[Parasite]

Disagree with Gaza as a starter. Not being able to jump over paper will get us killed on defense.

Not knowing what to do while out there will kill us even more. Give me the hustle, smarts and toughness of Luka any day over the cluelessness of Queta. He can come off the bench.

[redslastlaugh]

The choice to go Scheierman over Filipowski is beginning to loom.

Even more damning is Filipowski is 3 years younger and has already shown more as a player.

Not just Flip. Furphy, Jaylen Wells, Ajay Mitchell and several others are looking good.
Even in this game we just had, Jamal Shead and Jonathan Mogbo are interesting 2nd year players

[snowman]

The good:
Pritchard was a star.
Boucher, Minott and Garza played well enough, if they can keep this level up, for regular season rotation minutes.
Gonzalez was all over the place and will be in the rotation.....next season.

The bad:
Queta needs to cut down on the fouls and may show better with regular 1st team players with him.
Simon's defense is really bad but can lite it up on offense. He is NOT a point guard and has tremendous trouble handling the pressure. He should be ok as long as he is on the floor with White or Pritchard.
Amari played 8 minutes and had 4 Ft's, 3 rebounds but 3 TO's. Maine will be his home this season and should do him good.

The ugly:
Tillman is toast, he needs to go. He needs to be traded for a backup point guard.
Scheierman also is NOT a point guard. He had 6 rebounds and 6 assists but 6 fouls and 5 TO's. He got most of his TO's when trying to be the lead guard in the 2nd half. If he can somehow stick to shooting guard, he may do better.

Biggest team need in my mind:
We need a third team point guard behind White and Pritchard more than another big. Boucher should start at PF until Tatum gets back. Queta should start at the 5, and will do better playing with White, Brown, Boucher and probably Simon. Garza will be in the rotation. Amiri needs a lot of work.

[cloverleaf]

The good:
Biggest team need in my mind:
We need a third team point guard behind White and Pritchard more than another big. Boucher should start at PF until Tatum gets back. Queta should start at the 5, and will do better playing with White, Brown, Boucher and probably Simon. Garza will be in the rotation. Amiri needs a lot of work.

MIssing JD? Think we could swing a Scheierman and Joe trade for JD and Ime?

Actually, I think Scheierman's attitude has been driving Joe crazy.

[colincb]

The most significant Celtic need is a starting center. This team will be better than expected even without a Tatum return. A Tatum return makes the Cs formidable, but we still have a hole at the 5.

[return2glory]

Nice 1st 3 quarters.

Really good by Boucher and Pritchard.
Simons, Minot and Garza all played well. Hugo was decent.

A win would have been cool, especially being up as much as 27.

Joe needed Shulga in the 4th as an extra ball handler. Those players in the last 6 minutes of the game were rough to watch. But not having a true PG during that stretch hurt everyone on the floor for the Celtics.

[nborrego8]

This was a terrible performance from Queta, but i dont believe this is the same player that played in the eurobasket, He looked rusty as hell, and for a guy that averaged 16/7 vs Porzingis and Sengun, having a performance like this meant something was very off today.

Pritchard also needs to be more efficient than this, 7-17 and only 3 assists was not great, we was forcing shots so much in the first half

[Curmudgeon]

Except for White and Pritchard, they have no one who can bring the ball up under pressure. I'm not even sure Shulga can do it, but he was worth a try.

Let me add that Stevens should have kept Davison and waived Jordan Walsh.

[GoCeltics123]

My takeaways from the new guys/in general in preseason so far:

--Minott is a really good fit in this system. You feel his presence when he's out there, his length and activity are very noticeable. He's gotta be a passable shooter but I think he can be, he reminds me of Oshae but he's a better finisher.

--Chris Boucher is good and will fit well.

--It's one game, but Queta looked the exact same. Idk man, people talked about EuroBasket but he looks like the exact same player so far.

--Garza screens very well, is a decent offensive player and plays hard but is not good at all. I'm sorry to break this news to people, but any serious team will put him in pick and rolls over and over and play him off the floor. The minute the Raptors starting doing it, they scored pretty much every time, and all we've played so far are backups

--Simons is as advertised, good and bad

--Hugo has potential. I'm a lot higher on him than I was on Walsh or Baylor

I think real teams are going to pressure the **** out of this team and try to force them into turnovers offensively

[Gant]

Rotation

Brown, White, Boucher, Simons, Pritchard and Hauser are clear core rotation guys.

At the moment, the center position looks like a mess by committee. Q, X, and G all give away something, and because of that, it seems they'll all play.

Minott has earned floor time. He's moved ahead of Walsh, Scheierman and Gonzalez, though Walsh looked good in his brief stint in preseason game 1. Hugo's shown enough promise and fire to inch his way in there too.

That's ten or eleven players headed for minutes before adjustments.


Preseason Status Report

The Good:

* Minott and Boucher were great moves under the circumstances. Garza does some good things, and you can see why he was signed. For minimum vet salary acquisitions, these guys are about all that could be hoped for.

* When the real players play, this team has performed well with high tempo, even if it has been against low end competition.

The Not Good:

* I'm still confused about that second round trade. I get that Amari Williams is a classic late to the game prospect, and that big men take time to develop. Shulga looks overmatched physically. They're standard for where they were drafted, but was there really nobody better available at pick 32?

Reserving Judgement:

* Maybe the third exhibition will be the full rotation tune up for the regular season. This looks like a good solid team, except for the question mark at center. I hope that potential hole in the middle doesn't turn out to be Charybdis.

[Curmudgeon]

I'm not ready to throw Queta into the toilet after one game.

[sam_I_am]

I think Queta looked really bad because the point guard play was dreadful. Simons looked like a ball stopper. Both of them may look a lot better next to JB and White. Scheierman has to go. I think he will kick around NBA for 5 years but he really isn’t a guy who will add anything to this team in a playoff game. Minot is a keeper. He may be a younger bouncier version of Brissett but he would have been a great backup on last years team too. Boucher looks like a great pickup too and also would have helped the last 2 years. Hugo may be a guy that rounds into form by Feb after a few stints in Maine. Garza is just too much of a zero on defense. At least he’ll score a little.

PP is just not a PG. I agree that we need a veteran back up PG without Tatum. Not sure it’s worth it to try to get one now but if we can trade end of bench guys or second round picks to get one….sure, why not.

[bisme37]

Watch on YouTube

;feature=youtu.be

Watch on YouTube

[GoCeltics123]

I think Queta looked really bad because the point guard play was dreadful. Simons looked like a ball stopper. Both of them may look a lot better next to JB and White. Scheierman has to go. I think he will kick around NBA for 5 years but he really isn’t a guy who will add anything to this team in a playoff game. Minot is a keeper. He may be a younger bouncier version of Brissett but he would have been a great backup on last years team too. Boucher looks like a great pickup too and also would have helped the last 2 years. Hugo may be a guy that rounds into form by Feb after a few stints in Maine. Garza is just too much of a zero on defense. At least he’ll score a little.

PP is just not a PG. I agree that we need a veteran back up PG without Tatum. Not sure it’s worth it to try to get one now but if we can trade end of bench guys or second round picks to get one….sure, why not.

Agree with every point in this except this one.

Queta is not good, until proven otherwise. He has 3-5 games a year where he looks like Rob Williams-lite, and the rest of the time he's been bad. Him scoring 15 PPG on small guys in Europe does nothing for me

[ParticleMan]

disappointed in simons. i thought he was brought in to play fast, but he plays the slowest of anyone on the team. he is a tatum-level ball stopper, without the size/strength/talent to overcome it. and his D is preternaturally bad. maybe joe can mend his ways but he might be too entrenched to change.

otoh scheierman isn't nearly as bad as everyone is saying. he does a lot of good things out there, including several good under-the-radar defensive plays. it's disappointing he's not a smarter player given his age and experience but most of what he's doing wrong is fixable. if he settles into a complementary role and stops thinking he's an alpha he can be a nice rotation piece.

[flintsky21]

Not worried about Queta. Obviously, he was the focal point of the offense for Portugal. Last night he barely had any plays for him. He still fights hard for boards. We'll see how he looks with our best playmakers Brown and White.

Simons tries so hard to get rid of pressure defense all by himself instead of just passing the ball. He'd still be a great sixth man microwave scorer. Agreed that we probably need another PG. I was on the "give JD a bigger role this season" camp, and it seems like we could use him over the 18 wings that Brad signed instead.

I was optimistic about how X moved in the first game, but it's hard to see a bigger role for him unless he starts hitting the 3 at a decent rate.

[Gant]

I think Queta looked really bad because the point guard play was dreadful. Simons looked like a ball stopper. Both of them may look a lot better next to JB and White. Scheierman has to go. I think he will kick around NBA for 5 years but he really isn’t a guy who will add anything to this team in a playoff game. Minot is a keeper. He may be a younger bouncier version of Brissett but he would have been a great backup on last years team too. Boucher looks like a great pickup too and also would have helped the last 2 years. Hugo may be a guy that rounds into form by Feb after a few stints in Maine. Garza is just too much of a zero on defense. At least he’ll score a little.

PP is just not a PG. I agree that we need a veteran back up PG without Tatum. Not sure it’s worth it to try to get one now but if we can trade end of bench guys or second round picks to get one….sure, why not.

Agree with every point in this except this one.

Queta is not good, until proven otherwise. He has 3-5 games a year where he looks like Rob Williams-lite, and the rest of the time he's been bad. Him scoring 15 PPG on small guys in Europe does nothing for me

I saw all of Queta's Eurobasket games. He was in a bracket with some great centers. He did have his highest point total against Czechia, but also scored decently on Sengun, Theis and Porzingis. The only game he scored very little was vs. Jokic, but only took 5 shots in that one as Serbia effectively denied the entry pass the whole way.

Queta shows some offensive diversity in the clips below. He's got to quit overthinking, and just play.

Watch on YouTube

[Curmudgeon]

Both Garza and Queta had their men sealed on multiple occasions but nobody made a post entry pass for the easy basket.

[itrsteve]

I like to be positive but I honestly don’t see any value in Baylor Schierman, at all. There clearly must be something I’m not seeing.