Boston Celtics News (2024-2025)

NP, gyso.  NP!!

db

Bob


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Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
Brunson believes the #NBA will follow the 24 #Celtics. It tried in the preseason. NY tried on opening night, but BOS is already taking more 3s: clnsmedia.com/celtics-win-ov… "People follow the analytics," Mazzulla said. "Fortunately for us, we have the analytics, but we have the guys"


Bob
MY NOTE:  It's like the Dynasty Dubs.  Everybody knew that 3s were the way to go but only they had The Splash Brothers.  You gotta have the horses if you want to win the race and we have the horses.


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Somebody's gotta finish 2nd in the East.  Looks like Knicks and 76ers are not answering that bell.  Who's up?  IND? MIA? CLE?  

db

Cameron Tabatabaie
@CTabatabaie
Payton Pritchard’s wife Emma just posted this on IG and it’s awesome


https://x.com/i/status/1850587641051308398


Bob
MY NOTE: The best part is hearing him calling "watch the hand-check, ref, watch the hand-check".

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Interesting article from the WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/sports/basketball/boston-celtics-nba-3-pointers-fa0f8d49

Per Shams Charania the Celtics are targeting Kristaps Porzingis returning in December.

No specific day cited, just 'December'.

The general feeling has been he'd be back late December, Christmas - New Years, but sliding back to January wasn't out of the question.  This Shams report suggests he is on schedule (or possibly even a little ahead of schedule?).

We're tied for the best record in basketball, winning our 4th in a row against Milwaukee, and we did it without Z AND Sam.


Bob


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https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/celtics-joe-mazzulla-wants-to-bring-fighting-back-to-nba-whats-more-entertaining-than-a-little-scuffle/



Celtics' Joe Mazzulla wants to bring fighting back to NBA: 'What's more entertaining than a little scuffle?'


Mazzulla's plans might not be the best for his players but he understands what the people want

   
By Brad Botkin
20 hrs ago
•
2 min read


Anyone who follows the NBA with any sort of regularity knows by now that Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla is an odd cat. To me, he's odd in awesome ways. The guy supposedly watched "The Town" two to three times a week at one point in his life, and he has real thoughts on how to actually rob Fenway Park, to the point that he scopes out exit points when he's at Red Sox games. Honestly, the guy is a treasure.

So when Mazzulla made an appearance on Boston radio and was asked what he would change about the NBA, you knew he wasn't going to give a stock answer. True to form, Mazzulla elaborated on why the NBA should institute power plays after fouls, forcing the offending team to play a man down for a length of time, as in hockey.

Oh, and he also wants to "bring back fighting."

"The biggest thing that we rob people of from an entertainment standpoint is you can't fight anymore. I wish we'd bring back fighting," Mazzulla said on NBC Sports Boston in a manner that certainly didn't sound like he was trying to be funny. "What's more entertaining than a little scuffle? How come in baseball they're allowed to clear the benches? How come in hockey they're allowed to fight? I don't understand. I just don't get why some sports are allowed to clear the benches. They have bats and weapons [in baseball]. We don't. We have a ball. The other sport [hockey] has one of the hardest playing surfaces and a puck and a stick. And yet we're not allowed to throw down a little bit?"


Now listen, I'm not sure this is all that great an idea. I think we can all agree on that. But don't act like there isn't a part of you that gets fired up with hockey players drop their sticks. NBA fans are almost universally in favor of bringing a certain amount of physicality back to the game. Maybe not circling up and throwing fists, but toughness and competitiveness spilling over into some level of altercation has been happening in sports for years. To Mazzulla's point, it still happens in other sports. There is a certain charm to it, no?

Of course, there's a real danger with this. These are big, strong athletes, and obviously you can get really hurt in a real fight (as opposed to the NBA's tried and true "hold me back" shoving matches). That's why Mazzulla's pugilistic desires will never happen.

Once the league had to deal with the reputation hit and PR fallout from the "Malice at the Palace," anything that even resembles fighting was never again going to be condoned in the NBA. Obviously that's the smart way to go about this, but that doesn't mean it's still not an entertaining thought to imagine a world of hard fouls and occasional throw downs on an NBA floor. Joe Mazzulla simply said what a lot of us have thought quietly. This is a man of the people.


Bob
MY NOTE:  As Derrick White has said on numerous occasions, "Joe is a sicko".  But the players adore him, and he won a Championship leading those players, so as far as I am concerned he can be as weird as he wants.

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Bobby Manning
@RealBobManning
#Celtics down to 14th in transition defense when cutting out garbage time. They finished #1 last year. Allowed 125 pts per 100 trans. plays last night.




Bob
MY NOTE:  NOT good.  It's like waving a flag to every team in the league that if you want to beat the Boston Celtics just run on them.

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bobheckler wrote:https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/celtics-joe-mazzulla-wants-to-bring-fighting-back-to-nba-whats-more-entertaining-than-a-little-scuffle/



Celtics' Joe Mazzulla wants to bring fighting back to NBA: 'What's more entertaining than a little scuffle?'


Mazzulla's plans might not be the best for his players but he understands what the people want

   
By Brad Botkin
20 hrs ago
•
2 min read


Anyone who follows the NBA with any sort of regularity knows by now that Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla is an odd cat. To me, he's odd in awesome ways. The guy supposedly watched "The Town" two to three times a week at one point in his life, and he has real thoughts on how to actually rob Fenway Park, to the point that he scopes out exit points when he's at Red Sox games. Honestly, the guy is a treasure.

So when Mazzulla made an appearance on Boston radio and was asked what he would change about the NBA, you knew he wasn't going to give a stock answer. True to form, Mazzulla elaborated on why the NBA should institute power plays after fouls, forcing the offending team to play a man down for a length of time, as in hockey.

Oh, and he also wants to "bring back fighting."

"The biggest thing that we rob people of from an entertainment standpoint is you can't fight anymore. I wish we'd bring back fighting," Mazzulla said on NBC Sports Boston in a manner that certainly didn't sound like he was trying to be funny. "What's more entertaining than a little scuffle? How come in baseball they're allowed to clear the benches? How come in hockey they're allowed to fight? I don't understand. I just don't get why some sports are allowed to clear the benches. They have bats and weapons [in baseball]. We don't. We have a ball. The other sport [hockey] has one of the hardest playing surfaces and a puck and a stick. And yet we're not allowed to throw down a little bit?"


Now listen, I'm not sure this is all that great an idea. I think we can all agree on that. But don't act like there isn't a part of you that gets fired up with hockey players drop their sticks. NBA fans are almost universally in favor of bringing a certain amount of physicality back to the game. Maybe not circling up and throwing fists, but toughness and competitiveness spilling over into some level of altercation has been happening in sports for years. To Mazzulla's point, it still happens in other sports. There is a certain charm to it, no?

Of course, there's a real danger with this. These are big, strong athletes, and obviously you can get really hurt in a real fight (as opposed to the NBA's tried and true "hold me back" shoving matches). That's why Mazzulla's pugilistic desires will never happen.

Once the league had to deal with the reputation hit and PR fallout from the "Malice at the Palace," anything that even resembles fighting was never again going to be condoned in the NBA. Obviously that's the smart way to go about this, but that doesn't mean it's still not an entertaining thought to imagine a world of hard fouls and occasional throw downs on an NBA floor. Joe Mazzulla simply said what a lot of us have thought quietly. This is a man of the people.


Bob
MY NOTE:  As Derrick White has said on numerous occasions, "Joe is a sicko".  But the players adore him, and he won a Championship leading those players, so as far as I am concerned he can be as weird as he wants.

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This would take the NBA back to 1975. It might be very entertaining.

Yes, Joe is more than a little over the edge. And that, along with his pre-occupation with defense and 3-point shooters, has worked beautifully for this team. A man of the people, indeed.

https://celticswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/celtics/2024/10/31/how-did-the-boston-celtics-pick-different-here-as-its-motto/75936984007/





Why the Boston Celtics chose 'Different Here' as the club's official mantra

Cameron Tabatabaie
Celtics Wire


The slogan "Different Here" adorns fan shirts during a Boston Celtics postseason game
With a league-best 18 championship banners hanging from the rafters at TD Garden, the Boston Celtics are much more than simply the team to beat in 2024-25. Boston is the class of the Association, and has been for decades. Legendary coach and executive Red Auerbach helped sum up that sentiment, famously saying of the club, "The Boston Celtics are not a basketball team, they are a way of life."

Indeed, the Celtics are far from just a collection of basketball players. The franchise is instead an institution of a sort. It serves as a community touchstone and a cultural icon nearly without peer. That ethos demands a certain standard for the players, coaches, and front office that also extends beyond the parquet to every corner of the organization. For the folks who work behind the scenes, managing the Celtics and the Celtics brand is an important responsibility. The messaging and marketing around the team has to honor the passion of the fans and the history that lives within those 18 banners.

According to Boston Celtics senior director of creative and content Leanda Mills, that responsibility is what helped birth the "Different Here" motto. Mills spoke to Celtics Wire about the process of coming up with the tagline at the beginning of the 2023-24 season as well as the decision to bring "Different Here" back for another year.


First and foremost, Mills explained that the Celtics creative team didn't want to keep coming up with new slogans each season. "Bleed Green" had a nice run, but since that era, Boston has had several distinct catch phrases, from "It's Not Luck" to "Unfinished Business" to "C Us Rise." Mills said she and her team wanted to find something that really landed with fans.

"We've kind of seen the revolving door of taglines over the years," Mills said. "I think we were always trying to find something that just felt like it could stand the test of time for us as an organization, something that we didn't need to change every year, and something that truly resonated throughout the organization from the top down."

Mills explained that the creative team began looking through old material, interviews, and other bits of team history for inspiration. Auerbach's famous quote about the Celtics really stood out during that process. Mills and company decided this was the sentiment they wanted to capture.

"We thought that really summed up what it was like to be a fan," Mills said. "To be a part of or play for the Celtics organization, and we felt like that was something that could kind of pulled us through both the highs and lows, and really kind of engage with our fan base as well."

Figuring out the exact slogan to honor Auerbach's words took a little bit of time, however. Details make perfection, after all.

"We did a little bit of back and forth," Mills joked. "Was it 'It's Different Here?' Or is it just 'Different Here?' How would we shorten it, how do we make it a bit longer? What really resonates?"

"We ended up just with the simple phrase of 'Different Here.'"

The work of ironing out the specific language for the new tagline was only part of the story. Making sure fans understood the messaging and built a connection with "Different Here" was a task in and of itself.



Jayson Tatum walks past a painted "Different Here" in the back halls of TD Garden


"We had 'Bleed Green' prior," Mills said. "I think that that one really resonated with our fan base, and fans got behind that and they felt like it was something that they did day in and day out."

"We realized that 'Bleed Green' can also be a part of our identity," Mills added. "But it doesn't need to be the only identity we have as a team."

"I think to start it was kind of a mixed bag of reviews," Mills said. "We rolled it out and some of our fan base was a little bit hesitant on it. We were really committed to seeing this through, and we felt like this was something that was going to strike a chord with our fans at some point. They just needed to kind of sit with it for a moment."

The messaging here had to be gentle, Mills outlined. The team wanted to honor long-term fans of the team while launching "Different Here" as the new slogan. A social media video was made to try to bridge the gap and connect the eras.

"We put out a video that ended with an end tag of 'We know you always Bleed Green because it's Different Here.'" Mills said. "And I think that that kind of summed it up for fans and they realized that 'Bleed Green' is still very much part of our identity, but it's maybe not the mantra for the season."

The fans are incredibly important constituents for the team's content strategy, of course. But Mills and company were also hoping "Different Here" would be meaningful to the players and coaches. That concern was short lived.

"The bought in," Mills said with pride. "They bought in 100%"

"They're bought in from the basketball side, all the way into the front office," Mills explained. "And there's not really a month that goes by that I don't think we have a player that drops a good old "Different Here" in one of their pressers. I think it's just really subconsciously something that we all kind of believe in and we're all behind."

"'Different Here' was just so much more," Mills added. "I think we saw some great adaptation of that throughout the year, obviously topping it off with a championship win and seeing all those fans out on the streets for the parade. What better visual do you need to sum up that slogan, that mantra?"

From a practical standpoint going from sloganeering to putting things into play is a bit complicated. "Different Here" would come to adorn everything from the halls of TD Garden to player apparel, as well as appear across the team's many digital and social outlets. Many months before confetti blanketed TD Garden, Mills and her team had real work to do to get "Different Here" up and running.


Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis model a "Different Here" shirt


"There's obviously a little bit of a roll out strategy," Mills said. "A little bit of a campaign behind it, whether that's a singular piece of content or multiple pieces of content."

"There's always that nuanced approach to our marketing. We may not need to say the words 'Different Here' in our marketing, but the way that we tell our stories and the way that we compose our creative or our content should feel like it's part of that 'Different Here' tagline."

"And then you look at the the actual execution of item," Mills explained. "There's no shortage of creative executions that need to be put into place. That can be for arena signage, both inside and outside. It can be for graphics on t-shirts that are sold in the pro shop. It can be social media posts. and on and on. It's a little bit of a waterfall effect."

"You take it day by day, and kind of roll things out and get it back into the community and introduce that into the Celtics ecosystem and to the fans. We spent the year introducing it into our ecosystem," Mills said. "I think it's here to stay."

The Celtics creative and content professionals have also internalized the "Different Here" ethos. From watching the games in person, to engaging on social media, to attending live fan events, Mills and her team are charged with creating and maintaining the aura around the team, and matching its level of excellence on the court.

"Even from the nuanced marketing side of things, how we view our content and creative, or how we view our messaging to fans and how we interact with our fans, we view that through the lens of 'Different Here,'" Mills said.

"How do we create that first in class arena experience, that first class fan experience? How do we engage with our community? We're one of the best, if not the best in the league, for engagement with our community, how do we uphold that standard of it being "Different Here'?"

"I hope that fans see that as well," Mills added. "It's not just a hashtag appendage to our social posts. There's a strategy behind what they're doing and how they're putting it out. There's a strategy about how we talk about everything, and have fans engage with our stuff."

While the players were racking up wins on the court last year, the Celtics creative team earned wide acclaim for the content they produced last season. This ranged from pithy, timely social media posts to carefully curated highlight montages, documentary shorts, and more.


The slogan "Different Here" seen at TD Garden


"It's truly a team effort," Mills explained. "There's not one individual producer, creative, or content producer that is, putting everything out. It is a full team, from pre-production, all the way down to post-production, to posting. Including our social team."

"I think largely we've just bought into not prescribing to any one thing necessarily working," Mills said. "We're just trying to be creative and and sometimes failing fast in those moments. Fan reaction and praise is always welcome. That stuff is absolutely fantastic, I know our team sees it and appreciates it. And that just feeds back more into that team mentality. When we see that praise, we know that we're on the right track."

"Different Here" was a hit. The fans seemed to enjoy the tagline, and the team cruised to a title. It was a season for the ages, and that success is why Mills and her team weren't about to sunset "Different Here" for a new slogan ahead of the 2024-25 season.

"To be honest with you, it wasn't even a large dialogue this offseason," Mills said. "We kind of all just looked at each other and said, 'Yeah, we're just going to keep rolling with this.' We had some off-season conversations with various members of the team and the coaching staff, too. They loved the idea of rolling back 'Different Here'. They thought that that really summed things up."

This wasn't just about creating a branded hashtag or selling merchandise, after all. The creative team wanted to capture the essence of what the Celtics stand for. By bringing back "Different Here" for another season and perhaps beyond, Boston is committing to a certain standard of excellence.

"That that was always our goal," Mills explained. "That this was something that was going stick for a while, something that felt like it belonged as a part of our team. It's something that describes our organization, whether it's a basketball product all the way to the front office."

"We view this as way more than a mantra, or a hashtag, or a tagline." Mills said.


Bob


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Here are some fitting season-opening thoughts, 19 of them, on your NBA champion Celtics


By Chad Finn Globe Staff,
Updated October 30, 2024, 5:00 a.m.



Four games and four wins into the new season, I bring you 19 thoughts on the defending NBA champion Celtics.

Why 19? You know why …

1. As you may recall, Jayson Tatum shot 26.3 percent from 3-point range in the Finals, didn’t shoot higher than 30.6 percent from that territory in any of the four playoff series, and apparently left his jumper stateside during his complicated Olympics experience in Paris.

So what did he do about it? He simply went back to the gym and fixed the thing, ditching that unnecessary sweeping hitch and simplifying his release.

Tatum is averaging 4.5 made threes at 41.9 percent so far, and such sharpshooting looks sustainable with a simpler and way more aesthetically pleasing shot.

2. This stands as one more reminder that Tatum — and Jaylen Brown too — hasn’t received enough credit over the years for how hard he works to polish his game.

Part of Larry Bird’s legend is how he always worked to add to his repertoire. When Tatum is done here a decade from now, that dedication to improvement should be part of his legacy. Already should be, actually.

3. Brown’s handle still gets so loose on occasion that it’s fair to wonder whether he was Adam Brody’s personal basketball consultant for “Nobody Wants This.” But you know what? That’s fine.

Celtics superstar guard Jaylen Brown currently looks like an unstoppable force on the offensive end of the court.

4. Occasional forays into over-dribbling aside, Brown has become a close-to-unstoppable offensive force, one who can blow by bigger players and overpower smaller ones at will.

Wouldn’t surprise me if he averaged more points per game than Tatum this season.

5. Payton Pritchard has to be the first player in NBA history whose prowess at long-distance buzzer-beaters is so well-established that half-court shots count as a go-to move.

6. Pritchard is a career 39.8 percent shooter from 3-point land in his five-year career. The only players in his draft class with a better percentage who shoot threes regularly are Desmond Bane (41.5 percent, No. 30 overall pick by the Celtics, immediately traded to the Grizzlies) and Patrick Williams (40.7 percent, No. 4 pick by the Bulls).

7. Prediction: Derrick White will make the All-Star team this year. Better, people will stop calling him underrated, and properly rate him as one of the best all-around guards in the league.

8. The three main elements to White’s shot-blocking prowess: He has ridiculously quick feet that rarely leave him out of position. He’s a quick leaper. And his reach apparently expands to 11 feet whenever he enters the paint.

Thanks to the confidence instilled by his coach, Derrick White has taken his game to an entirely different level. Thanks to the confidence instilled by his coach, Derrick White has taken his game to an entirely different level. Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff

9. White and Joe Mazzulla are the perfect match of player and coach. White is playing with so much confidence now — confidence Mazzulla helped bring out by empowering him to be aggressive and unafraid of mistakes — that it’s easy to forget how hesitant he was when he arrived from the Spurs during the 2022 season.

10. I’ve often said, during his first stint here and now during his second, that Al Horford is the quintessential Celtic, in the sense that you can see exactly how and where he would fit in on every great team in franchise history.

11. Well, I would like to amend that, because Horford has company in the He Would Fit On Any Celtics Champion club. White and Jrue Holiday also deserve that designation.

Center Al Horford has become the quintessential Boston Celtic.

12. The Celtics had plenty of necessary luck on their way to Banner 18, which has been mentioned ad nauseum regarding their playoff run. But their most fortuitous break happened before the season — the Bucks trading Holiday to the Blazers.

13. There’s no way Brad Stevens could have anticipated that Holiday would become available … is there? I sometimes wonder what the full picture of the Celtics backcourt would have looked like had that deal not presented itself.

14. Celtics players aren’t supposed to be looking back, of course, with the new season upon them. But we can, and should. As I tell my kids, you should never stop savoring a championship. You’ll always, always have that, no matter how everything plays out in the following years.

15. So, a question: What was your favorite single in-game moment from the championship run? I suspect Pritchard’s halfcourt bomb in Game 5 of the Finals — a shot that basically declared, “Yeah, we’re winning it all tonight” — would be the first choice for the majority.

16. For me, it’s Holiday’s steal to save Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Pacers. It was just such a Dennis Johnson thing to do, and DJ was my favorite Celtic growing up, Non-Larry Legend Division.

17. One thing I know about Kristaps Porzingis’s return, whether it comes in December or perhaps sooner: It needs to happen at home. Porzingis treasures the atmosphere in this Garden in a way similar to how Bill Walton felt about the old place when he got here in ‘86.

18. Nice to see Jordan Walsh getting — actually, make that earning — some real minutes. I’m not sure he’s going to shoot more than 30 percent from three, but he’s a live wire who can be a better version of 2023 Oshae Brissett.

Jordan Walsh has been getting minutes to start the season, and it looks like he's deserved them, as well. Jordan Walsh has been getting minutes to start the season, and it looks like he's deserved them, as well. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press

19. Wish there had been a way to keep Lonnie Walker IV around. Wish he’d decided to go to Maine. But I understand why neither happened. He was too costly in tax penalties to keep. And he’s way too good for the G League.


Bob


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Bob



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Well in my book, that makes Pritch Eddie House, Sr!!  

db

Ok, so I know some will get upset with me, but I have been watching these last couple of games, Yes, PP has been terrific, however, I wonder about his ability to involve other players in the game. I watched Sam Hauser alone in the corners, at the top of the key, all alone, no one guarding him, but no one looking for him either It bothered me enough to think about it for the last couple of days. I know there is one basketball, but I am just wondering if anyone else has noticed this???

i know the kid is playing great, I am not trying to say he is a problem, let's see what goes on these next few games

RosalieTCeltics wrote:Ok, so I know some will get upset with me, but I have been watching these last couple of games, Yes, PP has been terrific, however, I wonder about his ability to involve other players in the game.  I watched Sam Hauser alone in the corners, at the top of the key, all alone, no one guarding him, but no one looking for him either  It bothered me enough to think about it for the last couple of days.  I know there is one basketball, but I am just wondering if anyone else has noticed this???

Rosalie,

His assists/minute are down.  He's not turning the ball any more than last year but he's not getting the dimes he did.  His assist-to-turnover ratio is still a very good 3:1 but it isn't the #7 in the NBA 4.68:1 it was last year. With Jaylen (and Z) out he's might be prioritizing scoring over floor generalship. I mean, there's 45+ ppg we're not getting that need to be made up somewhere.


Bob


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I agree there, but just keep you eye out for a few games, I could be very wrong,  I would be interested to see what happens with JB out for any length of time

https://www.nbcsportsboston.com/nba/boston-celtics/luke-kornet-contract-best-value/663902/



Is Luke Kornet on one of the NBA's best value contracts?



Kornet's contributions to the Celtics far outweigh his salary for this season.


By Chris Forsberg, Celtics Insider • Published November 4, 2024 • Updated on November 4, 2024 at 5:12 pm


Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens has handed out nearly a billion dollars in extensions over the past two years while re-signing the top eight players on Boston’s roster in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, Payton Pritchard, and Sam Hauser.

And yet, sometimes we wonder if his biggest heist is re-signing Luke Kornet to a one-year, $2.1 million minimum salary contract this past offseason.

In a league thin of serviceable backup big men, Kornet seemingly could have cashed in this summer after being the ninth man in Boston’s championship rotation. Last season he quietly morphed his game from floor-stretching big to paint-cemented rim-runner, and produced his best overall season as a pro.

Instead of waiting for big money offers, Kornet was essentially the NBA’s first re-signee, agreeing to the one-year pact with Boston right at the very first moment teams could announce deals with their own players.

On Saturday night, in a spot start in Charlotte, Kornet scored a season-high 19 points on perfect 6-of-6 shooting with four rebounds, three assists, two blocks, and a steal. In fact, he didn’t miss a shot over two games against the Hornets. For the season, Kornet is averaging 5.7 points and 4.1 rebounds over 19 minutes per game.


It’s the not the sexiest stat line, but head coach Joe Mazzulla is quick to point out that so much of Kornet’s impact can't be quantified in counting stats. Kornet is content to set screens and make good decisions when he does touch the ball. He’s a solid passer who can spray it to shooters off the roll, and he’s content to subsist on lobs and putbacks for his own offensive output.

When the Celtics are at full health, Kornet’s role can be a bit more limited. But on a team where Kristaps Porzingis is sidelined until December and Al Horford needs strategic rest, having a third big like Kornet is key to Boston sustaining a high level of play. Not every matchup is ideal for Kornet, and the Celtics have mixed in a healthy dose of fellow big man Neemias Queta early in the season, but Kornet is still a luxury.

Especially at his price tag.

Of the 14 players under contract for the Celtics this season, Kornet has the second-lowest cap hit on the team. Only 20-year-old 2023 second-round pick Jordan Walsh ($1.9 million) will make less. Xavier Tillman and Queta, who both also re-signed with Boston this offseason, carry a slightly higher cap hit. Rookie Baylor Scheierman’s rookie pact starts at $2.5 million for the 2024-25 season.

Kornet accounts for a mere 1.5 percent of the league’s salary cap, a huge value for a team that is committed to roughly $173 million for its top six players.


Of the 436 players signed to NBA teams at the start of the 2024-25 season, 355 will earn more money than Kornet this season. There are 129 players earning under $3 million this season and you will only find maybe a handful who arguably offer better bang for the buck than Kornet: guys like Utah big man Walker Kessler and Denver backup wing Peyton Watson, both former late first-round picks.

There is one other player who might be a better value in Kornet's Celtics teammate, Sam Hauser. Hauser is making basically the same money as Kornet this season before his four-year, $45 million extension hits the books next season.

Of the 79 pure centers under contract this season in the NBA, Kornet’s money is tied for 63rd in value. He’s slightly ahead of Duop Reath, thanks to years of service, but slightly behind Jay Huff. Some of the minimum salaries around him read like entries for Charles Barkley’s “Who he play for?” bit.


Bob


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Bob


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