Which role player will join the regular season rotation?

In Brad Stevens’ basketball card catalog, there are three sorts of gamers: bigs, ball handlers, and wings. Within the greatest transfer to this point in his tenure as President of Basketball Operations, he traded for Kristaps Porzingis, finishing a trio of plus massive males with Al Horford and Robert Williams. That deal jettisoned Marcus Good to Memphis and trimmed the guard rotation to a different threesome of Derrick White, Malcolm Brogdon, and Payton Pritchard.

His maintain playing cards, in fact, are a pair of aces in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, however to maintain them contemporary for an additional deep playoff run subsequent April, Could, and June, they’ll want one other wing to finish a stable nine-man rotation.

We debated this topic earlier in the summer and couldn’t come to a consensus. Since then, Stevens added Svi Mykhailiuk and additional muddied the waters heading into coaching camp. The Celtics now record 5 gamers at 6’7: Hauser, Mykhailiuk, Oshae Brissett, Jordan Walsh, and Dalano Banton. That occurs to be the perfect top for an NBA wing (see: Butler, Jimmy; Leonard, Kawhi; Middleton, Khris). Collectively, they make for a spread bucket of wings. A casual CelticsBlog Slack ballot had Hauser as breaded plain, Walsh as ghost pepper, Mykhailiuk as lemon pepper, Brissett as Dinosaur BBQ (a Syracuse inside joke), and Banton as a misplaced pig-in-a-blanket (he’s a PG).

We all know Hauser’s M.O. — he’s a shooter. Banton is extra a slashy level guard with measurement. Brissett is your prototypical 3-and-D undertaking. The rookie Walsh is uncooked with a school calling card as a ferocious defender. The just lately signed Mykhailiuk is a “will shoot, will journey” journeyman scorer after spending 5 seasons on six groups.

None of them are essentially a jack-of-all-trades. Fortunately, the Jays test all these packing containers already. State of affairs will most certainly dictate enjoying time, however for head coach Joe Mazzulla, he might select a participant to dictate the state of affairs. Final season, 5 gamers averaged 11-17 minutes a recreation when referred to as upon: Pritchard, Hauser, Mike Muscala, Blake Griffin, and Luke Kornet. The latter two massive males spelled Horford and Williams, making taking pictures a fringe precedence off the bench.

If spreading the ground is the ninth man’s raison d’être, Hauser might be the plain selection right here. He’s beginning his third season with the Celtics and has chemistry together with his teammates. Tatum infamously mentioned of Hauser throughout coaching camp final October, “he can shoot. Yo, Sam, you possibly can shoot, bro!” He went chilly in the course of the winter months of December and January, however in any other case, he was a Hauser on hearth from behind the arc, hitting practically 42% of his threes final season.

He’ll have competitors although. Myhailiuk arrives in Boston after hitting 42.4% between stints in New York and Charlotte final yr. Extra impressively, Myhailiuk has extra in his bag. Hauser did have a three-dunk game, however Svi’s capacity to work off of screens and off the dribble might make him a extra priceless asset with the second unit.

It is smart to scatter shooters throughout the ground with the offensive expertise Boston boasts. Nevertheless, Stevens clearly needed to beef up the protection, too (or a minimum of restrict that burden on the celebs with Good gone). Enter stage left Walsh and Brissett. My favourite buzzwords after the draft and in Summer season League had been “violent defender.” That’s how Walsh’s former coach at Arkansas, Eric Musselman, described his model of play. He’s nonetheless simply 19-years-old (the place have we heard that phrase earlier than?), however might fill a Tony Allen-sized gap within the rotation. Good position gamers slot in across the stars; nice position gamers make it depressing for opposing stars.

The perfect of each worlds might be Brissett behind Brown and Tatum on the 3. In Brissett’s second and third seasons within the league with the Pacers, he averaged 24 minutes per recreation and shot 37% from behind the arc. Listed below are his shot charts from ‘20-’21 and ‘21-’22:

He’s not precisely a lights out shooter and was worse in smaller sizes (16.7 minutes per recreation, 31% 3FG% final season), however his shot profile initiatives as a participant that is aware of his position: shoot when he’s open and assault closeouts. Defensively, once more, he received’t lock anyone down, however he ought to be capable to maintain his personal towards second items for 4-minute runs to bridge the gaps.

All issues thought-about, there’s additionally that intangible component that turns role players into fan favorites in a single day. It’s hitting 4 straight threes to gasoline a 20-7 run to get again right into a sleepy mid-season slog. It’s that last defensive cease after you’ve performed the whole fourth quarter since you simply have it that evening. Some gamers simply have that magic of their bones. A rookie, two second draft initiatives, a journeyman, and a G-League success story will all get an opportunity to show that they’ve it.