BOSTON — The Celtics held their media day on Monday at Auerbach Center with appearances from Jayson Tatum, Joe Mazzulla, Brad Stevens and the rest of Boston’s roster.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the day so far.
- Stevens said the Celtics are healthy aside from Tatum’s Achilles tear.
- Stevens, who mentioned playing to the roster’s strengths multiple times over the summer, said: “My job and the front office’s job is to put the roster together and then communicate the strengths of the individuals that we see, and then the coaches’ jobs is to put styles, systems, etc. to maximize those strengths. I talk a lot more about what each person brings to the table. I think that we have a lot of guys that are unproven, and so with that comes great opportunity. The best way for them to get to the point of being impactful players is to really soar with those strengths, and so making sure that we communicate well across our whole organization what we see as the value that each person can bring and then letting the coaches do their job, which is create systems and styles and determine how best to maximize those strengths.”
- Stevens expressed that the Celtics were fortunate and lucky to acquire Anfernee Simons and Georges Niang in their Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis trades, and that the conversation to move Niang to Utah was difficult: “(Simons) is an electric scorer. He’s an outstanding shooter. He is a guy that teams will legitimately be thinking about when they enter the game. That’s a scouting report, asteriks guy, you have to know him inside and out, because he’s liable to go off. His passing has been pretty good throughout his career, and his ability to create and see, so you hope as a guy gets to be 26-years-old now, that he continues to grow in all those areas. We’re really gonna challenge him to be himself, number one, be aggressive and just try to grow and accentuate the people around him on both sides of the court.”
- Mazzulla downplayed any notion of a competition between Simons and Payton Pritchard for a starting job: “I see what you did there, build that correlation between Payton and Anfernee, which I’m sure you’ll try to do the entire season, so I’ll nip that in the bud immediately, those two don’t go hand-and-hand, they’re completely different guys. As far as Payton, the expectation is he’s going to grow as a player all the time. That’s just what he does, at the same time I think expectations, they change night-in and night-out. I think the most important thing is being open minded to having an understanding of how you impact the game on a nightly basis and what gives us the best chance to win that night. As far as his wholistic development, Payton’s done a great job of balancing his game out. You’ve seen every year he’s taken something and gotten better at it. I expect he’ll do the same this year. At the same time, if it calls for scoring, he can do that. If it calls for defense, he can do that. So just whatever we need on any given night, he’s able to give us.”
- Mazzulla on Simons: “Excited to have him. He’s been in this league a long time and he’s shown he can do some things. Just brings another piece to our team, to our roster and again, the message is the same. Don’t put yourself in a box about how you can impact the game, you need to be able to impact it in different ways and you have to have balance and have to be able to go to different things on different nights and just understanding that and making sure he plays with the utmost confidence, because what he can bring to us is important.”
- Simons didn’t know what to expect from being traded after spending seven seasons with the Trail Blazers, but was excited about joining a winning culture that can help his career. He and Mazzulla had an open conversation about his defense: “We’ve talked about it. It’s just a matter of if I want to do it or not. It’s really that simple. Coming into a culture like this, you have to be able to adapt, or you’re not gonna be in the positions that you want to be whether it’s playing or not playing. To me, it’s really that simple and that’s the honest conversations we had about it. He always says, you’re not as bad as people think you are, and so that’s good to hear, but I gotta do the work to get better at that end and focus on exactly what we need to do on the defensive end. I’m pretty excited about being pushed to a new level.”
- Pritchard re-affirmed he doesn’t care if he starts or comes off the bench, and is using it as a leadership point to have teammates follow how he approaches his role: “It does not matter to me, starting or coming off the bench, that’s something that I have no control over. That’s Joe’s decision, but my only mindset is when I touch that floor, I bring my best. So if I am starting, I’m ready for that and if I’m coming off the bench, I’m not gonna be sour about it and hang my head. It’s, when my number’s called, I’m ready, and that really should be the mindset of this whole team. People are gonna be asked to do different things each night. Some guys are gonna be asked to maybe not play as much and how can you show up as a teammate? It’s another way of being a leader. Throughout all that, if Joe’s gonna ask me to come off the bench one game, start one game, keep the same attitude and approach.”
- Tatum said he’s in a really good spot but he does not feel any pressure to return sooner than when he’s fully ready, but teammates have been impressed by his progression. Sam Hauser said: “He’s working his tail off and ever since I’ve been back in Boston. He’s in early, he’s the last one out. He’s doing everything he can to try to get back and play as soon as possible. We don’t know when that’s gonna be, but hopefully it’s this season. He’s doing everything he can in his power to get back to feeling good and feeling himself and it’s been pretty inspiring to watch, and it makes you want to do a little bit more on the court when you’re seeing him putting in all this extra work and recovery and treatment. So it’s been good.”