Chris Mannix: Worried about Porzingis

[jpotter33]

The injury concerns are real, as well as the concern about a change from a defensive identify, but the “talent loss” argument is non-sense. As big of a fan of Smart as I was, adding KP and losing Smart and GWill is absolutely still a gain in overall talent.

The concern about last year being a contract year is fair, I guess, but in the same vein I think the fact that KP will have so much less attention on him now as the third option should also be considered. He should have significantly more open looks now than he ever has on his previous teams.

Lastly, let’s also not forget that losing Smart is an opportunity gain for more White, which I think is another plus for us, especially with another weapon in KP to assist to and provide spacing for him.

[cman88]

The injury concerns are real, as well as the concern about a change from a defensive identify, but the “talent loss” argument is non-sense. As big of a fan of Smart as I was, adding KP and losing Smart and GWill is absolutely still a gain in overall talent.

The concern about last year being a contract year is fair, I guess, but in the same vein I think the fact that KP will have so much less attention on him now as the third option should also be considered. He should have significantly more open looks now than he ever has on his previous teams.

Lastly, let’s also not forget that losing Smart is an opportunity gain for more White, which I think is another plus for us, especially with another weapon in KP to assist to and provide spacing for him.

Generally in the NBA if you end up with the more talented player you win the trade.

Two 15ppg players (and that's being generous to grant) isn't the same as one 23ppg player.

The injury concerns are real. BUT talent wise Celtics got the best talent back. Grant is a roleplayer who could t find the court and there's an argument to be made that smart was the lesser of the three of white/smart/brogdon

Essentially it's easier to find a smart or grant Williams than a Porzingas. The only concern I have is injury.

His stats may take a hit sharing the court with Tatum/brown but his efficiency should be the same or better being that he's a 3rd option.

[Neurotic Guy]

The injury concerns are real, as well as the concern about a change from a defensive identify, but the “talent loss” argument is non-sense. As big of a fan of Smart as I was, adding KP and losing Smart and GWill is absolutely still a gain in overall talent.

The concern about last year being a contract year is fair, I guess, but in the same vein I think the fact that KP will have so much less attention on him now as the third option should also be considered. He should have significantly more open looks now than he ever has on his previous teams.

Lastly, let’s also not forget that losing Smart is an opportunity gain for more White, which I think is another plus for us, especially with another weapon in KP to assist to and provide spacing for him.

Generally in the NBA if you end up with the more talented player you win the trade.

Two 15ppg players (and that's being generous to grant) isn't the same as one 23ppg player.

The injury concerns are real. BUT talent wise Celtics got the best talent back. Grant is a roleplayer who could t find the court and there's an argument to be made that smart was the lesser of the three of white/smart/brogdon

Essentially it's easier to find a smart or grant Williams than a Porzingas. The only concern I have is injury.

His stats may take a hit sharing the court with Tatum/brown but his efficiency should be the same or better being that he's a 3rd option.

Generous to Smart too. He's 10ppg career and 11.5 last year. Grant was 8ppg.

[gouki88]

Talent downgrade? Was he hammered or something?

I'm also less worried about the loss of 'defensive identity' than some others. Porzingis is one of the best drop coverage defenders in the entire league, Smart's defence was really hit or miss last season, and Grant is quite overrated on D. I don't think we've lost our identity on that end, just that it's changed.

Horford will be able to take less of a load, which should allow him to zero in on contributing to winning, same with Rob. White & Brogdon were both better than Smart for the majority of last season. Walsh looks a lot better than most of us thought. Hauser & Pritchard are both more capable of contributing than they were last season.

Mannix is a dud analyst

[Big333223]

Mannix Schmannix.

This. Mannix is a hack.

[Smartacus]

Mannix Schmannix.

Pure gold 

[Smartacus]

The Boston blog scene have too much time on their hands and they just end up sitting around fretting.

They need to report. They need to write something or tape a segment, and most importantly they need it to be something that gets views or clicks. The internet rewards negative post more highly than positive so whether they mean to or not, these bloggers are conditioned to post more doom and gloom content without a firm basis in reality.

Is Schmannix really worried about the post Smart/Grant Celtics or is he just another guy whose tasted national media attention and will spend the rest of his career chasing those sweet mentions, follows, and clicks?

[Who]

It is interesting to see the negative views of Mannix. Not just in terms of these opinions but in general. I don't follow him but I remember 10-15 years ago he was regarded highly by many Celtics fans. One of the better clued in national writers about the Cs and generally favourable to the Cs unlike most other national writers. I think he was with Sports Illustrated back then.

[GreenEnvy]

Meh. I think White replaces Smart’s effectiveness. Then Brogdon and Pritchard need to step up.

Grant had his moments, but overall he was a mediocre role player. He’s serviceable but replaceable (Walsh?).

Porzingis should get better looks than he’s probably ever gotten. He was good in NY, misused in Dallas, and great in Washington. He’s very versatile on offense and a rim protector on defense. If healthy, I believe we are noticeably better with Porzingis and Brogdon over Smart and Grant.

I don’t think Brad planned on including Smart for Porzingis, but had to pivot. And he accumulated a lot of movable assets for another move that has yet to present itself. Should it, I think we can say the 2024 Celtics are markedly improved over the 2023 version.

[byennie]

Of course there are risks involved, but the talent comment is just bad, lazy analysis.

Zinger was a top-5 center last year with 23ppg on 50/39/85 splits. He was 9th in blocks and 14th in FTM in the league.

Smart is a starting caliber role player and GWill is a borderline starter who wasn't even in our playoff rotation. Neither will ever make a single All-Star game in their career or be better than the 3rd or 4th best player on a roster... at best.

Will it work out? Who knows. A lot of things can go wrong. But talent downgrade is not the issue.

[makaveli]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71sWua6uJzg

Interesting 12min youtube clip where Chris Mannix and others talk (first 7min of clip) about their concerns with the Porzingis trade. Mannix has three main concerns:

12min clip = first 7min is Porzingis talk. Then 3-4min of Embiid trade talk. Then 2min of Jordan Walsh to finish.

(1) It was essentially a Smart + G-Will swap for Porzingis. Mannix does not think that makes Boston better. Someone else on the panel agreed. They feel the squad is less talented now than the end of last season.

(2) Porzingis had his best year last year but Mannix worries was it a contract year bump type season. Can Porzinigis maintain it? Will he fall off? Unknown and that worries Mannix.

(3) Porzingis was much healthier last year than he has been over the last 3-4 years or whatever it was. This increases Boston's risk. Their injury risk. This worries Mannix as well.

A fourth point raised by the woman on the panel (I do not know her name) talks about how Boston lost some of their defensive identity last year and worries that this takes Boston further away from that. Further away from the core identity that led them to the Finals in 2022.

They liked the assistant coaching changes. Legit help for Mazzula.

We had defensive identity? Really?

[celts55]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71sWua6uJzg

Interesting 12min youtube clip where Chris Mannix and others talk (first 7min of clip) about their concerns with the Porzingis trade. Mannix has three main concerns:

12min clip = first 7min is Porzingis talk. Then 3-4min of Embiid trade talk. Then 2min of Jordan Walsh to finish.

(1) It was essentially a Smart + G-Will swap for Porzingis. Mannix does not think that makes Boston better. Someone else on the panel agreed. They feel the squad is less talented now than the end of last season.

(2) Porzingis had his best year last year but Mannix worries was it a contract year bump type season. Can Porzinigis maintain it? Will he fall off? Unknown and that worries Mannix.

(3) Porzingis was much healthier last year than he has been over the last 3-4 years or whatever it was. This increases Boston's risk. Their injury risk. This worries Mannix as well.

A fourth point raised by the woman on the panel (I do not know her name) talks about how Boston lost some of their defensive identity last year and worries that this takes Boston further away from that. Further away from the core identity that led them to the Finals in 2022.

They liked the assistant coaching changes. Legit help for Mazzula.

We had defensive identity? Really?

Exactly what I was thinking. The Celtics lacked defensive intensity and played soft the entire year. Smart did not play well defensively most of the year and Grant spent more time complaining than playing.
I don’t necessarily agree that they couldn’t have kept Williams if they wanted to, but I’m not buying they wanted to.
Would like to see them add a wing and a big to the bench, but I think they have a few options that might just surprise people.
Anyway, anyone who thinks they are not better with Porzingis is crazy in my opinion

[Surferdad]

Mannix Schmannix.

This. Mannix is a hack.

Yeah saw the title of the clip on YouTube and purposely didn't click on it. Mannix "worried", lol. Cheer up dude. 

[PAOBoston]

(1) It was essentially a Smart + G-Will swap for Porzingis. Mannix does not think that makes Boston better. Someone else on the panel agreed. They feel the squad is less talented now than the end of last season.

I keep seeing this and it is annoying. It was not Smart+Williams got Porzingis. Smart was traded for Porzingis plus picks. That’s it. That’s the deal. They let Williams go. If anything,  Horford now replaces Williams on the bench. It’s silly people keep saying this.

[Vermont Green]

Based on this discussion, I got curious about ranking the top "bigs" in the league and where Porzingis ranks.  The definition of "big" can be somewhat subjective but for my analysis, I took only players that are clearly a PF or a C as their natural position, no swings or any other marginal interpretation of position.  To get the list, I went to traditional player stats for 2022-23 regular season.  I filtered for GP>50 and REB>8.  Then I ranked by PTS/GM.  The resulting list was not perfect, it included Doncic, Tatum, and LeBron, who I sorted out as not bigs, but the remaining 30 or so I felt were clearly bigs.  Here is the list or the top 10 (again, ranked on scoring):

Embiid
Giannis
Davis
Markkanen
Randle
Jokic
Porzingis
Adebayo
Sabonis
Ayton

I went through the next 11-25 or so to pick outliers that may warrant making a top 15.  Towns didn't make the sort due to games.  Siakam only had 7.8 rebs.  Capela and Gobert don't score like some of the others but excel in defense and rebounding.  And I added Vucevic as he was 11th by the original sort and I didn't see anyone else who would clearly bump him.  So the remaining 5 are:

Vucevic
Towns
Siakam
Gobert
Capela

I think that is a fair top 15 list of bigs.  Most teams still start 2 bigs, but not all.  The main question is, where does Porzingis rank on this list.  I think of it as who would I rather have on the Celtics in place of Porzingis for the next 1-3 season.  Durability is a factor to consider.  Contract can be kept out of it (most of these have pretty big contracts anyway).  I know Zion is a consideration but I kept him out, he can be considered though if you would rather have him for the next 1-3 seasons than Porzingis.

My list of for sure better are:

Embiid
Giannis
Jokic

That is it.  Then there is a list of "about the same":

Davis
Markkanen
Towns
Adebayo
(Zion)

I have Porzingis in the 4-8 range of all bigs.  Maybe 5-10.  That essentially means we are going to have the best big on the floor most of the time, maybe as much as 25 of 30.  Durability is the biggest concern with Porzingis but many of these top bigs have that concern also.  Jokic is pretty amazing in that regard.  He has been extremely durable, part of why he is really the #1 big of all of them.