Celtics 2025-26 Regular Season Discussion

[Neurotic Guy]

OK, so if they sign Shugla and Tonje on Feb 19, I believe that their prorated contracts would  be about $383,000 each, a little less than Amari.  It works out to be about the same as a series of 10 day contracts.  And there would be enough left over to sign Harper on the last day of the season.

Yikes, is this really what Tatum is going to come back to?

White       Pritchard         Shugla
Hauser     Scheierman     Gonzalez
Brown      Walsh              Harper
Vucevic    Garza              Tonje
Queta      Williams

4 of 14 are glorified G-League level players (Williams, Shugla, Harper, Tonje).  Another 4 (Scheierman, Walsh, Garza, Gonzalez), are not players you would normally see get any playoff minutes.  By my math, that leaves 6 players + Tatum who would/should see regular minutes in the playoffs.

I am having trouble wrapping my head around this.  This will force everyone, including Tatum, to play extended minutes in the playoffs.

I kind of look at it differently, VG...how many players have they really used in the regular season? It's not like they're going to all of a sudden find some playoff guy they can delegate  minutes to. Here's the players who played at least 15 mpg and played at least 25 games for us, plus Vuc who we just traded for, and excluding Minott and Simons who are no longer here:



That's already 10 players...a normal playoff rotation is what, 8 or 9? And the guys like Scheierman, Gonzalez, Walsh, and Garza are part of the reason why we have outperformed this season. If I were Joe and Brad I would see this playoff series as an opportunity to see if they can deliver when the pressure is on, since they will be up for contract extensions in 2027-28, and we would want to see what they deserve to be offered. Why wouldn't you give them playoff minutes on the basis of their performances in the regular season?

This is what I?m thinking.

No reason Walsh, Baylor, Hugo, Garza aren?t getting playoff minutes. They definitely will in round one and we?ll see how they respond to playoff pressure.

[Vermont Green]

This is exactly my worry.  Even guys like Pritchard and Hauser have gotten exposed in past playoffs.  All of Walsh, Scheierman, Hugo, and even Garza have been surprisingly useful in the regular season. I worry how they hold up in the playoffs. 

But this team has been surprising me all season, so who knows. 

[ozgod]

This is exactly my worry.  Even guys like Pritchard and Hauser have gotten exposed in past playoffs.  All of Walsh, Scheierman, Hugo, and even Garza have been surprisingly useful in the regular season. I worry how they hold up in the playoffs. 

But this team has been surprising me all season, so who knows.

I hear you, but I'd much rather know now than in 2027-28 when their vet mins (except for Gonzalez) all expire and they will all be due bigger deals, how much they might be worth 

This is the exciting part of this season and next for me - seeing who of these guys might turn into PP-type mainstays, and who might flame out. In a way it's like buying into a lesser known, but promising, stock and waiting to see how they grow, and when to cut your losses if they don't. If they don't work out the way you want, they can always be packaged to fetch one of those bigger name "playoff guys" you mentioned, because they are young and someone else might take a chance on them.

And obviously it's unrealistic to have no weaknesses in every position in the age of the second apron unless you get lucky in the draft or find a promising, undervalued player - I would argue we have four of those in our roster right now, we just need to find out what their limits are. It's extremely unrealistic to have high priced talent in every position like we did in 2024 and when you do you better be pretty confident you have a really good shot. Look at OKC's roster, other than Shai and Chet and maybe JWill most of them are relative no-names, or were when they were acquired. I think this is how teams have to be built now - the age of buying players at the top of the market isn't really realistic in this salary cap environment.

[Goldstar88]

This is exactly my worry.  Even guys like Pritchard and Hauser have gotten exposed in past playoffs.  All of Walsh, Scheierman, Hugo, and even Garza have been surprisingly useful in the regular season. I worry how they hold up in the playoffs. 

But this team has been surprising me all season, so who knows.

When did Hauser get exposed? He played solid defense against Luka in the Finals. Pritchard is just small, so there?s not much he can do about it.

[Silas]

This is exactly my worry.  Even guys like Pritchard and Hauser have gotten exposed in past playoffs.  All of Walsh, Scheierman, Hugo, and even Garza have been surprisingly useful in the regular season. I worry how they hold up in the playoffs. 

But this team has been surprising me all season, so who knows.

When did Hauser get exposed? He played solid defense against Luka in the Finals. Pritchard is just small, so there?s not much he can do about it.

Howser has morfed into the best ISO Defender on the Celtics this season and one of the best in the league.  Opponents average just 0.68 points per play against him in isolation which is the best mark among all regular Celtics rotation players.

Check out these stats on Sam:

- 100th Percentile In Fewest PPP Given Up On ISOs (Min. 40 ISO Possessions Guarded)
- 84th Percentile In Corner 3PT% (Min. 50 Total Corner 3PA)
- 83rd Percentile In Most PPP On Off-Ball Screen Actions (Min. 50 Off-Ball Screen Possessions)
- 82nd Percentile In Most PPP On Spot Up Shots (Min. 100 Spot Up Possessions)
- 82nd Percentile In 3PT% (Min. 200 Total 3PA)
- 73rd Percentile In Tightly Contested 3PT% (2-4 Feet From Closest Defender)
- 73rd Percentile In Catch & Shoot 3PT% (Min. 100 Total C&S 3PA)
- 69th Percentile In Most PPP On Handoffs (Min. 30 Handoff Possessions)

[Vermont Green]

This is exactly my worry.  Even guys like Pritchard and Hauser have gotten exposed in past playoffs.  All of Walsh, Scheierman, Hugo, and even Garza have been surprisingly useful in the regular season. I worry how they hold up in the playoffs. 

But this team has been surprising me all season, so who knows.

When did Hauser get exposed? He played solid defense against Luka in the Finals. Pritchard is just small, so there?s not much he can do about it.

Maybe exposed is too strong a word.  But players like Hauser (just for example) tend to be less productive in the playoffs as compared to the regular season, particularly on the road.  Just to reference one data point, Hauser was 41.7% from 3 in the regular season last season and dropped down to 33.3% in the playoffs.  I am not saying Hauser is a bad player, he is just in the tier of player that tends to have some drop off in the playoffs relative to the regular season.  There is better competition, more pressure, and so on.

With the players like Walsh, and the others, they have been better in the regular season than I expected, that is for sure.  But they have all shown inconsistency also, which is perfectly expected in this tier of player.  Come playoffs, it is going to be even harder for them.  In the regular season, you can live with some ups and downs with players like this, in the playoffs, not so much.

I get the argument that since this can be considered kind of a gap season, why not throw them out there and see what they can do.  Let them learn from this.  No reason not to.  No real other option at this point, unless they magically sign some useful vet (or 2) on the last day of the season.  My point is that I find it astounding that this is what a team needs to do in order to avoid cap penalties.  Sign G-Leaguers on the last possible date in order to keep team salary down.