Please Keep Doubting and Other News

Most people, media and otherwise, have decided the Celtics are going to suck this year. Coach Joe Mazzulla is going to need a really, really large bulletin board to keep track of it all. One that really stuck out to me was John Schumann at NBA.com, whose work I greatly respect, ranked them 12th in his offseason East power rankings. Twelfth! In other words, easily one of the eight to 10 worst teams in the NBA. I understand the temptation, I really do. The media wants that new new at all times, something that will get people to tune in, buy a paper, click a link. But to suggest that the Celtics have gone from a top five team to a bottom five team defies logic, because of the three leading guys still there.

Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard have not ever had a losing season. Ever. Jaylen's high school records at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Ga. 17-11, 19-9, 28-6, and 30-3. Their national rank, via MaxPreps.com, progressed from 1,688 when JB was a freshman, to 495, 152, and finally 42 in his senior year. They dropped back to 374 the season after he left. JB then went on to Cal, where he led them to a 23-11 record, and their first NCAA tourney berth in three seasons. They have not made it back to the tourney in the nine seasons since JB left. Obviously, he hasn't had a losing season as a Celtic.

Pritchard hasn't either, and he has an even longer track of success as an amateur. His high school team famously won the Oregon state championship all four years he was in high school, and then he went to the University of Oregon, where his teams went 33-6, 23-13, 25-13, and 24-7. They made the Final Four in his freshman season (where they lost to UNC by one point) and the Sweet 16 in his junior season (Pritchard played the whole game, and led the team in rebounds).

Derrick White has experienced precious little losing, even when in Division II. In the 11 seasons before White reached the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs, they had just one winning season. In his final two seasons there, the team went 21-9 and then 27-6, before White transferred to the Division I University of Colorado - Boulder, to a team that would go 19-15. He even had winning records in his first two seasons in San Antonio. The Spurs were close to free fall at this point, just not with White: 32-36 with White in the lineup in 2019-2020, 18-16 in 2020-2021, and 19-29 in 2021-2022 when he was mercifully traded to Boston, where he's been a winner ever since.

To suggest that with these three players leading the C's that they will be a losing outfit strains logic. These guys have experienced nothing but winning, and with them on the docket for 35 minutes per game, the Celtics are going to be just fine.

Are the Celtics going to win the NBA title this season? No, they're not. Are they going to be worse than the Chicago Bulls and the Toronto Raptors, as Schumann suggested? Not a chance. Marc Stein's readers poll was a little more realistic, as that had the C's at ninth, and nipping at the heels of seventh and eighth.

I think the question for the C's is will they be in the play-in or can they sneak into the top six. But I have a very hard time envisioning them having a losing season. If they had traded Anfernee Simons for nothing, then maybe I could lend credence to them really bottoming out. But it seems that that is not going to be the case, that they're going to roll with him into the season, and look to move either him or Sam Hauser at the trade deadline to duck under the luxury tax altogether. In the meantime (and beyond), I think expecting a losing culture to permeate this organization is just not on the table. Though I welcome people to keep doubting them!

Neemias Queta Does Well at Eurobasket

Another reason to expect the team to be above .500 this season? I think Neemias Queta is ready to be a starting center in the NBA. He performed admirably at EuroBasket, helping get his Portugal team into the Round of 16, which I believe is a first. It was certainly unexpected.

For the tourney, Queta ranked sixth in FG% (.576), 20th in points per game (15.5), 27th in total points (93), 12th in rebounds per game (8.0), and third in blocks per game (1.7). They also have a stat called Efficiency per game, and he finished 13th in that. I don't really know what that stat measures specifically, but it has to be a good thing to do well in it, and in that stat and many of the others, he beat out guys who have spent a long time starting in the NBA like Jonas Valunciunas, Jusuf Nurkic, and Daniel Theis. He had two double-doubles. Kristaps Porzingis had one. He averaged more rebounds than Valunciunas, Nurkic, Theis, Deni Avdija, Santi Aldama, Franz Wagner, and Simone Fontecchio.

While EuroBasket is really high level competition that the countries take super seriously, Queta was also quietly very good in the NBA last season. Last season, 375 players played at least 500 minutes. Queta's .674 true shooting percentage ranked 11th, one spot behind Luke Kornet at .683. Kornet got a lot of attention because he's goofy and people love him, but Queta basically performed just as well. Per 36 minutes, Kornet put up 11.7 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks. Queta put up 12.9 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks. And Queta's .754 free-throw percentage outpaced Kornet's .691. Can you make the argument that Kornet's minutes came in higher leverage situations? Absolutely. Which is why Queta's performance at EuroBasket was so key. And he showed that he can hang with the best there.

I don't think there's any question that Queta will start for the C's this year, and I don't think his spot will be a question mark. The four spot? Yeah, the C's are going to have to figure out if they want the shooting of Sam Hauser there, or the length of Luka Garza, Chris Boucher, or even Josh Minott. Or if they want to start all of Payton Pritchard, Anfernee Simons, and Derrick White, and play JB at the four. If not, they're also going to have to figure out who comes off the bench – Pritchard or Simons. But I don't think that center is a question. I think it's Neemy's spot.

Pablo Torre Finds Out that Steve Ballmer and Kawhi Leonard Are Assholes

Shocker. The eighth-richest person on the planet and the guy who popularized load management and never talks to the media are assholes who don't care about the rules? I feel shocked!

Pablo Torre's initial reporting left the LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard a little wiggle room of deniability, but the deluge of reporting since leaves no doubt that they're guilty. It's probably going to take the league awhile to untangle this mess, but when they do, they need to be punished accordingly.

Punishment Suggestions for the Clippers

The one other time the salary cap was circumvented was by the Minnesota Timberwolves way back, in their pursuit of Joe Smith. The NBA voided that contract before it began. This situation is different. One, Leonard has played several seasons already with the Clippers. Second, just voiding Leonard's contract would be doing the Clippers a big favor. He's no longer worth what he's being paid, and to open up that room for them under the salary cap would let them aggressively pursue other superstars. So I don't think that can be done in a vacuum.

I also don't think wiping away their draft picks is meaningful or sufficient. For starters, they don't have a ton of those, and second, teams can always acquire draft picks. It takes real attention to detail to figure out whose draft picks are whose these days.

There are some appropriate punishments. Here are three I would suggest:

• The LA Clippers lose the right to host this season's All-Star Game, as well as any All-Star Game in the next decade. Why should you get rewarded with jewel events when you're cheating? If all Ballmer cares about is money, then taking away one of his best revenue opportunities in his new building is a punishment with teeth.
• Void Kawhi Leonard's contract, so that he becomes a free agent (where he'd have to sign for much less), but also keep that money on the books for the Clippers, and not allow them to use the roster spot either. In other words, he still counts on the books, but the Clippers can't have his services.
• The Clippers should have all the second apron penalties applied to them for at least five seasons. This is the easiest penalty to enact, and I think anything short of this really lets the Clippers off the hook. A big reason to break the rules is to skirt these penalties. These penalties weren't necessarily on the books when they started all of this cheating, but people in team front offices knew something like them would be coming.

Do I expect any of this? No, not at all. In fact, I think the NBA's investigation will take so long as to make it logistically infeasible to move the All-Star Game. But I think we're well past the point of "will the Clippers be punished?" and into the territory of "how will they be punished."

Should Kawhi Leonard Lose the Privilege of Being in the Basketball Hall Of Fame?

Unsurprisingly, Kawhi Leonard hasn't said a peep as his name gets run through the mud. If he shows for Media Day to kick off training camp, I suppose he'll have to say something then, but I certainly am not expecting him to give a full-throated defense of himself. Whether he does concerns me less than this question – should Kawhi Leonard still be a Hall of Famer?

For the record, I've never liked Leonard, and have long thought he was extremely overrated, so I'm a little biased here. As I said above, he instituted load management, which has been bad not just for the NBA but for college and pro sports in general. I think it's been one of the most destructive and divisive things to happen in sports this century, and I don't think his role in it should be minimized. And I think there are holes to poke in his Hall of Fame resume as well, even among his best career exploits. And certainly, he's done absolutely nothing Hall-worthy from a team perspective in his time with the Clippers.

Putting all of that aside, being party to what he's alleged of in this scandal is pretty despicable, especially the part about his uncle demanding payments like a mob lieutenant while Aspiration was laying people and struggling to make payroll for the employees they had left. There's not a lot of wiggle room to spin Leonard's involvement in any of that in a positive light, if any.

It's especially onerous because it was done specifically to circumvent the NBA salary cap. There has to be harsh consequences for Leonard as well as the team, and I can't think of any consequence more damaging than taking away his legacy as a Hall of Famer.

Now do Jalen and Rick Brunson.

Malcolm Brogdon is The Cooler

Speaking of the Knicks, they recently signed Malcolm Brogdon, and with that signing, all of my many, many, many good vibes for the Knicks' offseason went out the window. Brogdon seems like a great guy off the court, but in the NBA, his teams have almost universally done better after he leaves. Brogdon played his first three seasons with the Bucks. His final season, they went 60-22, earned the one seed, and they reached the conference finals. They then dealt him in-division to the Pacers for three draft picks. The Bucks would go 56-17 and lose in the conference semis the following season, but the season after they won the NBA Finals. Brogdon was never missed, and since the effect of him leaving has been more immediate.

Brogdon would play three seasons in Indiana. In his final season there, 2021-2022, they went 25-57. Brogdon was only able to suit up for 36 games, but had the second highest Usage % on the team when he did play. The following season, Indiana improved by 10 wins, to 35-47, as the team more irrevocably became Tyrese Haliburton's. Two seasons later, they'd nearly win the NBA Finals. Brogdon was never missed.

Brogdon would then go to Boston, where he helped stabilize the bench...right up until they really needed him in the conference finals, and then he disappeared/got hurt. In his seven playoff series' prior to the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals, Brogdon's eFG% was .491, .482, .563, .536, .469, .500, and .572. But when he was needed against the Heat? A dreadful .346. And when Jayson Tatum turned his ankle on the first play of Game 7, and the C's needed someone to step up, was it Brogdon? No, it was not. He played seven minutes in the first half and then pulled himself out of the game. Boston didn't forget it, and shipped him out as soon as they could. They won the NBA Finals the next season. Brogdon was never missed.

The team he was traded to, the Portland Trailblazers, also only endured Brogdon for a single season. In that 2023-2024 season, they went 21-61. The Blazers have four seasons with 21 or fewer wins. Two were their second and third season in the NBA back in the 1970's, one was 2005-2006, and one was 2023-2024. That Portland team looked directionless, but the following summer they traded Brogdon to Washington for Deni Avdija, and doing so gave them more structure and talent. They improved by 15 wins last season, to 36-46, and briefly threatened to get into the play-in (I think they will this season). Brogdon was never missed.

Brogdon spent last season on the Washington Wizards. The Wizards have certainly not covered themselves in glory the past four-plus decades, but they really bottomed out the past two seasons. Last season, with Brogdon suiting up for just 24 games, the went 18-64. That's a winning percentage of .220. It was .250 in the games Brogdon played, as they would go 6-18 in his 24 games. His contract was up at the end of the season, and there was no talk of the Wizards re-signing him. I don't know if the Wizards will win more games this season (if I had to bet, I'd say yes, and peg them in the mid-20's), but either way, it is extremely unlikely that Brogdon will be missed.

Has Malcolm Brogdon spent the last seven seasons as an innocent victim of circumstance? I mean, I suppose it's possible. But I doubt it. Even when he was here in Boston and playing on a winning team, there was just a little too much "me first" to Brogdon. It was never overt, he was certainly willing to pass the ball. And it helped that he came along after Dennis Schroder, who ground just about every possession to a halt in his brief time with the Celtics. But Brogdon certainly ground plenty of them to a halt himself, and they often ended with him putting up off-balance running floaters in traffic that had little hope of doing anything other than drawing a shooting foul. It's OK when your two best players do that. It's not OK when you're fifth, sixth, or seventh-best player does that on a consistent basis.

On the Knicks, Brogdon will slot comfortably in behind Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson, Miles McBride, and Guerschon Yabusele in the pecking order. In other words, no better than ninth. He may slot in lower than Jordan Clarkson as well. Is he capable of being that guy? Brogdon has had a Usage % better than 20% in each of the past seven seasons. Overall, his 23.7% Usage % ranks 69th out of 311 players who have played at least 5,000 minutes in that timeframe. That's basically second or third most on a team. For seven straight years.

On the one hand, you could say that it's great that the Knicks scooped up a quality player like that on a minimum salary. On the other hand, the Knicks until now have revolved so much of their offense around Brunson that when he leaves the game, the other four starters want to eat. How will they react if Brogdon comes in and he wants the ball instead of them? Poorly, is my guess. Because Malcolm Brogdon is as close to the cooler as you can get in the NBA.