The Celtics front office fleeced the league

How did Boston assemble such an impressive starting five? In this enhanced segment from the Thinking Basketball podcast, Ben and Cody break down the scorching play of Derrick White and Kristaps Porzingis, Boston’s lineup versatility and fit, and how they acquired them and Jrue Holiday to play alongside Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

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Ben Taylor is the author of Thinking Basketball, a Nylon Calculus contributor, creator of the Backpicks Top 40 series & host of the Thinking Basketball podcast.

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Can we take a step back and talk about this Celtics starting lineup and just how good it is where everyone is focused on Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum traditionally for a good reason but basically in the last few years they’ve added Drew they’ve added porzingis and the other guy they’ve added is Derek

White and I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately but Derek white is absolutely balling Cody the he’s he’s just really good and you start on the defensive end with him his ability to get up into people chase them around screens be disruptive switch guard multiple positions and I

Feel like once every game Derek white is doing something that’s like incredibly high IQ sneaky like coming in coming in from behind and stealing an offensive rebound or something like that or he does this Michael Jordan thing where he kind of flies in from the perimeter and

Block shots from behind at the basket he can he can protect the rim that way he can fly over that way and get steals he is just a very slippery sneaky versatile big guard who can protect the rim a little bit play all over the floor and

That’s just sort of like this defensive Baseline that he provides right out of the gate then you have christops porzingis as you mentioned Dro big man protecting the rim uh last year I think in Washington was the best year of his career and he’s picked off right where

He left off in Boston on the offensive side of the court for porzingis the pick and pop game and the fact that they actually can get a little more than just his shooting out of that like you’ll actually see plays with gravity you’ll see plays where two Defenders go to the

Pop and I actually think it was against the Cavs Derek white came down the lane and was the one who ball faked knowing that two Defenders would bite back toward porzingis his shot so you get the IQ of these players working together you get porzingis on the perimeter drawing

Gravity and opening up offense and it all just fits around the Stars really well and they just have this unbelievable starting lineup that goes both ways yeah offensively too and and talking about Christa porzingis I don’t think his three-point percentage is particularly High when you like look at

The last couple years of like his wide open three-point percentage I think it’s probably I thought it was around 35 or so but the volume and the quickness and the release point he has and the fact that he can like the Ryan Anderson and like the 20 late 2010s Rockets where

He’s just able to pull up from like four or five feet behind the line it just makes it like impossible for most big men to try and contest him properly to stay in front front and you know he can sometimes put it on the deck and he gets

In but he’s a lot more comfortable taking that jump shot and that just provides incredible spacing but the other side of that ball is like you have both Drew holiday and Derek white who are very comfortable hanging out like around the paint like there are so many possessions where Drew holiday is just

Like going back and forth between the dunker spots and making plays there like one of my favorite one of my favorite plays of the season is the only two Celtics players that are like within the three-point line maybe there’s someone else hanging out but I think those are

The two m guys are Derek white like in the middle of the paint and the Drew holiday like under the basket and Derrick White gets a pass like in the paint and he immediately does like a high low pass down to Drew holiday who immediately like touch passes it to

Jaylen Brown wide open three story’s over right no Ben story’s not over Brown misses Drew holiday like Tyson Chandler offensive tips it out to Derek white who has now popped out to the three and buries the wide openen three and when you have two like your two smalls your

Two guards are offens rebound high low passing uh kicking out for three unbelievable flexibility especially when your big man’s like propensity is to stand behind the line and like shoot a bunch of Threes they’re just like we talked about how funky like OKC’s offensive construction is and the weird

Things that they can do schematically Boston’s right there with the way that like obviously Tatum and brown we know what they’re able to do but the interplay between these three other guys is just so cool it’s just so cool to watch so in the Cavs game the other day

They started with a more traditional look where they had porzingis guarding Jared Allen and the Cavs had a ton of success with those small guards against this drop coverage that the Celtics were running with porzingis they come back in the second half and Coach Joe maou is

Like you know what we’re GNA do we’re gonna stick Jason Tatum on the center Jared Allen and we’re going to take porzingis we’re going to put him on a non-shooter and so all of a sudden now porzingis can Roam and stay closer to the basket

And so you end up with this uh great sort of cat and- Mouse game where the Celtics have success moving porzingis away from the ball so the Cavs are like man let’s see if we can switch porzingis back on to Jared Allen because we know

The Celtics like to switch see if we can bring him up to set the ball screen again you get the pre- switch where they switch behind the play Keep porzingis low you can only do that Cody because you have Derek white because you have J uh Drew holiday because you have Tatum

And brown all these guys who are big and strong and versatile and I think it makes them a great defense and they fit well on offense like Derek White’s skill sets on offense what’s he really good at making decisions quickly acting very quick release on his shot so he can run

Offense and make decisions like I’m going to drive into that space because of the way the defense is playing and finish with my little scoop touch shot that I have or whatever or if you go under the screen and give me space I can quickly cross and pull up for three

Because I’m comfortable doing that even though I’m not a traditional like offensive self- generator and then attack Closeouts uh when someone else creates an advantage and make good decisions there it all really fits together nicely on both ends for Boston and that starting five is just crushing people right now

I really don’t want to undersell just how good Jason Tatum is though like defensively like you were just talking about you can just throw him on a center and we’ve talked about like Jim corner here big buff dude he’s also like huge like tall dude he’s got some muscle you

Can’t just like Hammer him down into the basket so you’re able to switch him around when use them in these flexible positions you know Derek white probably like the best Rim protecting guard in the NBA the best Rim protecting guard we’ve seen since I don’t even know when

Like he blocks Goa baz like at The Rim and immediately next plays like playing at the nail and he strips like a driver it’s such a flexible Defender right and I’m like I’m the Drew holiday guy and every time I watch drik white I’m like

Oh my God this guy is just like the key to everything that they’re doing out there so this Celtic squad has like a special sauce on both ends of the court and here’s the crazy thing to me we usually don’t talk a lot about transactions on this show but just

Thinking about how this lineup fits together so well from a basketball standpoint got me thinking about how were assembled and it’s kind of crazy because Derek white he was traded from the Spurs to the Celtics for Romeo Langford right who the Celtics drafted and Josh Richardson along with a 2022

First round pick who became Blake Wesley Blake Wesley Josh Richardson Romeo lford turns into Derek white one piece of this 5an unit christops porzingis the Celtics traded Marcus Smart along with a bunch of other peripheral pieces uh to essentially acquire poor zingis and Drew holiday was acquired for uh Malcolm

Brogden Robert Williams and a 2024 first round pick how did the Celtics get Malcolm Brogden Cody the Celtics got Malcolm Brogden for some people I’ve never Malik Fitz Joan Morgan Aaron n Smith was basically the star that trade along with Daniel Ty and a draft pick

That became Julian St for the uh nuggets and then on the white trade when I mentioned they shipped out Josh Richardson for him how did they get Josh Richardson they got Josh Richardson for Moses Brown and mo this is my favorite part of this whole thing Moses Brown was

Part of the trade to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Al Horford so the Celtics were like here you go we got got to get rid of kemell Walker and Al Horford kemell Walker is basically out of the league will throw in a 16th draft pick that actually became alurn shenon by the

Way cool factoid there and then we get Al Horford back so the so the Celtics were like how do we get Derek white we get Derek white by going Moses Brown and Al Horford to later on use that to be the key piece along with Romeo Langford

To get Derek white uh the whole thing is just incredible General managing thanks for listening you can find the full episode of this thinking basketball podcast on Apple podcast Stitcher Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts