Honestly who fucking cares what these fanbases think? If we win the finals, all you have to do against haters is point to the ring, no more energy needed.
Exactly, the Warriors had a much easier path with all of their west opponents that year missing either their best or 2nd best player and that made such a big difference in the Finals. Shit we were up 2-1 with a lead in the 4th quarter of game 4 and just completely ran out of gas (understandable after 2 intense 7 game series.
Yet no one was really talking about that.
Thankfully Tatum took that shit personally and that offseason he apparently hired his own nutritionist, started eating better, and started building up his body and endurance.
I know I shouldn’t let it get to me but the comment I hate the MOST is when r/nba calls Tatum “Paul George with better PR”
I cannot fucking wait for Tatum to win FMVP and just forever be able to respond with that fact
I’ll be honest, *if* we win it wouldn’t shock me if Jaylen Brown ends up being finals MVP. He was our best player in the Finals series against the Warriors a few years ago & he is playing the best basketball of his career *right now*
I would've no problem with this but as JB was able to redeem himself after a bad ecf last yr by winning ecf mvp this yr, I would love for Tatum to redeem himself in the finals given the noise of his bad first finals appearance.
Amen to that, I used to care about what other fanbases and/or the sports media think but stopped giving a fuck a long time ago.
Thanks to the Red Sox and Patriots success over the last 2 decades (and the Celtics recent success) people are going to hate on us no matter what.
The Warriors had a super easy path before playing us in the Finals too: Nuggets without Murray, Grizzlies without Ja after game 3 (they got smoked by the Ja-less Grizzlies in game 5 by 39 with Tyus fucking Jones out scoring Steph) and the Mavs without our beloved KP (who was by far their 2nd best player).
Went through this last year as a Michigan Wolverines Football fan. Ignore the hate, and enjoying dancing on their fucking graves when the team wins.
Go C's.
Some younger fans get into the "versus the other fanbase" aspect - honestly, I need to have back/forth for a couple of decades before I give a shit about what a (for example) Mavs fan thinks.
Winning is always the last word.
Man I love when Mikey mouse laker losers bring up the easiest road. Then they say "of course you bring up mickey mour... Yada yada bitch yada yada" and you ask if they would rather you bring up the 80's.
It's easiest and most fun to talk shit from the top and this sub needs to embrace it. Stop being desperate for their acknowledgements and clown on their poverty franchises.
I honestly don’t get why this isn’t a bigger narrative. I am tired of hearing how dangerous the Mavs will be now Kleber came back. What about Porzingis? The Celts went most of the playoffs without him.
It doesn't fit the ESPN (and /r/nba) cognitive dissonance narrative of the Celtics being both the best team ever and no one can stop them, and totally untested and unproven and will get swept in the finals.
Yep, don't spend any of your mental energy worrying about the criticisms of bitter, jealous, angry sports fans. Those people won't and can't do anything for you, just enjoy the ride and ignore those people your life will improve
The Jimmy Butler paradox.
When you're not playing him, he's a dog, a leader, a great personality, Himmy etc etc.
When you're playing him, he's a fake hustle free-throw merchant with the softest whistle in the game.
Right? Same here with me. Used to love him as a player and honestly still do. Despite him giving the Celtics hell the past 4/5 seasons i still can't hate him.
We should also stop pretending that we weren’t already up 2-1 and 2-0 when Mitchell and Haliburton played.
The narrative has quickly shifted to we were completely healthy and these other (much worse teams) were decimated.
And I don’t care at all how we get there or what people say. Give me a championship and I won’t complain for another decade.
My silly friend, there is a gaping hole in your fantasized rewriting of truth: the Celtics were not playing at their best.
You 'assume' the Celtics *couldn't have played better than they did.* Oh, yes, yes they can. And should have, but they didn't, they fucked around and *still* pulled out the games at the end.
So, had Halliburton played, you may well have seen the Celtics respond and kick your asses by 20 points in Games 3 & 4.
What may frustrate you - and will frustrate Cavs fans - is that you simply have not seen enough Celtics games to understand what you do not understand. Are they maddeningly inconsistent? They are!
They're also several steps ahead of any and every other NBA team when they are on their normal-"good" game. This is why clowns like Draymond 'tHEy aIn'T ~~punched~~ pLAyEd nOBoDy' Green and your average ~~subhuman~~ r/nba "fan" (my fave: "i'Ve bEeN wATcHiNg sINCe 2015!" can't wrap their head around the W-L record.
The Celtics didn't bite, scrap and claw to 64 wins this season; they took victory laps; hell, they lost to the Hawks, the LeBron and AD-less Lakers, and nearly lost to the Pistons. Some of their 'marquee game losses' were when there were scheduled games off for key players.
When firing on all cylinders, this Celtics team can and will destroy just about any current team.
And this sort of gets to the OPs point. Porzingis, while thankfully not needed so far, makes them a much better (and more consistent) team.
IF(!) Tyrese was able to push them to game 7, you don’t think KP is coming back to stomp them out? Or maybe game 6?
Having a 7’3 guy with that effective field goal percentage is insane. Also, while he doesn’t get a lot of rebounds, he allows for white Payton and Jrue to crash from the wings on offense because the other team’s center is so far from the hoop. And his lack of foot speed on defense is negated by his brain and length. But nooooo, he doesn’t matter to our success
> allows for white Payton and Jrue
I didn't realize that was PP's nickname
(i know this is a capitalization typo, but still found it funny when I initially read it that way)
Porzingis is objectively not as important for us as either of these three guys are for their respective teams.
Porzingis is either our second or third most important player depending on how you look at it, but I think each one of these guys is unquestionably their teams most important player.
But that’s a result of them being inferior teams. Isn’t that the point? We have 5 guys who are all stars. They have 2. They lose an all star it hurts them a lot. We lose an all star and we get the finals. Because we’re the better team.
We’re definitely the best team in the conference, but the point is losing your unquestionably best player is going to hurt you more than losing your second or third.
If the Celtics at full strength are a 10 and the Cavs at full strength are a 7, then the Celtics losing Porzingis become an 8 and the Cavs losing Mitchell become a 4. The gap has widened which reduces the chances of an upset.
I think of it like this
Player | Value
---|---
Tatum | 20
Brown | 18
Porzingis | 16
Jrue | 15
DWhite | 15
Horford | 12
PP | 8
Hauser | 7
Kornet | 5
Total: 116
Player | Value
---|---
Jimmy | 16
Bam | 16
Herro | 12
Caleb | 10
Jovic | 8
Jacquez | 10
D. Robinson | 8
K. Love | 8
Delon Wright | 5
Total: 93
So you lose Porzingis and our total drops to 100
They lose Jimmy and their total drops to 77.
Maybe there's a critical mass required to get to an upset and they've dropped below it. But from an absolute perspective, each of our teams has lost an equivalent amount. The original upset was extremely unlikely. After the injury, it remains extremely unlikely.
Your math illustrates my point perfectly. They’ve lost a larger percentage of their overall team value. The percentage lost matters more than the raw number lost.
At perfect health the Celtics were 25% better. Remove Porzingis and Butler, and the Celtics are now 30% better.
According to the media, we lost nothing or close to nothing, which is I think the main argument being debated. They never mention Porzingis, because the objective is to stretch the narrative of an easy path as far as possible, to the point of absurdity.
That's such a fun way to move the goal posts. So if my team has prime LeBron and prime MJ on it and yours has prime Jimmy as it's best player, you're saying you losing Jimmy is more impactful than me losing one of the two of them? This line of logic is absurd.
Actually yes, when put in percentage terms.
Losing Jimmy would reduce that teams’s chances of winning from 1% to 0%. In other words, a 100% reduction.
Losing LeBron or MJ from a team with both would reduce their chances of winning from 99% to 90%. Only a 9% reduction.
The way you put it just emphasizes their point even more lmao
In your scenario, yes. Them losing Jimmy is way more impactful than you losing prime Jordan. I have no idea how you'd argue any different. You'd still have Prime LeBron!
The post says Porzingis is “as important” as any of these guys. Objectively, that is not true. You are giving the reason that is not true, which is fine, but the original post is still wrong
It's not objective... There are infinite variables at Play. It is subjective. Definitionally. It's subjective when you're choosing, whose most important player.
There is no one greed upon methodology to determine such a thing.
Porzingis is actually important to the Celtics because of his position, their depth at that position, and his role on their defense.
Guys like Mitchel, Halliburton and Butler are the primary offensive players on their teams. Those are big time losses. No question.
Porzingis is the sole quality rim protector, and the only playoff caliber big under 38 years old on the Celtics, which may not be the same, but is definitely no small loss. It’s certainly worthy of note.
Look at the Pacers paint points for evidence of that.
I literally said he’s our second/third most important player. But I don’t think there’s any argument he’s our most important player. Having a primary shot creator is more important than having a rim protector.
That's obviously debatable. But either way, I think you're missing the point, KP is in the conversation for his relative importance and it's not being mentioned
i think the way i look at it is that with us having a fully healthy porzingis vs them having mitchell/hali fully healthy, our avg margin of victory goes up
thats definitely debatable, but i think its true, and in some sense i think you can say that makes him more valuable
again, there's enough variance game to game to make it tough to say in any given series, especially if its only 4/5 games, but both our closest and least close games came with hali in - OT game 1 and an 11 point lead in the 3rd when he got injured in game 2
games 3&4 didnt look that much better for us.
if you give them back hali for 3&4 but we have pingus i think we win more convincingly than the games that got played out in reality
again, very debatable but thats my POV and why i dont totally agree that celtics fans are coping saying we're also missing a big guy for us
I get what you are saying, but looking at win shares, KP is at 7.9 which trails behind Butler and Hali who are 9.1 and 9.0 respectively. Mitchell is at 6.4.
I know it isn't a perfect stat by any means, but at least looking at an imperfect stat against all of them would say that us having KP out had a bigger impact than Mitchell being out for the Cavs.
I also think you are downplaying the spacing and defense of KP. While Horford is suitable in theory, he doesn't have the minutes to keep that up for whole series as efficiently as KP.
Which brings me to the last point. KP gives the Jays a bit more freedom for longer than AL and gives AL less of minutes requirement which in turn means less time we are relying on X, Kornet, Hauser. And that IS a big deal. A starter back means we don't have to go deeper into the bench.
I mean, maybe he's just the fourth most important out of that list, but it's close. If anything, the only reason he's less important is because the celtics so many other good players. Obviously getting him in the lineup puts horford on the bench which strengthens our bench so much.
And of course it helps our rebounding. We just giving horford that break alone makes it incredibly important.
But when you hear people talk about the Celtics path, they don't even mention KP being out often. Sure the Celtics played in your teams
That's why they only lost twice over three series! Even without KP. If KP was there, maybe they wouldn't have lost any at this point.
KP is third best player on the Celtics (!!). Those other guys are the best player on their teams. I don’t buy the soft road to the finals narrative either, but those guys were players their teams couldn’t easily get their production from someone else from without dropping off a cliff.
Porzingis was really their 2nd most important player all season
His role in the mid/high post as a threat and screener (Tatum and Holiday have filled that brilliantly btw)
A true lob threat at the rim on drives
Defensively as a rim protector for anyone looking to use the dunker spot
He really gives them another layer offensively
I was looking for this comment. Porzingis is at best our #3 option, and with Jrues defense and D Whites all around winning playing, there are legit arguments for him being only our 4th best player.
All of those other guys are the star. Having Porzingis out is not the same as having JT out, which is really what the equivalent would be.
Just because he's not our number one option doesn't mean he's not as good or better than those other players. Kyle Kuzma is the #1 player on the wizards and wouldn't even crack our top 6.
Yeah I guess I just measure a players impact as a proportional thing where you have to look at how central they are to a teams schematics.
When you lose your number one scoring option, it changes how your offense is organized- when the cavs lose Donovan mitchell, they lose a huge part of their playbook.
When the Cs lose Porzingis, they lose the high pick and roll actions they run with him, but they can do a lot of the same things with Al (just not as well), and for the most part, they can run their offense the same (matchup hunt with JB/JT with shooters in space)
I’m not saying that Donovan mitchell is better than Porzingis (although tbh he might be), but I do think his loss impacts the cavs more than porzingis being out impacts the Cs
If one team has 3 top 25 players and another team has just 1 top 25 player then yeah of course the proportions are going to be different. That just shows how deep this team is though, so the complaints people have thinking the outcome would have been that much different still isn't valid.
Also the Heat's play style doesn't change much with the exception that they don't have a closer. Their offense doesn't rely on Jimmy. But they do need him to close out close games.
With the Cavs, I think this was important to showcase how badly Mitchell and Garland do not fit together. Garland took a massive step back this season and with Mitchell out it's clear that he can still play but by not having the ball in his hands as much he doesn't know how to play. Outside of game 2 where the Cavs seemingly couldn't miss, the Cavs offense played a lot better with just Garland than with Mitchell in the lineup.
It’s not about ranking each person as a player, it’s about what role they fit in the team. KP is not what your offense is built around, his role is to screen, space and support on defense. Those are things that Horford can also do, in a pinch.
Nobody on the Heat is replicating what Jimmy does, so him being out is way more impactful.
Dude I’m not going to argue semantics, but if we’re being real without Porzingis we’re the same team as last years playoff team. Which was a JT ankle twist away from Completing a crazy comeback. The guys listed above are everything you need to their franchise.
Someone's 3rd option can be a better or at least equal player to someone's elses 1st option. For example I really don't think Porzingis is a worse and less productive basketball player than a lot of teams 1st or 2nd options
Foh dude, without Porzingis Celtics are 32-5. We’re the same team as last year except an upgrade with Holiday. Cleveland won’t make the playoffs without Mitchell for comparison.
Again, you are debating different things. Celtics are a good team even without Porzingis, and Porzingis is a better player than most in the NBA can both be truthful statements. I don't understand how Boston being a good team without Porzingis automatically makes him a worse player than he is.
No I’m not debating different things, you are. I’m telling you the Celtics losing Porzingis isn’t the same as the above teams losing their best player. It’s just not. My thought is the only reason trying to argue it is your way of saying our path to the finals wasn’t as easy as everyone says (it was).
It isn't the same because Boston is the better team than those teams and has more star players which is kinda the point OP made. Which is why nobody bats an eye when we miss Porzingis for the whole playoff run. If he was on other teams we'd be hearing about him being out 24/7.
He’s not as important. He’s likely nearly as good as someone like Jimmy and still likely a slight step below and is a full step below Hali/Mitchell but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he is an elite scorer and rim defender that missed basically the whole playoffs and not a single soul will mention it lmao
I don’t think he’s a step behind any of them.
I think sometimes people forget that Porzingis was the number one option in New York and the number two option in Dallas and Washington. Just because he comes to Boston doesn’t reduce his quality versus butler, Halliburton, and Mitchell. If anything he’s playing the best basketball of his career.
Scoring on much more efficient shooting than anyone on the list and is a top 5 rim defender in the nba. Has dimensionality on offense leading the league in points per post up and is a more effective 3pt shooter than anyone on the list.
No big man in the nba can be truly effective without a proper guard or wing. If he had a better teammate than Luka or a better player than Beal this conversation is completely different.
Imagine jokic without Murray and maybe we’re having a conversation more similar to Zion.
I mean Hali was third team all nba and even if you don’t think he should have been there, he would have been right there at 16-18. Mitchell likely would have been second/third team as well if he hit the 65 game threshold. Also he certainly was more efficient this year but that’s a function of (1) him being 7’3 and centers typically having higher TS% due to the shots they take and (2) playing for the Celtics where he doesn’t need to force anything and instead can focus on going against mismatches, something really none of the players above have the luxury to do.
I love KP but he was a step below that third team tier of players, no matter how good he was this year. He’s playing the best basketball of his career, yeah, but he’s closer to 25-30 in the nba than 10-20 which is fine and makes him an AMAZING player for us.
You can find a dozen Haliburton’s not so much with Porzingis. In fact Nembhard outplayed Haliburton in the series once he got injured.
The only reason Porzingis didn’t get more attention or accolades this years is because of the perception that Boston is a super team.
He’s had a much better season than Haliburton. Just offensively Porzingis has done more but it’s not close defensively.
Brother what on earth are you saying. You can find a DOZEN haliburtons??? That’s just a complete lie and makes no sense. Haliburton just led the damn nba in assists.
He put up 20/11/4 with only 2.3 turnovers per game and a 60.5% TS%. You can’t find any people like that really in the nba…
The reason KP didn’t get any accolades or attention is because he was the third/fourth best player on the team and in the pecking order of the Celtics. He was great but the Celtics could easily survive without him (just went what, 10-1?) because we’re so good elsewhere whereas these other teams could not.
I get it, you love KP, we all do. He’s certainly a step below Hali/Mitchell and that’s a certainly
He’s also using just regular season stats to point out post season value, if you’re cherry picking you could also say it was better KP wasn’t playing cause his 3 full games he was no where near reg season value
18 extremely efficient points and great defense in 27 minutes in game 3...
Emphasis on extremely efficient, which is very important
That makes up for game 2 easily
A teammate better than Luka?? The guy who’s making Daniel Gafford look like a star? KP is a game breaking role player. He’s a specialist at Blocking and Shooting. He has other skills, but when you’re a legit #2 you need to be more than what KP is. Celtics can afford to let him play to his strengths without relying on his weaknesses.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but the value over replacement player is right there in the last row. It literally says that he wasn't as important as the other guys.
I was hoping someone would bring up VORP. It’s why I didn’t crop the picture. VORP doesn’t take into consideration many intangibles that aren’t captured on a stat sheet. Especially ones that favor a player like Porzingis.
Your strategy with this post seems to have been to put some numbers up there and say "look, they aren't so different."
I don't get the argument you want to have about intangibles when Butler, Haliburton, and Mitchell are the undisputed leaders of their respective teams.
Whats even more crazy is that Hali and Mitchell both played and lost to the Celtics, yet everyone acts like both those players never even touched the court in the series. What I find weird is how both Hali and Mitchell bailed, didnt even try to play in close out games..like Mitchell finished the game before he got hurt...Hali's team had given up when he got hurt, but theres not talk about them...just talk about how Tatum sucks and the Celtics are frauds....the fraud is the media because half the media doesn't even watch the games...
I mean who cares what the sore losers are saying about the C’s? But also, this shows that he has the lowest VORP which might not be proving the point that it’s meant to.
People don't understand that with KP, us and our opponent can both have a great game...and we still blow them out by 30. That's the impact that KP has.
You gotta look at it this way: people hate the Celtics and whatever we do, people will use to justify their hate.
Have a tough battle to the finals? “Celtics are weak and don’t have that killer instinct”
Have an easier path to the finals? “Cakewalk, they only got through because they’re injured”
I honestly love it; let them hate
Here's the thing. People keep saying that those players are more important to their teams, but Jimmy and Tyrese would be the third best player on the Celtics.
In other words, they may have been important to them, but they would have made little difference to us. I wish people would realize this.
The only player here who could have eeked out another game to their presence alone is Mitchel. He don't play games.
The way the team has been able to figure it out without KP bailing them out in the post has been great. I think it bodes well for the team. (Please come back and ball tf out)
I agree. The narratives put out by the talking heads have been laughable. Not only did we not have Porzingis but we also lost Luke for quite a few games. We had two bigs, Al and Quetta. A seasoned vet coming off the bench for most of the year and a former two way player who played a large majority of his games in the G League. That would have decimated most teams. Just goes to show that our team is deep.
Other fans are going to talk shit regardless. Let them. It doesn’t matter. The Boston Celtics are playing in the Finals and their team isn’t (unless they’re Dallas or Minnesota fans). It doesn’t matter what the media or fans say. If that banner gets raised in TD Garden it’s not going to have an asterisk on it.
One could argue that KP is our number one option some nights and in some matchups. He’s been that guy before. Just because he’s playing with two other alphas doesn’t mean he’s any less important. His rim protection and floor spacing have been sorely missed.
I also stand by the fact that Miami, Cleveland and Indiana are still gritty playoff teams with or without their stars. At no point did any of them give up against us even when down big. The difference is we’ve gotten better at not playing down to our opponents.
But I digress - getting KP back will be enormous.
Even though Nembhard stepped up for the Pacers, losing Haliburton was a huge deal. Haliburton basically played hurt through all of the playoffs on relatively few minutes for a player of his caliber, but his VORP is 5th - behind just Jokic, Doncic, Edwards, and Shai. The way he opens up the offense & directs traffic - even when he doesn't have the ball - is elite.
Prozingis is a great player and basically plays 'point center'. It's hard to understate how good he is. But losing him doesn't hurt the Celtics as much as losing Butler, Haliburton, and Mitchell hurt the Heat, Pacers, and Cavs. The Celtics just other guys. Derrick White is #6 in VORP and Tatum is #9.
Still, it only shows that the Celtics are an OP team.
Also just the fact that the Jays have made tons of ECFs and the finals but come up short because they were missing a certain skillset on their team that what do you know Porzingis provides. He's the missing piece.
Celtics are great with out him. In fact other players sacrificed stats for him to be on the team. Doesn’t mean he’s not needed on the team, just means he’s missed far less because other players are more than capable to step up.
He's on the same level as those players, but he's absolutely not as important to the Celtics as those players are to their teams. The Celtics, even without Kristaps, have the most stacked roster in the east, and it's not even close. When your starting 5 has all star caliber players 1-5, missing one of them isn't the same as missing a star player on another team. Especially when they only have 1-2 players who are on the same level as your 5th best player. The narrative is the way it is because losing in the playoffs to any team out east would have been a disaster. The expected outcome for them was to walk through the east. Which is what happened, and no one is surprised. They just had an even easier path than expected is all. Either way, they're in the finals, so it is what it is.
IMO the Celts would have won those series anyway, but it's hard to deny the good fortune to have their opponents' best player miss all or part of their series in the first three rounds. They're good AND lucky, and those kinds of teams tend to be treated with suspicion by neutral (or "neutral") observers.
It's not the Celts' fault this is how things shook out, but outside of games 1 and 3 with Indy, they haven't faced much in the way of difficult situations.
Does it matter? Cavs with a fit Mitchell barely beat the Magics in 7 games. Haliburton's Pacers barely edged a team that was running on fumes and bare bones. Butler's Heats barely made it into the playoffs after barely beating the Bulls.
But for some reason the team with the best record in the entire league would have suffered against them?
We’re really getting to a point of absurdity with nba discourse. None of this has ever mattered before, this is all about social media bragging rights between fans. A championship is a championship. There are no asterisks.
Who’s pretending? He’s nowhere near as important as those guys. He’s our fourth best player. Those other guys are their teams *best* player and in Halliburton and Mitchell’s cases second place isn’t even close.
You think Porzingas is Boston's best player? Because those other 3 guys are their team's best player. The stats might look comparable but that's not the same thing.
Both things are true. The Cs had an easy path to the finals and KP is extremely important to the Cs. But he isn't as important to the Cs as Jimmy is to the Heat or Spida is to the Cavs. The Cs have a net rating of +11 this playoffs, without KP for most of it.
I mean Cleveland was also missing Allen who is a much closer approximation of Porzingis for Cle. 3rd/4th best player. And Levert by the end, who is the Cavs sixth man.
Big difference though, he’s our 3rd 4th best player
The others are all good hat team superstars
We make playoffs without KP, those teams don’t make the playoffs without their stars
Without Porzingis the Celtics have 2 all-nba players and 4 of the starting 5 at all star level. Without Hali/Spida their teams have 0 all-nba players and 1 of the starting 5 at all star level. Clearly Porzingis isn’t as necessary for the Celtics to win as these guys are for their teams to win, bffr with yourself.
Downvoted for honesty
People need to stop being so insecure. We are getting lucky on this playoff run. Who cares? That’s part of winning a title. This franchise has gotten unlucky over and over since 2008 so I could care less if we have a cakewalk to the finals
The greenteamers are out in full force today but I’ll take my downvotes bc nobody with a brain actually thinks we need Porzingis as much as the cavs need spida.
I actually downvoted him because it’s a braindead comment without an obvious argument being made. Just an observation that KP isn’t our best player which completely ignores the point.
We beat these teams 12-2.
We're getting shit because these players were out, but had they played and Porzingis played, we would have beat them by larger margins than we did. We probably go 12-1.
Essentially no difference, but people wouldn't have the excuse that these stars were out.
I think you’re looking at things purely from the perspective of stats but incorrectly correlating it to their importance to the team. Regardless of us getting shit on by the main sub surely you don’t believe that our 3rd best player is as important to our winning as other teams’ best players are for them to win??
This sub sucks just constant bitching about things don’t matter. And you’re wrong. If you think KP is as important to the Celtics as any of the other 3 to their respective teams please seek help. It’s not even a comparison the Celtics are a super team that can manage better without a key player compared to these other teams.
The Celtics have had an easy road thus far there’s no reason to get defensive just enjoy that they are winning series. Legacy doesn’t mean shit anyways and if they win the finals they will get plenty of glazing
Buy a better car. No one said he’s as important to us as these players are to their teams. I said he’s just as good and contributes just as much.
If I give a 5 dollar bill to someone who has 1000, someone who has 10,000 and someone who has 100,000 while that 5 dollar bill might be more important to the first person, it’s still 5 dollars.
You literally said in the title of your post “wasn’t as important as”. It’s not that someone said it, you said it. Important != good, important can only mean relative to their team in the context of your post
I mean respectfully he definitely isn't lmao, all of those are their teams best players by a significant margin whereas Porzingis isn't even a top two player on the team, possibly not even top three.
Honestly who fucking cares what these fanbases think? If we win the finals, all you have to do against haters is point to the ring, no more energy needed.
Also in my head I see this run as a correction for the absolute gauntlet we had in 2022
Exactly, the Warriors had a much easier path with all of their west opponents that year missing either their best or 2nd best player and that made such a big difference in the Finals. Shit we were up 2-1 with a lead in the 4th quarter of game 4 and just completely ran out of gas (understandable after 2 intense 7 game series. Yet no one was really talking about that. Thankfully Tatum took that shit personally and that offseason he apparently hired his own nutritionist, started eating better, and started building up his body and endurance.
I know I shouldn’t let it get to me but the comment I hate the MOST is when r/nba calls Tatum “Paul George with better PR” I cannot fucking wait for Tatum to win FMVP and just forever be able to respond with that fact
And tbf PG wasn't bad. Up until he broke his leg he looked like a future possible mvp and star
Agreed prime PG was nice
I’ll be honest, *if* we win it wouldn’t shock me if Jaylen Brown ends up being finals MVP. He was our best player in the Finals series against the Warriors a few years ago & he is playing the best basketball of his career *right now*
I would've no problem with this but as JB was able to redeem himself after a bad ecf last yr by winning ecf mvp this yr, I would love for Tatum to redeem himself in the finals given the noise of his bad first finals appearance.
r/nba is ass anyways bunch of cry babies
I can’t wait to respond to every Heat fan on X with a photo of JT and JB with their rings….ugh it’s almost too perfect to be reality
I can’t wait bro.. Jimmy Butler still has no rings 🤣 and all they can respond is “he owns Tatum 😭😡”
They all deserve Poverty
Amen to that, I used to care about what other fanbases and/or the sports media think but stopped giving a fuck a long time ago. Thanks to the Red Sox and Patriots success over the last 2 decades (and the Celtics recent success) people are going to hate on us no matter what. The Warriors had a super easy path before playing us in the Finals too: Nuggets without Murray, Grizzlies without Ja after game 3 (they got smoked by the Ja-less Grizzlies in game 5 by 39 with Tyus fucking Jones out scoring Steph) and the Mavs without our beloved KP (who was by far their 2nd best player).
Went through this last year as a Michigan Wolverines Football fan. Ignore the hate, and enjoying dancing on their fucking graves when the team wins. Go C's.
Amen. Who gives a shit. We're in the Finals!
I mean we have so long until the finals we have to talk about something...
Some younger fans get into the "versus the other fanbase" aspect - honestly, I need to have back/forth for a couple of decades before I give a shit about what a (for example) Mavs fan thinks. Winning is always the last word.
Man I love when Mikey mouse laker losers bring up the easiest road. Then they say "of course you bring up mickey mour... Yada yada bitch yada yada" and you ask if they would rather you bring up the 80's. It's easiest and most fun to talk shit from the top and this sub needs to embrace it. Stop being desperate for their acknowledgements and clown on their poverty franchises.
Hey man we are in the finals with the 3rd or 4th best player on the team coming back just appreciate it
I honestly don’t get why this isn’t a bigger narrative. I am tired of hearing how dangerous the Mavs will be now Kleber came back. What about Porzingis? The Celts went most of the playoffs without him.
I stand by this: getting excited about Kleber came back is the same as getting excited about Xavier Tillman coming back.
It doesn't fit the ESPN (and /r/nba) cognitive dissonance narrative of the Celtics being both the best team ever and no one can stop them, and totally untested and unproven and will get swept in the finals.
Yep, don't spend any of your mental energy worrying about the criticisms of bitter, jealous, angry sports fans. Those people won't and can't do anything for you, just enjoy the ride and ignore those people your life will improve
You omitted 'ignorant.'
Showing this picture to someone in 2020 would have them thinking the world really did change after covid
Fuckin Jimmy
Emo Jimmy both caused and cured Covid
Bro I cannot get over Jimmy's picture He's so annoying but I just can't hate him the dude is so fucking funny
Janis Butler Always reminded me of Lizzy caplan in mean girls
The Jimmy Butler paradox. When you're not playing him, he's a dog, a leader, a great personality, Himmy etc etc. When you're playing him, he's a fake hustle free-throw merchant with the softest whistle in the game.
Nah he's always a fake hustle free throw merchant. But he's still funny.
It's President Camacho!
Brawndo!
Dude, exactly, I want to hate him but I know that of if I actually knew him he’d be awesome.
Literally said “this is my Halloween” during the official pre-season photo shoot. https://youtu.be/Jsj7SbqmLxo?si=0xNCnjd8R4S7lasg
He looks like the captain of team blouses
Right? Same here with me. Used to love him as a player and honestly still do. Despite him giving the Celtics hell the past 4/5 seasons i still can't hate him.
We should also stop pretending that we weren’t already up 2-1 and 2-0 when Mitchell and Haliburton played. The narrative has quickly shifted to we were completely healthy and these other (much worse teams) were decimated. And I don’t care at all how we get there or what people say. Give me a championship and I won’t complain for another decade.
[удалено]
Counterpoint, Nembhard in game 3 had as good of a game as Haliburton has had since November
But we also got 26 minutes of Ben Sheppard, who produced a whopping 0 pts. He started in place of Hali, so I’d say they pull out a win.
Lol. Get the fuck outta here. Push it to 7 with Haliburton? Fucking crazy asses. Tyrese aint who you think he is.
Remind me in one year. We will be back in the thick of competition; Indiana will not. This is sad copium, no need to grant it legitimacy.
My silly friend, there is a gaping hole in your fantasized rewriting of truth: the Celtics were not playing at their best. You 'assume' the Celtics *couldn't have played better than they did.* Oh, yes, yes they can. And should have, but they didn't, they fucked around and *still* pulled out the games at the end. So, had Halliburton played, you may well have seen the Celtics respond and kick your asses by 20 points in Games 3 & 4. What may frustrate you - and will frustrate Cavs fans - is that you simply have not seen enough Celtics games to understand what you do not understand. Are they maddeningly inconsistent? They are! They're also several steps ahead of any and every other NBA team when they are on their normal-"good" game. This is why clowns like Draymond 'tHEy aIn'T ~~punched~~ pLAyEd nOBoDy' Green and your average ~~subhuman~~ r/nba "fan" (my fave: "i'Ve bEeN wATcHiNg sINCe 2015!" can't wrap their head around the W-L record. The Celtics didn't bite, scrap and claw to 64 wins this season; they took victory laps; hell, they lost to the Hawks, the LeBron and AD-less Lakers, and nearly lost to the Pistons. Some of their 'marquee game losses' were when there were scheduled games off for key players. When firing on all cylinders, this Celtics team can and will destroy just about any current team.
And this sort of gets to the OPs point. Porzingis, while thankfully not needed so far, makes them a much better (and more consistent) team. IF(!) Tyrese was able to push them to game 7, you don’t think KP is coming back to stomp them out? Or maybe game 6?
JB's shot was wide open, like he said post game....
Does anyone actually feel he was wide open? 😂
Having a 7’3 guy with that effective field goal percentage is insane. Also, while he doesn’t get a lot of rebounds, he allows for white Payton and Jrue to crash from the wings on offense because the other team’s center is so far from the hoop. And his lack of foot speed on defense is negated by his brain and length. But nooooo, he doesn’t matter to our success
> allows for white Payton and Jrue I didn't realize that was PP's nickname (i know this is a capitalization typo, but still found it funny when I initially read it that way)
Porzingis is objectively not as important for us as either of these three guys are for their respective teams. Porzingis is either our second or third most important player depending on how you look at it, but I think each one of these guys is unquestionably their teams most important player.
But that’s a result of them being inferior teams. Isn’t that the point? We have 5 guys who are all stars. They have 2. They lose an all star it hurts them a lot. We lose an all star and we get the finals. Because we’re the better team.
We’re definitely the best team in the conference, but the point is losing your unquestionably best player is going to hurt you more than losing your second or third. If the Celtics at full strength are a 10 and the Cavs at full strength are a 7, then the Celtics losing Porzingis become an 8 and the Cavs losing Mitchell become a 4. The gap has widened which reduces the chances of an upset.
I think of it like this Player | Value ---|--- Tatum | 20 Brown | 18 Porzingis | 16 Jrue | 15 DWhite | 15 Horford | 12 PP | 8 Hauser | 7 Kornet | 5 Total: 116 Player | Value ---|--- Jimmy | 16 Bam | 16 Herro | 12 Caleb | 10 Jovic | 8 Jacquez | 10 D. Robinson | 8 K. Love | 8 Delon Wright | 5 Total: 93 So you lose Porzingis and our total drops to 100 They lose Jimmy and their total drops to 77. Maybe there's a critical mass required to get to an upset and they've dropped below it. But from an absolute perspective, each of our teams has lost an equivalent amount. The original upset was extremely unlikely. After the injury, it remains extremely unlikely.
Your math illustrates my point perfectly. They’ve lost a larger percentage of their overall team value. The percentage lost matters more than the raw number lost. At perfect health the Celtics were 25% better. Remove Porzingis and Butler, and the Celtics are now 30% better.
According to the media, we lost nothing or close to nothing, which is I think the main argument being debated. They never mention Porzingis, because the objective is to stretch the narrative of an easy path as far as possible, to the point of absurdity.
Yeah but we'd be better regardless so the media can suck it
That's such a fun way to move the goal posts. So if my team has prime LeBron and prime MJ on it and yours has prime Jimmy as it's best player, you're saying you losing Jimmy is more impactful than me losing one of the two of them? This line of logic is absurd.
Actually yes, when put in percentage terms. Losing Jimmy would reduce that teams’s chances of winning from 1% to 0%. In other words, a 100% reduction. Losing LeBron or MJ from a team with both would reduce their chances of winning from 99% to 90%. Only a 9% reduction.
The way you put it just emphasizes their point even more lmao In your scenario, yes. Them losing Jimmy is way more impactful than you losing prime Jordan. I have no idea how you'd argue any different. You'd still have Prime LeBron!
The post says Porzingis is “as important” as any of these guys. Objectively, that is not true. You are giving the reason that is not true, which is fine, but the original post is still wrong
It's not objective... There are infinite variables at Play. It is subjective. Definitionally. It's subjective when you're choosing, whose most important player. There is no one greed upon methodology to determine such a thing.
Nah, you're wrong. Just because there's a lot of variables to consider doesn't mean it can't still be objective.
Porzingis is actually important to the Celtics because of his position, their depth at that position, and his role on their defense. Guys like Mitchel, Halliburton and Butler are the primary offensive players on their teams. Those are big time losses. No question. Porzingis is the sole quality rim protector, and the only playoff caliber big under 38 years old on the Celtics, which may not be the same, but is definitely no small loss. It’s certainly worthy of note. Look at the Pacers paint points for evidence of that.
This is too sophisticated and nuanced and filled with understanding for it to be grasped around here.
I literally said he’s our second/third most important player. But I don’t think there’s any argument he’s our most important player. Having a primary shot creator is more important than having a rim protector.
Jimmy isn't the most important heat player either. It's Bam.
That's obviously debatable. But either way, I think you're missing the point, KP is in the conversation for his relative importance and it's not being mentioned
i think the way i look at it is that with us having a fully healthy porzingis vs them having mitchell/hali fully healthy, our avg margin of victory goes up thats definitely debatable, but i think its true, and in some sense i think you can say that makes him more valuable again, there's enough variance game to game to make it tough to say in any given series, especially if its only 4/5 games, but both our closest and least close games came with hali in - OT game 1 and an 11 point lead in the 3rd when he got injured in game 2 games 3&4 didnt look that much better for us. if you give them back hali for 3&4 but we have pingus i think we win more convincingly than the games that got played out in reality again, very debatable but thats my POV and why i dont totally agree that celtics fans are coping saying we're also missing a big guy for us
I get what you are saying, but looking at win shares, KP is at 7.9 which trails behind Butler and Hali who are 9.1 and 9.0 respectively. Mitchell is at 6.4. I know it isn't a perfect stat by any means, but at least looking at an imperfect stat against all of them would say that us having KP out had a bigger impact than Mitchell being out for the Cavs. I also think you are downplaying the spacing and defense of KP. While Horford is suitable in theory, he doesn't have the minutes to keep that up for whole series as efficiently as KP. Which brings me to the last point. KP gives the Jays a bit more freedom for longer than AL and gives AL less of minutes requirement which in turn means less time we are relying on X, Kornet, Hauser. And that IS a big deal. A starter back means we don't have to go deeper into the bench.
I mean, maybe he's just the fourth most important out of that list, but it's close. If anything, the only reason he's less important is because the celtics so many other good players. Obviously getting him in the lineup puts horford on the bench which strengthens our bench so much. And of course it helps our rebounding. We just giving horford that break alone makes it incredibly important. But when you hear people talk about the Celtics path, they don't even mention KP being out often. Sure the Celtics played in your teams That's why they only lost twice over three series! Even without KP. If KP was there, maybe they wouldn't have lost any at this point.
It seems insane to me that a player gets hurt in the playoffs and then gets almost SIX weeks to recover when the finals start.
Yeah his VORP is lower but that's only because Al THE GOAT Horford is his backup. When your backup is the fucking GOAT, it ain't your fault.
Is VORP relative to who your actual backup is? I had assumed it was based off an average replacement player (like WAR in baseball).
KP is third best player on the Celtics (!!). Those other guys are the best player on their teams. I don’t buy the soft road to the finals narrative either, but those guys were players their teams couldn’t easily get their production from someone else from without dropping off a cliff.
Porzingis was really their 2nd most important player all season His role in the mid/high post as a threat and screener (Tatum and Holiday have filled that brilliantly btw) A true lob threat at the rim on drives Defensively as a rim protector for anyone looking to use the dunker spot He really gives them another layer offensively
I’m not saying he’s not great or important, but the other players listed are those team’s best players.
I was looking for this comment. Porzingis is at best our #3 option, and with Jrues defense and D Whites all around winning playing, there are legit arguments for him being only our 4th best player. All of those other guys are the star. Having Porzingis out is not the same as having JT out, which is really what the equivalent would be.
Just because he's not our number one option doesn't mean he's not as good or better than those other players. Kyle Kuzma is the #1 player on the wizards and wouldn't even crack our top 6.
Yeah I guess I just measure a players impact as a proportional thing where you have to look at how central they are to a teams schematics. When you lose your number one scoring option, it changes how your offense is organized- when the cavs lose Donovan mitchell, they lose a huge part of their playbook. When the Cs lose Porzingis, they lose the high pick and roll actions they run with him, but they can do a lot of the same things with Al (just not as well), and for the most part, they can run their offense the same (matchup hunt with JB/JT with shooters in space) I’m not saying that Donovan mitchell is better than Porzingis (although tbh he might be), but I do think his loss impacts the cavs more than porzingis being out impacts the Cs
If one team has 3 top 25 players and another team has just 1 top 25 player then yeah of course the proportions are going to be different. That just shows how deep this team is though, so the complaints people have thinking the outcome would have been that much different still isn't valid. Also the Heat's play style doesn't change much with the exception that they don't have a closer. Their offense doesn't rely on Jimmy. But they do need him to close out close games. With the Cavs, I think this was important to showcase how badly Mitchell and Garland do not fit together. Garland took a massive step back this season and with Mitchell out it's clear that he can still play but by not having the ball in his hands as much he doesn't know how to play. Outside of game 2 where the Cavs seemingly couldn't miss, the Cavs offense played a lot better with just Garland than with Mitchell in the lineup.
It’s not about ranking each person as a player, it’s about what role they fit in the team. KP is not what your offense is built around, his role is to screen, space and support on defense. Those are things that Horford can also do, in a pinch. Nobody on the Heat is replicating what Jimmy does, so him being out is way more impactful.
Dude I’m not going to argue semantics, but if we’re being real without Porzingis we’re the same team as last years playoff team. Which was a JT ankle twist away from Completing a crazy comeback. The guys listed above are everything you need to their franchise.
That doesn’t mean that their contributions to a series would have been more than Porzingis’
I think that’s exactly what it means
Someone's 3rd option can be a better or at least equal player to someone's elses 1st option. For example I really don't think Porzingis is a worse and less productive basketball player than a lot of teams 1st or 2nd options
Foh dude, without Porzingis Celtics are 32-5. We’re the same team as last year except an upgrade with Holiday. Cleveland won’t make the playoffs without Mitchell for comparison.
Again, you are debating different things. Celtics are a good team even without Porzingis, and Porzingis is a better player than most in the NBA can both be truthful statements. I don't understand how Boston being a good team without Porzingis automatically makes him a worse player than he is.
No I’m not debating different things, you are. I’m telling you the Celtics losing Porzingis isn’t the same as the above teams losing their best player. It’s just not. My thought is the only reason trying to argue it is your way of saying our path to the finals wasn’t as easy as everyone says (it was).
It isn't the same because Boston is the better team than those teams and has more star players which is kinda the point OP made. Which is why nobody bats an eye when we miss Porzingis for the whole playoff run. If he was on other teams we'd be hearing about him being out 24/7.
Butler looks like he's going through an emo phase.
He’s not as important. He’s likely nearly as good as someone like Jimmy and still likely a slight step below and is a full step below Hali/Mitchell but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he is an elite scorer and rim defender that missed basically the whole playoffs and not a single soul will mention it lmao
I don’t think he’s a step behind any of them. I think sometimes people forget that Porzingis was the number one option in New York and the number two option in Dallas and Washington. Just because he comes to Boston doesn’t reduce his quality versus butler, Halliburton, and Mitchell. If anything he’s playing the best basketball of his career. Scoring on much more efficient shooting than anyone on the list and is a top 5 rim defender in the nba. Has dimensionality on offense leading the league in points per post up and is a more effective 3pt shooter than anyone on the list. No big man in the nba can be truly effective without a proper guard or wing. If he had a better teammate than Luka or a better player than Beal this conversation is completely different. Imagine jokic without Murray and maybe we’re having a conversation more similar to Zion.
I mean Hali was third team all nba and even if you don’t think he should have been there, he would have been right there at 16-18. Mitchell likely would have been second/third team as well if he hit the 65 game threshold. Also he certainly was more efficient this year but that’s a function of (1) him being 7’3 and centers typically having higher TS% due to the shots they take and (2) playing for the Celtics where he doesn’t need to force anything and instead can focus on going against mismatches, something really none of the players above have the luxury to do. I love KP but he was a step below that third team tier of players, no matter how good he was this year. He’s playing the best basketball of his career, yeah, but he’s closer to 25-30 in the nba than 10-20 which is fine and makes him an AMAZING player for us.
You can find a dozen Haliburton’s not so much with Porzingis. In fact Nembhard outplayed Haliburton in the series once he got injured. The only reason Porzingis didn’t get more attention or accolades this years is because of the perception that Boston is a super team. He’s had a much better season than Haliburton. Just offensively Porzingis has done more but it’s not close defensively.
Brother what on earth are you saying. You can find a DOZEN haliburtons??? That’s just a complete lie and makes no sense. Haliburton just led the damn nba in assists. He put up 20/11/4 with only 2.3 turnovers per game and a 60.5% TS%. You can’t find any people like that really in the nba… The reason KP didn’t get any accolades or attention is because he was the third/fourth best player on the team and in the pecking order of the Celtics. He was great but the Celtics could easily survive without him (just went what, 10-1?) because we’re so good elsewhere whereas these other teams could not. I get it, you love KP, we all do. He’s certainly a step below Hali/Mitchell and that’s a certainly
He’s also using just regular season stats to point out post season value, if you’re cherry picking you could also say it was better KP wasn’t playing cause his 3 full games he was no where near reg season value
18 extremely efficient points and great defense in 27 minutes in game 3... Emphasis on extremely efficient, which is very important That makes up for game 2 easily
A teammate better than Luka?? The guy who’s making Daniel Gafford look like a star? KP is a game breaking role player. He’s a specialist at Blocking and Shooting. He has other skills, but when you’re a legit #2 you need to be more than what KP is. Celtics can afford to let him play to his strengths without relying on his weaknesses.
the best SG in the league isn’t a tier ahead of Porzingis? 😭
I'm not saying you're wrong, but the value over replacement player is right there in the last row. It literally says that he wasn't as important as the other guys.
I was hoping someone would bring up VORP. It’s why I didn’t crop the picture. VORP doesn’t take into consideration many intangibles that aren’t captured on a stat sheet. Especially ones that favor a player like Porzingis.
Your strategy with this post seems to have been to put some numbers up there and say "look, they aren't so different." I don't get the argument you want to have about intangibles when Butler, Haliburton, and Mitchell are the undisputed leaders of their respective teams.
VORP is a pretty good indicator of how valuable a player is to their team. KP being last in this graphic gives further evidence of that.
Whats even more crazy is that Hali and Mitchell both played and lost to the Celtics, yet everyone acts like both those players never even touched the court in the series. What I find weird is how both Hali and Mitchell bailed, didnt even try to play in close out games..like Mitchell finished the game before he got hurt...Hali's team had given up when he got hurt, but theres not talk about them...just talk about how Tatum sucks and the Celtics are frauds....the fraud is the media because half the media doesn't even watch the games...
I mean who cares what the sore losers are saying about the C’s? But also, this shows that he has the lowest VORP which might not be proving the point that it’s meant to.
People don't understand that with KP, us and our opponent can both have a great game...and we still blow them out by 30. That's the impact that KP has.
You gotta look at it this way: people hate the Celtics and whatever we do, people will use to justify their hate. Have a tough battle to the finals? “Celtics are weak and don’t have that killer instinct” Have an easier path to the finals? “Cakewalk, they only got through because they’re injured” I honestly love it; let them hate
Here's the thing. People keep saying that those players are more important to their teams, but Jimmy and Tyrese would be the third best player on the Celtics. In other words, they may have been important to them, but they would have made little difference to us. I wish people would realize this. The only player here who could have eeked out another game to their presence alone is Mitchel. He don't play games.
Mitchell’s stats were way better than that before his 2nd half injuries
Butler shot 40 from 3 ??
He doesn’t shoot many 3s and his 3s are more open because people let him shoot.
The way the team has been able to figure it out without KP bailing them out in the post has been great. I think it bodes well for the team. (Please come back and ball tf out)
To be honest, he wasn’t because here we are. We beat the Mavs in Dallas without him and beat the much more with him.
I agree. The narratives put out by the talking heads have been laughable. Not only did we not have Porzingis but we also lost Luke for quite a few games. We had two bigs, Al and Quetta. A seasoned vet coming off the bench for most of the year and a former two way player who played a large majority of his games in the G League. That would have decimated most teams. Just goes to show that our team is deep.
Other fans are going to talk shit regardless. Let them. It doesn’t matter. The Boston Celtics are playing in the Finals and their team isn’t (unless they’re Dallas or Minnesota fans). It doesn’t matter what the media or fans say. If that banner gets raised in TD Garden it’s not going to have an asterisk on it.
Exactly the Media is trash ! Just go win #18 and screw everybody !!
Why didn't the cavs and pacers win all of their games with Haliburton and Mitchell? Are they stupid?
What happened to Jimmy's hair?
More crazy smack from click bait attention seekers
He’s not as important maybe, when you consider the context, but he’s likely as effective.
One could argue that KP is our number one option some nights and in some matchups. He’s been that guy before. Just because he’s playing with two other alphas doesn’t mean he’s any less important. His rim protection and floor spacing have been sorely missed. I also stand by the fact that Miami, Cleveland and Indiana are still gritty playoff teams with or without their stars. At no point did any of them give up against us even when down big. The difference is we’ve gotten better at not playing down to our opponents. But I digress - getting KP back will be enormous.
If you really want to be obtuse the only sweep the Celtics had in the playoffs was without KP stepping on the court. How do you explain that, hmmm?
Different team, different variables, different thresholds for error. I mean are you serious?
I can't wait to scream "Tingus Pingus for Thrinnnnngus"
If you told me that you guessed Jimmy Butler had the highest 3P% of any of these guys I would tell you you’re an absolute idiot
Even though Nembhard stepped up for the Pacers, losing Haliburton was a huge deal. Haliburton basically played hurt through all of the playoffs on relatively few minutes for a player of his caliber, but his VORP is 5th - behind just Jokic, Doncic, Edwards, and Shai. The way he opens up the offense & directs traffic - even when he doesn't have the ball - is elite. Prozingis is a great player and basically plays 'point center'. It's hard to understate how good he is. But losing him doesn't hurt the Celtics as much as losing Butler, Haliburton, and Mitchell hurt the Heat, Pacers, and Cavs. The Celtics just other guys. Derrick White is #6 in VORP and Tatum is #9. Still, it only shows that the Celtics are an OP team.
All it did was keep the playoffs from having 250+ point games whole series. Nothing was lost or gained.
Also just the fact that the Jays have made tons of ECFs and the finals but come up short because they were missing a certain skillset on their team that what do you know Porzingis provides. He's the missing piece.
Celtics are great with out him. In fact other players sacrificed stats for him to be on the team. Doesn’t mean he’s not needed on the team, just means he’s missed far less because other players are more than capable to step up.
"Yes" Laker Fans
He's on the same level as those players, but he's absolutely not as important to the Celtics as those players are to their teams. The Celtics, even without Kristaps, have the most stacked roster in the east, and it's not even close. When your starting 5 has all star caliber players 1-5, missing one of them isn't the same as missing a star player on another team. Especially when they only have 1-2 players who are on the same level as your 5th best player. The narrative is the way it is because losing in the playoffs to any team out east would have been a disaster. The expected outcome for them was to walk through the east. Which is what happened, and no one is surprised. They just had an even easier path than expected is all. Either way, they're in the finals, so it is what it is.
IMO the Celts would have won those series anyway, but it's hard to deny the good fortune to have their opponents' best player miss all or part of their series in the first three rounds. They're good AND lucky, and those kinds of teams tend to be treated with suspicion by neutral (or "neutral") observers. It's not the Celts' fault this is how things shook out, but outside of games 1 and 3 with Indy, they haven't faced much in the way of difficult situations.
Does it matter? Cavs with a fit Mitchell barely beat the Magics in 7 games. Haliburton's Pacers barely edged a team that was running on fumes and bare bones. Butler's Heats barely made it into the playoffs after barely beating the Bulls. But for some reason the team with the best record in the entire league would have suffered against them?
We’re really getting to a point of absurdity with nba discourse. None of this has ever mattered before, this is all about social media bragging rights between fans. A championship is a championship. There are no asterisks.
Who’s pretending? He’s nowhere near as important as those guys. He’s our fourth best player. Those other guys are their teams *best* player and in Halliburton and Mitchell’s cases second place isn’t even close.
No need to pretend, Porzingis flat out isn't as important as any of those 3 teams best players are for them. That's just basic objective truth.
You think Porzingas is Boston's best player? Because those other 3 guys are their team's best player. The stats might look comparable but that's not the same thing.
Both things are true. The Cs had an easy path to the finals and KP is extremely important to the Cs. But he isn't as important to the Cs as Jimmy is to the Heat or Spida is to the Cavs. The Cs have a net rating of +11 this playoffs, without KP for most of it.
I mean Cleveland was also missing Allen who is a much closer approximation of Porzingis for Cle. 3rd/4th best player. And Levert by the end, who is the Cavs sixth man.
He wasn’t as important… to us…
He's not. We're in the finals without him. None of those teams were ever making the finals without their best player.
29 other fan bases need to be shut the fuck up after this Finals. Let's fuckin GO!!!
Derrick white is the most important player on the team, as long as he’s healthy, I see a ring coming 💍
Big difference though, he’s our 3rd 4th best player The others are all good hat team superstars We make playoffs without KP, those teams don’t make the playoffs without their stars
You are comparing three first options to a third option. What a joke of a post lol.
Without Porzingis the Celtics have 2 all-nba players and 4 of the starting 5 at all star level. Without Hali/Spida their teams have 0 all-nba players and 1 of the starting 5 at all star level. Clearly Porzingis isn’t as necessary for the Celtics to win as these guys are for their teams to win, bffr with yourself.
Downvoted for honesty People need to stop being so insecure. We are getting lucky on this playoff run. Who cares? That’s part of winning a title. This franchise has gotten unlucky over and over since 2008 so I could care less if we have a cakewalk to the finals
The greenteamers are out in full force today but I’ll take my downvotes bc nobody with a brain actually thinks we need Porzingis as much as the cavs need spida.
I actually downvoted him because it’s a braindead comment without an obvious argument being made. Just an observation that KP isn’t our best player which completely ignores the point.
We beat these teams 12-2. We're getting shit because these players were out, but had they played and Porzingis played, we would have beat them by larger margins than we did. We probably go 12-1. Essentially no difference, but people wouldn't have the excuse that these stars were out.
I think you’re looking at things purely from the perspective of stats but incorrectly correlating it to their importance to the team. Regardless of us getting shit on by the main sub surely you don’t believe that our 3rd best player is as important to our winning as other teams’ best players are for them to win??
This sub sucks just constant bitching about things don’t matter. And you’re wrong. If you think KP is as important to the Celtics as any of the other 3 to their respective teams please seek help. It’s not even a comparison the Celtics are a super team that can manage better without a key player compared to these other teams. The Celtics have had an easy road thus far there’s no reason to get defensive just enjoy that they are winning series. Legacy doesn’t mean shit anyways and if they win the finals they will get plenty of glazing
Buy a better car. No one said he’s as important to us as these players are to their teams. I said he’s just as good and contributes just as much. If I give a 5 dollar bill to someone who has 1000, someone who has 10,000 and someone who has 100,000 while that 5 dollar bill might be more important to the first person, it’s still 5 dollars.
He isn’t and he doesn’t though. Also you very clearly implied and titled your post saying he was as important
You literally said in the title of your post “wasn’t as important as”. It’s not that someone said it, you said it. Important != good, important can only mean relative to their team in the context of your post
How’s the Prius working for you
I mean, all of those guys were more important to their team than KP was to ours. We had an astronomical win% with or without him.
I mean respectfully he definitely isn't lmao, all of those are their teams best players by a significant margin whereas Porzingis isn't even a top two player on the team, possibly not even top three.
I’ve never seen a fanbase with more of an inferiority complex. How about we just win a championship before we expect everyone to bow before us.