The folks over at The Ringer have released their annual Top 100 Players in the NBA ranking exercise for the 2023-24 season, and as one might expect for a ball club in the thick of the hunt for the 2024 NBA title, the Boston Celtics are particularly well represented on the list.
Fans of the team will be happy to see that a certain injustice done to a member of the Celtics’ backcourt has been ameliorated in The Ringer’s stab at assessing individual players for the season ahead, and a total of six current Celtics made the cut in the estimation of the publication’s staff voting on who ought to be ranked where.
Will all that said, let’s take a look at the Celtics who made the list’s rankings.
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No. 82 - Al Horford
“He can’t keep getting away with it. As the league gets younger and bouncier, as the Celtics rotate in another group of arrivals to help them with their title push, as the sun rises and sets, there is Horford: setting bone-rattling picks, calling out opposing offensive sets, and draining 3-pointers,” writes Chris Ryan.
“Now that Horford is in his late 30s, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll add any new wrinkles to his game. The biggest question is whether he can hold up for a whole season without the cover of Robert Williams III on the front line.”
No. 59 - Kristaps Porzingis
“He couldn’t stay on the floor enough to be a first option on a good team, he couldn’t quite be the second option on a good team, and he looked comfortable—maybe too comfortable—as the No. 1 on a bad team,” writes Ryan.
“Does his game translate to lower usage and fewer plays run for him? Will he vibe with the two-headed monster of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown? Can his body hold up playing minutes at the 5 or during a deep postseason run?”
No. 56 - Derrick White
“As arguably the team’s third-best player, he didn’t miss a game, cracked an All-Defensive Team, led the Celtics in net differential … and overcame the occasional … crunch-time benching to thrive as an ideal complementary piece beside Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown,” writes Michael Pina.
“With Marcus Smart on the Grizzlies, White is now Boston’s starting point guard, a brand-new role that will ask him to create offensive opportunities for explosive scorers who will appreciate having another ball handler when needed. It’s a hard job, but White is selfless enough to handle it.”
No. 37 - Jrue Holiday
“Holiday’s postseason encounter with Jimmy Butler, and the Bucks’ unceremonious end to their season, somewhat diminished what was a really nice 2022-23 campaign for the veteran point guard. Long cited as among the most underrated players in the league, Holiday has now hit his late prime, with All-Star recognition and a rep as one of the game’s best defenders …,” writes Ryan.
“For the Bucks, Holiday bore the responsibility of taking the hardest perimeter assignments on defense, and scoring enough to keep Milwaukee afloat and Giannis happy. Now as part of a new-look Celtics lineup, he can age gracefully—Jayson and Jaylen can play Batman and Robin, and Holiday can be Holiday.”
No. 22 - Jaylen Brown
“It’s easy to get stuck on what Brown isn’t: a foolproof second option, an airtight ball handler, a team leader who sticks to the script. Yet doing so does a disservice to the tremendous two-way player he’s become, which earned him the biggest payday in NBA history,” writes Rob Mahoney.
“The reason the evaluations of Brown can get a bit harsh is because so much is expected of him—because wherever the discourse might be this week, he remains one of the most versatile and resourceful basketball players in the world … Sometimes he plays as if he’s questioning the premise of being a second star, but great things await him if he can make his peace with it.”
No. 5 - Jayson Tatum
“Up until the opening moments of his final game—an anticlimactic loss to the Heat during which he sprained his ankle—Tatum had a potent combination of size, athleticism, strength, and confidence. Nobody else combined his three-level scoring touch, defensive versatility, and tenacity on the glass,” writes Pina.
“Tatum is an ideal franchise stanchion, the spearhead of multiple deep postseason runs. The scary thing is there’s still so much room for him to improve, be it playmaking out of the pick-and-roll or isolations, honing a more consistent pull-up 3-ball, or cracking his first All-Defensive team … Marginal progress in all those areas could lift Tatum’s standing and, more importantly, push the Celtics across a championship bridge they’ve struggled to vault over.”
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