Question for the staff:
Who would you consider the Most Improved on the Celtics roster this season?
Nate Moskowitz
While he’s not going to win any awards for it, I’d consider Kornet the Celtics most improved player this season. Pritchard’s numbers have jumped up, and he’s having an amazing year but his performance doesn’t feel as shocking. He is who he’s always been in a lot of ways, but in a larger role. Kornet on the other hand has taken a leap that goes beyond his counting stats. He has improved across the board, and has been absurdly good when on the floor. He was a nice replacement level reserve last season, but he’s transformed into one of the best backups in the league. Luke is my pick.
Oliver Fox
It’s Pritchard. I’ve been critical of his ability to stay on the floor in a playoff series (and I still am on some level), but my concerns that he’s nothing more than a heat check break-glass-in-case-of-emergency guy are officially done. The Celtics went from using him as an occasional spark plug, to actually working him into the lineup, to now NEEDING him to score to run a functional offense. That’s outrageous improvement in a year.
Robbie Hodin
Has to be Luke Kornet. The improvements in his short roll passing and rim defense have been monumental. He’s become a legitimate offensive option as a result of his elite passing at that position, and he has finally figured out how to effectively use his size and length on the defensive end.
Mark Aboyoun
Each seems every season Payton Pritchard has taken another step. On a team that’s loaded with scoring, he’s been able to find a role on his team and now when it’s his time to step up. Despite being a smaller guard, he holds his own on the defensive end. Offensively, although the focus is on the big three, when he’s off of the bench he presents many problems. He’ll most likely with Sixth Man of the Year, but I believe he should have some consideration in Most Improved.
Sam LaFrance
I don’t think we all realize how much Jayson Tatum has improved this season. You can pick any guy on this team (excluding probably Payton Pritchard and Luke Kornet) and point to a low-point for them — not JT. The guy came back after a summer of being ridiculed for riding the bench at the Paris Olympics, having no Aura, and not winning Finals MVP, and has been absolute nails. I’m not sure you can find a big game on the schedule where he has no-showed. Plus, Joe Mazzulla has been able to utilize him in lineups where he’s on the floor with the Maine Celtics, yet there hasn’t been a brutal drop off where it’s hurting the team.
Mike Shearer
With apologies to Tatum and Kornet, it’s Payton Pritchard. The bloodthirsty shot-hunting has been delightful, but he’s also recommitted to offensive rebounding (the highest OREB rate of his career) and given up all pretense of being a traditional point guard (which is a good thing). His efficiency has gone up even with a heavier workload, a rare combination that speaks to the work he’s putting in behind the scenes.
Bobby Manning
I’ll lean Kornet due to his ascension from still receiving DNP-CDs on some nights to a player the Celtics legitimately need every night. Payton Pritchard, despite his significant leap in productivity night-to-night, always had this in him based on past performances. It became a matter of opportunity. For Kornet, the rebounding, physicality and interior scoring leaps all mark vast improvements over his past abilities.
Nirav Barman
Luke Kornet deserves the nod here. If you were to tell me after the Finals that Luke decided to sign for a $5M deal elsewhere and left the Celtics I wouldn’t have thought much of it. With him being a free agent again at the end of this season, I’m worried that someone will pry him away from us this time around. He almost feels irreplaceable given the time he took to build chemistry first in Maine, and then in Boston. He does a fantastic job of connecting our offense, and his defense and rebounding have improved as well. He may not be an all-star caliber player still, but he became an all-star in his role. (edited)
Mike Dynon
Shoutout to Pritchard and Kornet, but I’m more intrigued by Derrick White’s emergence as a prolific three-point shooter. At the time White arrived from San Antonio, he was shooting just 31% from deep. But in his three years with Boston, his three-point accuracy has risen to 38%. In 237 games as a Spur, White made a total of 300 triples; with the Celtics, as of March 31 of this season, White had 252 appearances and 626 treys. As we also know, White broke the Celtics’ record of 245 three-pointers in one season.
That’s not all. Through March this season White was the Celtics’ leading scorer in fourth quarters with 331 points. He’s been so reliable in the clutch that it’s almost a shock when he misses. Six times this season, he’s hit from downtown with under three minutes left in the fourth quarter or overtime when the score differential was five points or below. Only Brown has more, with seven. And for comparison, Tatum has made three such hoops and assisted on 11. (Statistics are from stathead.com.)
Robby Fletcher
This version of Payton Pritchard was always in there, we all saw it in the glimpses of garbage time showrunning throughout the years, but for him to shoot up in minutes and shot volume and achieve the best efficiency of his career (61.7% eFG%) really speaks to what has been an outstanding season for the soon-to-be Sixth Man of the Year.
It’s not just in his scoring acumen either. PP has achieved a career-best ORB% (5.1) and STL% (1.5), all while being sixth on the team in usage. Even with more responsibility as a scorer, he’s doing things beyond putting the ball in the basket that have contributed to Boston’s success.
Jeff Clark
I love that there are 3 great options to pick from here. You could even give a respectful nod to Baylor Scheierman as well. Ultimately I think Payton is the correct answer and Kornet is a great 2nd choice. However, I also want to acknowledge just how hard it is for someone like Jayson Tatum to go from top 6 in the league to (arguably) top 3 or 4. It doesn’t sound like much, but the margin for error is razor thin at that level. He’s just SO GOOD at so many different things, and keeps adding to his game year after year. This probably isn’t the award for him, if only because there will be more awards in his future. But I did want to give him some praise for his continual improvements.
