There have been a lot of cries for the Celtics to add another center to their roster.
Charles Bassey played well in Summer League. So many Celtics fans, including myself, wanted them to sign him, but he signed with the Hawks last week. There have also been Anfernee Simons for Nikola Vucevic trade rumors for a while now, but Boston hasn’t done a whole lot at the position.
They clearly like Neemias Queta and they did drafted Amari Williams in the 2nd round. Yet, they are still very thin at the position.
One guy the team did add via free agency is former Pistons and Timberwolves big man Luka Garza to a 2-year deal. In what is a very thin center room, Garza now has his best opportunity to carve out a consistent role in the NBA.
Garza can score the ball. For his career, he has been great around the rim, shooting 64% on shots around the rim, according to StatMuse. However, if we look behind the curtain a little more, according to Cleaning the Glass, in 133 non-garbage time minutes played last season in Minnesota, Garza shot 54% on twos, which ranked in the 29th percentile for big men. His effective field goal percentage, which adjusts for three-pointers being worth more than two-pointers, was 46% a season ago, just in the 8th percentile for big men.
He didn’t shoot the three well last season, hitting just 10-of-36, just 27.8%. That isn’t enough attempts for us to draw any conclusions of course, but while the Celtics will work on his three-pointer, they shouldn’t count on it developing. He doesn’t take corner threes, just 11 attempts from both corners for his career, so if he is going to be a shooter, it will likely come from above the break. Maybe Boston spaces him in the corner more often but that is an easy place for teams to cheat off of and make it harder for the Celtics to play in the paint.
Consider that 133 minutes is not big enough sample to draw any sort of conclusions about any player. For comparison, Xavier Tillman played 155 ‘non-garbage time’ minutes last season and it felt like he never played. Garza just never got on the court for Minnesota last season.
For his career, Garza has played 978 regular season minutes over four NBA seasons and that includes ‘garbage time.’ How is he going to adjust to playing a bigger role? A season ago, Queta played 863 minutes. I am assuming Garza is going to be in that range because, again, the Celtics don’t have a ton of options at center. Of course, he has played big minutes in college and the G-League but those levels are not the NBA. How will his body react to a full season of NBA minutes?
His defense has been an issue, too. While he is a good offensive rebounder, grabbing 15% of his teams misses, which is the 96th percentile. However, his defensive rebounding is bad, ranking last in the NBA a season ago in offensive rebounding percentage according to Cleaning the Glass, which had him at 5.7%. He also fouls too much, fouling on 5.6% of plays last season, ranking in the 7th percentile.
Garza is too often out of position, which leads to offensive rebounds, and jumping at the first sign of a shot fake, which leads to him fouling. He also lacks physicality on box-outs as there are times where guys are able to get a rebound by going threw him to get to the ball. These are things that can, and need to, be corrected.
There are areas to Garza’s defense that can’t be corrected. This isn’t Luke Kornet where he is 7-foot-1 and his defense can be unlocked when he realizes that. Garza is 6’10” and lacks athleticism so he won’t ever be a great rim protector and he also lacks the foot speed to switch on to shifty guards. I just am not sure how he is going to be able to survive, much less thrive, on the defensive side of the floor.
Luka Garza has been in the NBA for four seasons now, over those years, he has played in just 978 minutes. He has never had a chance to prove he is a rotation level guy. Well, now he has one in Boston, a team that saw something in him that they like and think they can unlock in him.
