The Boston Celtics picked up the fourth-year option on Payton Pritchard, keeping him in Boston through next season.
The financial part isn’t confusing. $4 million for a player who shoots over 40 percent from behind the arc is great value.
Pritchard has only played in three of nine games for a total of 17 minutes this season. Not to mention he essentially has only played at the end of already convincing wins, a nicer way to say garbage time.
A lot of this isn’t Pritchard’s fault, which makes this harder. The addition of Malcolm Brogdon and his elevated level play has taken minutes away from Pritchard. And the same can be said about Derrick White and Sam Hauser to an extent.
The difference between what Brogdon and White can offer over Pritchard is better defense. They’re great offensively but can defend pretty much every position well.
Pritchard can defend in small doses but he’s more limited on that end. The best role for him is used as a spark plug off the bench who can come in and shoot it up for stretches in a game.
This happened last year with Pritchard. He wasn’t seeing any minutes early on in the season and then he cracked the limited rotation and went on to be a contributing factor in what was a run to the NBA Finals.
As I said earlier, the confusing part isn’t the money aspect of picking up his option, but it’s more so the playing perspective. Where is Pritchard going to be able to find meaningful minutes on this deep guard heavy rotation?
Pritchard is an asset in more ways than one and I think there’s some value to him around the league should the Celtics go down that road.
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