The Celtics are almost ready to find out what this reshaped roster can really do, and Derrick White sits right at the center of it. Boston’s season is about to begin after a busy offseason, and if the team is going to make noise, White has to look more like the efficient scorer Celtics fans have come to expect.
That was not the version that showed up last year.
White was pushed into a role he had never really carried before in his NBA career: a primary scoring option. That came after Boston moved Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, while Jayson Tatum spent most of the season working his way back from a ruptured Achilles tendon. The heavier load clearly affected White’s offense, and the fit between his game and that expanded responsibility never quite clicked.
Now the setup is different. White should be operating in something much closer to the role he handled during his years in Boston, and that matters. If his offense comes back, it gives the Celtics a much better chance to have the kind of season they want.
The raw scoring number from last season can be misleading. White averaged a career-high 16.5 points per game, but the efficiency dipped hard.
Before arriving in Boston, he had already shown he could be streaky, but with the Celtics he had developed into a far more reliable shooter. That changed last season.
Over the previous three years, his lowest marks had still been solid: 44.2% from the field in the 2024-25 season and 38.1% from three in 2022-23. Last year was a different story. He shot 39.4% from the field and 32.7% from beyond the arc, both career lows.
The postseason didn’t bring a rebound. White fell to 32.1% from the field and 27.3% from three in the playoffs, and he finished with 11.1 points per game.
Even with those numbers, White remains one of Boston’s most important players. The Celtics acquired him at the 2022 NBA deadline, and his value hasn’t changed.
He still brings real defensive impact, but Boston needs much more from him as a shooter if it wants the offense to function at a high level. With the Eastern Conference looking stronger than it has in recent years, that becomes even more important.
There are reasons to think White can get back on track. The biggest one is role clarity.
Tatum is back as Boston’s top option. Jaylen Brown is gone, but Paul George is in, and he’ll be a major piece of the offense.
Payton Pritchard should also take on a larger scoring role. That gives Boston more players who can initiate and draw attention, which should keep White from being forced into the kind of tightly defended creation role he carried last season.
That difference could matter a lot. White spent last year trying to do more of the heavy lifting on offense, and defenses treated him accordingly. With more creators around him, his responsibilities should better match what he’s done most successfully in Boston.
The Celtics will look plenty different this season. George replaces Brown, and Mitchell Robinson is Boston’s top free-agent signing. If White gets his shot back, it would go a long way toward smoothing out all that change.
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For a team that just moved on from Jaylen Brown, that kind of ceiling says the framework in Boston is still viewed as strong enough to survive a jarring shakeup. The bigger question is whether the Celtics can keep the important pieces on the floor long enough for that upside to matter, because the outlook hinges just as much on health and availability as it does on talent. [Read more 🡒]
NBA Officiating Change Just Put An Ex-Celtics Star In Focus
The NBA is heading into the 2026-27 season with a fresh officiating focus, and it could have a familiar feel for Celtics fans. The league says it will pay closer attention to how offensive players use their off-arm, with referees instructed to crack down on illegal push-offs while still allowing legal contact that helps a scorer create space. Monty McCutchen, the NBAs senior vice president of referee development and training, used examples involving Jaylen Brown and Paul George to draw the line between what officials should and should not call.
The broader emphasis also reaches straight-line pathway plays and freedom of movement around screens, two areas that have been central to how offenses get organized and how defenders try to fight through traffic. For Boston, it is the kind of change that could matter on both ends, especially in a league where a few borderline whistles can shape how a wing scorer attacks and how much room a teams movement offense gets to operate. The real question now is how quickly players and officials adjust once the season actually starts. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Suddenly Hold A Pick Swap Fans May Start Obsessing Over
The Clippers latest injury wave has only added to the uncertainty around a franchise already trying to navigate a delayed rebuild, and that matters in Boston because the Celtics still control a 2028 first-round pick swap with Los Angeles. With Brandon Ingram, Bradley Beal, Yanic Konan Neiderhauser and Jordan Miller all among the players sidelined, the long view around the Clippers has started to look even murkier, which is exactly the kind of backdrop that can turn a future asset from interesting into intriguing.
For Celtics fans, the appeal is obvious: a swap tied to a team dealing with both health issues and NBA sanctions suddenly feels less like a distant footnote and more like something worth tracking. The value of that 2028 pick will depend on how much the Clippers can stabilize over the next few seasons, but for now the picture points in one direction - and it is enough to keep Bostons front office inventory looking a little more useful than it did before this latest stretch of bad news. [Read more 🡒]