The Celtics are wasting no time rolling out their new veteran group. Paul George, Mike Conley and Mitchell Robinson will be introduced to the media on Tuesday, Sep. 15, with Joe Mazzulla and Brad Stevens set to join them at 1:30 PM ET at the Auerbach Center.
It’s a notable checkpoint for a team that has already started building chemistry behind the scenes. Mazzulla made a trip to Nashville this offseason to visit Robinson, while Conley and George have been part of a Celtics group getting workouts in together in Los Angeles. Now the public gets its first chance to hear from the three newcomers about landing in Boston.
Robinson’s move is the one that immediately raises the most questions. According to Keith Smith of Spotrac, the early expectation is that he’ll come off the bench.
That fits with what he’s already done well. Last season with the Knicks, Robinson averaged 5.7 points, 8.8 rebounds, 1.2 blocks and nearly 1.0 steals per game while playing fewer than 20 minutes a night.
He also posted 2.1 deflections per contest and kept showing why he’s such a force on the offensive glass.
There’s still the matter of Hack-a-Robinson, but Boston already has Neemias Queta in the mix. Queta played like a top-10 player at his position in the regular season, and the Celtics made a real investment in him too, signing him to a four-year, $56 million extension. The cleanest path is to keep both bigs in the roles they held last season and adjust only if the need actually shows up.
George looks like the kind of addition that can slide right into what Boston wants to do. Offensively, he protects the ball, gives them another dangerous catch-and-shoot threat, and can still score one-on-one when the offense needs a release valve.
Last season, he hit 41.7 percent of his 4.5 catch-and-shoot 3s, per NBA Stats, which is exactly the kind of spacing Jayson Tatum should be able to exploit. George also brings underrated playmaking.
Defensively, he showed in the playoffs that there’s still plenty left when his legs are right. In the first-round Celtics-Sixers series, he made life difficult for Tatum and Jaylen Brown as the matchup wore on.
Boston will have a plan to manage him, and the roster has enough young wings to help ease that burden. For the first time in his career, George is being asked to thrive as a role player.
If he stays healthy, that’s a job he should handle.
Conley gives the Celtics something else they value: stability. He adds another trustworthy ball handler behind Derrick White and Payton Pritchard, someone who takes care of the ball and keeps the offense steady.
At this stage of his career, though, Boston won’t need to lean on him heavily. He’s about to become the 14th player in NBA history to reach his 20th season, and the Celtics will likely keep his workload around 15 minutes per game.
That approach also fits the rest of the roster. Boston has multiple wings who can help with creation, including Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez and Ron Harper Jr.
Gonzalez is more connector than initiator, but that still matters in a lineup built around players like Tatum and George. Conley doesn’t have to be the backup point guard who carries the second unit.
He just has to steady the game, manage the position and provide the kind of locker room presence teams lean on when the season starts getting long.
In Other News...
Celtics Suddenly Have A Low-Risk Guard Opportunity Worth Watching
The Celtics have a fresh little roster wrinkle to monitor after the Hawks waived Devin Carter, opening the door for a guard who has already logged NBA time and could fit neatly into Bostons two-way conversation. Carter spent last season with Sacramento, appearing in 38 games, and his availability comes at a time when the Celtics are always weighing low-cost backcourt options that can add depth without changing the bigger picture.
Boston does have internal choices if it wants to stay in-house, including Milos Uzan, so this is not a case of urgency. Still, Carters status is worth watching because a two-way spot can turn into one of those quietly useful roster moves, especially for a team that likes to keep as many flexible guard options around as possible. The remaining question is whether Carter is open to that kind of path and whether another opportunity pulls him elsewhere first. [Read more 🡒]
Paul George Arrives With One Big Celtics Question Already Looming
Paul George is arriving in Boston with plenty to prove, and the conversation around him already starts with where he stands among the leagues wings. HoopHype slotted him at No. 22 among small forwards heading into the 2026-27 season, a drop from No. 18 a year ago, a reflection of a 2025-26 campaign that never really found a stable rhythm. Even so, he still put up 17.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.7 steals while hitting 39.2 percent of his 3s, numbers that help explain why the Celtics are expected to lean on him in a meaningful way.
The bigger issue is whether Boston can count on the version of George it needs for the full season, because last year was interrupted far too often to build much momentum. He appeared in just 37 games and also served a 25-game suspension under the NBA/NBPA Anti-Drug Program, leaving his market value and on-court reliability in a very different place than the one he occupied not long ago. For the Celtics, the question isnt whether the skill is still there. Its whether the availability and consistency will follow. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Fans Got Pulled Into A Trey Murphy Question Again
A bogus trade rumor was enough to drag Celtics fans back into the Trey Murphy III conversation again, this time through an Instagram post that claimed Boston and New Orleans were in advanced talks involving Murphy, Dejounte Murray, Paul George and draft picks. The post spread quickly and got plenty of attention before anyone had a chance to separate speculation from reality, which is exactly the kind of noise that tends to follow a player Boston has at least kept an eye on.
Murphy remains the kind of name that naturally pops up in Celtics circles because the team has been reported to monitor his market, but there is no indication a deal is close or even formally taking shape. For now, it is another reminder that in the social media era, a loud rumor can make a real basketball question feel much bigger than it is, even when the actual answer is still somewhere off in the distance. [Read more 🡒]