Derrick White is the perfect model of Derrick White. So how does he get higher?
White occupies an attention-grabbing place within the NBA biosphere. He has blown by way of each ceiling daring sufficient to attempt to include him, going from a stable backup level guard for an nameless San Antonio Spurs staff to a more-than-solid backup guard on the Boston Celtics to a starter, ultimately turning into an completely irreplaceable keystone of an NBA champion making 118 million {dollars}.
For late-blooming second spherical picks like White, that is about 20,000 occasions higher than he in all probability might have hoped for. He’s beloved in Boston, fully uncontroversial and performs complimentary basketball that by no means will get in the way in which and makes everybody higher. How on earth might we enhance this?
Nicely, when you reduce by way of all of the birthday cake and confetti, White remains to be in all probability the fifth most necessary participant on the Celtics. He’s a artful however typically restricted offensive participant who depends on constant three-point capturing to remain on the ground, and should outwork and out suppose his opponents to beat often-daunting bodily matchups. However he’s managed to do all that with exceptional consistency, and he principally by no means misses video games.
Complacency is thus White’s largest problem for the 2024-25 season. The Celtics must get higher in the event that they need to win back-to-back championships, and White is without doubt one of the gamers with sufficient room to develop the place it would really make a distinction. So what might he add?
Photograph by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE through Getty Pictures
Whereas not precisely the height of basketball evaluation, White might do with an expanded “bag,” as his offensive recreation is proscribed to the massive three of position participant strikes: straight line drives, three pointers, and off-ball cuts. That’s not an issue, however a guard of his measurement — he’s a legit 6’4” — might do with develop a submit recreation towards smaller matchups, one thing each Marcus Sensible and Jrue Vacation have developed to nice success. Maybe White might placed on some weight and develop into a extra bodily defender and scorer reasonably than counting on his innate shot blocking capacity.
White can also be sneaky previous, as whereas it doesn’t really feel like he’s been on the Celtics for that lengthy, he performed 4 years in school and many in San Antonio. He’s already 30 years previous, and the historical past of NBA guards going into their thirties is a narrative of measurement. The larger, stockier guards can normally translate their misplaced burst right into a grown man’s bully ball, utilizing their craftiness and bodily maturity to maneuver the beanpole twenty-something round like sacks of potatoes. White might want to determine that out sooner reasonably than later if he desires to enhance.
White might additionally maybe develop into a extra inventive passer, as whereas he does nicely to maintain the ball transferring reasonably than dribbling the air out of it like his predecessor Dennis Schröder, he’s nonetheless a “see it-throw it” passer, not essentially seeing the ground as profoundly as Jayson Tatum does. Vacation has by no means been a chief facilitator, and until the Celtics need to actually advance the Level Tatum agenda, White might develop into the staff’s major table-setter if he desires to be.
White’s largest energy has been his availability, which might show even deadlier than common if White can develop into a topflight offensive participant on this league. He isn’t missing any bodily instruments, and has loads of burst and measurement. The variety of alternatives to totally run the offense has been the principle limiter to his enchancment, however we noticed the Celtics go together with a number of iterations of “Derrick White and the Bench Squad” lineups final common season. That’s one thing they need to do extra of, even whether it is only a lab experiment.
White has been every little thing the Celtics needed him to be and a lot extra. But when they need to push their already-lofty limits, White goes to should be even cooler, and he completely may be. And I’m positive we’d all like to see that.
