Derrick White Gives Celtics a Big Three Combo that Could Be Dangerous in the Playoffs

The Boston Celtics are not rebuilding during the 2025-26 season and are instead competing for home-court advantage in the Eastern Conference Playoffs because several players are making "the leap" as we speak.

None has been more dramatic than Derrick White's in December, though. It's not a stretch in the slightest to say White has become the team's third star in Jayson Tatum's absence from an Achilles tear recovery.

White is averaging 23 points on a 49/39/87 shooting split, while dishing out five assists and grabbing four rebounds this month. That's two assists off from Steph Curry's 2024-25 season on a pure counting stats basis.

Boston is 7-2 when White scores 20 or more points this season. They're 9-4 when White dishes five or more assists.

There's a common correlation here: the Celtics are tangibly better when White is playing his best basketball.

Once upon a time, White was merely 20% of the most well-oiled machine of a lineup around. Whether with Kristaps Porzingis or Al Horford at the 5, and alongside Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Jrue Holiday, White played in a top-five unit on both sides of the ball.

Now, he's Brown's lifeline on a team that is hoping Payton Pritchard's scoring and play-making, Neemias Queta's activity around the rim, and Jordan Walsh's defensive prowess are sustainable.

White is as functionally the team's floor general as Pritchard and has been asked to be a table-setter since before the team traded Marcus Smart away in 2023, but he's needed to be the No. 2 scoring option for the first time in his career during the current campaign.

He's played that role perfectly. Rising tides raise all boats, and his play has gotten the best out of the one player keeping Boston from tearing this team down to the studs and fully building towards Tatum's return next year.

Now, there's urgency for Tatum to return. White singlehandedly extended the team's championship window.

Jaylen Brown's Career Year Couldn't Happen Without Derrick White

Brown could've ended up having an inefficient season like Kobe Bryant on the mid-aughts-post-Shaquille O'Neal Los Angeles Lakers teams that preceded Pau Gasol's arrival. Instead, he's playing at a historic level and shooting far better from the mid-range than Bryant ever did.

Brown doesn't have the freedom he does without White attracting the attention of opposing defenses. Credit Pritchard for this, too. But White has been doing it for longer and is naturally progressing into a top scorer. If Pritchard can keep his play up over several seasons in an expanded role, he'll go from a star-in-waiting to an arrival.

If December Derrick White continues this torrid pace into 2026, and when Tatum is back in the lineup, the Celtics will have one of the best Big Threes in the NBA.