Grading the Boston Celtics, Joe Mazzulla, and Brad Stevens, at the All-Star Break

The All-Star break is here, and the Celtics are the East’s two-seed, with a record of 35-19. They have the league’s second-best offense and ninth-best defense, giving them a net rating of 7.5, third-best behind OKC and Detroit.

By all measures, they are pretty good. Let’s go through the team and hand out some grades.

Brad Stevens: A

His moves this past summer have all paid off in some form, even the recently-traded Josh Minott. Minott helped them win a couple of games earlier this season before falling out of the rotation. He’s the equivalent of a dollar scratch ticket paying off $10, which isn’t much but it’s still something.

The trade for Anfernee Simons helped move Jrue Holiday, which got Boston below the second apron. Then moving Simons for Nikola Vucevic helped rebalance the roster while helping Boston get under the first apron and tax. The last bit is important because now the Celtics can use their entire mid-level exception to sign a free agent this summer while using the $27.7 million traded player exception created by the Simons trade to acquire an impact player this summer. And he created that TPE by creating one in the Kristaps Porzingis deal.

Drafting Hugo Gonzalez is going to be a big hit for Boston. I’m the conductor of the Hugo Hype Train, so remember this in a few years when he’s figured out the NBA. Everything is coming up Milhouse for Stevens and his front office.

Joe Mazzulla: A+

One of the early knocks on Mazzulla was that he only cared about shooting three-pointers. The Celtics are still second in the league in three-point volume, but they're taking six fewer than last season even though they're taking two more shots per game than in the past. Boston is redistributing those in the mid-range and at the rim, leaning on the strengths of their star player, Jaylen Brown.

On top of proving he’s not a “system guy,” he has everyone prepared for their roles and ready to contribute when they check in, even if it’s after a few DNP-CD’s.

“We feel like Joe and the staff have created a system where, if we have guys out, there’s a lot of ability to replace those guys on a given night,” Stevens recently said. “There’s a lot of depth … Joe has done an amazing job of throwing them all out there, and sometimes pulling them fast, but throwing them all out there and letting them gain great experience and great opportunity. And you've seen kind of this jump on a couple of them.”

Mazzulla’s coaching is a big part of Stevens hitting on his choices. They are working hand-in-hand and it works incredibly well.

Jaylen Brown: A

He’s having an All-NBA season. He tailed off a little in January, but he heads into the break averaging 29.3 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 4.7 assists. His shooting has dipped in January and February, so the hyper-efficiency that rocketed him into the MVP conversation has gone away, which keeps this from being an A+ right now. If he can’t get it back, then the A is at risk moving forward, but a little bit of a break will do him good. He’s banged up, dealing with wrist, hamstring, and knee soreness right now.

The bottom line for Brown is that he’s proven he can lead a team to success. This was a team some people were pegging for the play-in. All Brown has done is have the best season of his life so far, doing a bulk of the heavy lifting for a team with the league’s fourth-best record.

Derrick White: B+

Stevens summed it up when he said, “Derrick White is having a, you know, everybody's going to focus on his shooting, but every time he's on the court, we win by a lot.”

White is easily having the worst shooting season of his career, a sharp departure from his high efficiency since coming to Boston. His biggest issue is that he’s doing a lot more off the dribble versus catch-and-shoot with Jayson Tatum out of the lineup. So on one hand, that's a problem for Boston, but on the other, it might be a temporary one with Tatum likely coming back soon.

But like Stevens said, the Celtics win when he’s on the floor. According to Cleaning the Glass, they're 9.5 points per 100 possessions better with White on the floor, mostly because he supercharges their defense and he’s a clutch fourth-quarter performer. If he was shooting anywhere near his normal percentages, this would be an A.

Payton Pritchard: B+

A lot of the shooting stuff with White applies to Pritchard as well. His three-point percentage has dipped nearly four points below his career average and five points from last year on the same volume.

His increased role as a starter had something to do with that. Pritchard’s percentages have shot back up in very limited time off the bench recently. Through five games as a reserve, Pritchard’s true shooting percentage has jumped from 57.2% to 62.4% and his three-point percentage has jumped 4.3%.

Pritchard is still having a good season, though, and if history is any indication, he’ll make a push after the break. His career post-All-Star three-point percentage is 41.8%, three points better than his pre-All-Star shooting.

Neemias Queta: B+

I came into this season thinking he was going to be part of the worst frontcourt in the league. Instead, he’s proven to be a very good defender while making tremendous offensive improvements. According to CTG, Boston’s defense is nearly 11 points per 100 possessions better with Queta on the floor. He’s eighth in the league in block percentage.

I never thought he’d sniff a double-double, but he’s giving Boston nearly 10 points and eight rebounds per game.

There are things he can improve, so I’m not giving him an A. He still gets himself into trouble occasionally, but he’s making big strides. I’m incredibly impressed.

Sam Hauser: B+

The shooting has been a B. He’s still at 39%, but it’s the first time since becoming a regular that he’s gone into the break shooting less than 40%. It’s still a little too streaky for my tastes.

However, I think this is Hauser’s best season as a basketball player. He’s not really just a specialist anymore. He’s shown improved defense, rebounding, and passing this season. I think all of that increases his grade.

Luka Garza: B+

I swear I’m looking for reasons to hand out lower grades, but I can’t bring myself to give Garza less than a B+ because of how important his screening and offensive rebounding was to getting the Celtics through January.

I’ll take a moment to be an NBA hipster dufus here and say that Garza might have been Boston’s MVP in January. They were 10-6, but it could have been a lot worse were it not for Garza getting on the boards, picking-and-popping, and giving a tired team an energy boost.

Garza led the Celtics in offensive rebound rating and had the team’s best offensive rating in January. He won them games.

Baylor Scheierman: B-

Scheierman started the season somewhere in the C range and has grown into a B- over the past month or so. His rebounding has really been the big story recently. He has grabbed 13 offensive rebounds in 21 January and February games after getting 10 in 28 games from October to December.

He’s stepped into the starting lineup and filled a gap with his defense and work on the boards. So the 2025 version of Scheierman is probably a C or C-, but the 2026 version has been at least a B+.

Jordan Walsh: B-

His grade was pretty high early and then it came back down to earth. But hopefully that's turning around. Walsh can be an elite defender and offensive rebounder. He has all the measurables of a disruptive bench wing who can defend just about anyone.

He needs to find some consistency, especially with the three-point shot. After a monster 13-24 December from deep, he’s shooting just 9-35 (25.7%) in the new year.

Hugo Gonzalez: C+

Trust me when I say this kid is going to be a straight-A student. He just turned 20 and the NBA is a different animal, so he’s working to figure it out. But the instincts are there.

Weirdly, I kind of wish he was a little worse right now so he could go to the G League and hone his overall game. He’s good enough to help the Celtics win, so he needs to stick around with the big club, but I really wish he could get 36 minutes a game and handle a lot of the offensive creation that I think he’s capable of.

For now, he’ll stay inconsistent, giving Boston flashes and helping them win games, like when he hit the game-tying shot in Brooklyn. But he’ll also make young mistakes that get him yanked early.

The incompletes: Nikola Vucevic Amari Williams, Ron Harper Jr.

Vuc just got here, so let's see how it works out. All I can say here is that the Celtics are hopeful that it works, and right now it looks pretty good, but it's too early to tell, and there are no promises moving forward if it doesn't.

Harper had his big moment against the Houston Rockets. He has good size and is a solid player. There's a chance for him to be upgraded.

Williams has already been upgraded, and he’s showing some great stuff in Maine. He’s shown flashes with the Celtics, but has also been too overwhelmed sometimes, so he’s a work in progres. I like his potential, though. His passing makes him tantalizing.

The traded guys: Anfernee Simons, Josh Minott, Xavier Tillman Sr., Chris Boucher

Simons was a solid B in his time here. He won the Celtics some games with his scoring prowess, but he was also a little too passive sometimes. His defense improved a lot when he was here, so we’ll see how that continues for him. He was as advertised though: Explosive scoring potential, can make some plays for others, and then the rest can be up and down.

Minott needs to be more focused, but he had an early stretch of starts that made some people think Stevens won the lottery. That tailed off, and I think some time to spread his wings and play through some mistakes can be beneficial.

Tillman, well, he hit that shot in the Finals, so we’ll always have that. He goes down as a great teammate and the ultimate professional. Just a good dude who deserves good things, but I think his knee issues never gave him a real chance here.

And Chris Boucher … well … good luck, Chris.