Derrick White’s summer season was already going fairly effectively. It simply acquired a hell of loads higher.
Recent off taking part in a pivotal position all through the Celtics’ run to the 2023-24 NBA championship, White has agreed to a four-year, $125.9 contract extension that can preserve him in Boston, in keeping with ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The re-up represents a big leap over the four-year, $70 million deal that White signed as an extension of his rookie-scale contract again in 2020 and features a participant choice.
White inked that pact with the Spurs, who’d drafted the previously unheralded recruit out of Colorado with the twenty ninth decide within the 2017 NBA Draft. In 4 and a half seasons underneath the watchful eye of Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, White developed from a frivolously used understudy to stalwarts Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Danny Inexperienced and Patty Mills right into a reliable two-way starter within the backcourt, sharing ball-handling and point-of-attack defensive duties with Dejounte Murray.
These post-Duncan-and-Kawhi Spurs groups had some moments — together with taking the Nuggets to seven video games within the opening spherical of the 2019 playoffs, with White exploding for 36 factors in Sport 3 — however fell in need of critical rivalry in a perpetually powerful Western Convention and had been struggling close to the underside of the standings forward of the 2022 commerce deadline. That’s when Brad Stevens, in his first season because the Celtics’ personnel chief, plucked White out of San Antonio in change for Josh Richardson, Romeo Langford, a 2022 first-round decide and the suitable to swap first-round picks with Boston in 2028.
That 2028 decide is top-1 protected. On the time of the commerce, some cautious pundits (cough, cough) famous the danger of such a frivolously protected swap, and the likelihood that, if issues fell aside in just a few years’ time, Boston may come to rue that swap. Even when the wheels do fall off within the close to future, although, it’s arduous to ascertain the Celtics minding all that a lot, contemplating how very important White’s been to their success over the previous two seasons, and the way integral he was on their highway to Banner 18.
Since his first look for the staff on Feb. 11, 2022, the Celtics have gone 175-68 with White within the lineup — a .720 successful proportion, which works out to a 59-win tempo over an 82-game schedule. In all competitors over the past two seasons, regular-season and postseason mixed, Boston has outscored opponents by a whopping 1,177 factors with White on the ground — the third-highest mark within the league, behind solely three-time MVP Nikola Jokić (who’s logged almost 400 extra minutes in that span than White) and teammate Jayson Tatum (who’s performed almost 1,000 extra) — and he’s had the perfect on-court/off-court splits of any of the Celtics’ high gamers in each of his full seasons in Boston.
Emboldened to launch 3-pointers freely and incessantly within the five-out, win-the-math-battle offensive scheme favored by head coach Joe Mazzulla, White has turn out to be one of many NBA’s greatest marksmen — one among simply 15 gamers within the league to fireplace not less than six 3-pointers per recreation and make greater than 39% of them this season. (He ratcheted that manufacturing up even larger within the playoffs, drilling 40.4% of his 8.5 triple tries an evening.) Consider his career-high 5.2 assists and 4.2 rebounds per recreation, and the one gamers this season to match White’s contributions as a long-distance shooter, on-ball playmaker and possession-ending board-crasher had been Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving.
That’s fairly heady firm for a man who began his faculty hoops profession on the College of Colorado-Colorado Springs in Division II … and that’s earlier than you get to the affect he makes on the opposite finish of the court docket.
The 6-foot-4 combo guard has turn out to be one of many NBA’s most constant and disruptive perimeter stoppers, incomes All-Defensive Second Group nods in every of the final two seasons for his work because the sort of high-motor playmaker prepared to sacrifice his smile to safe a unfastened ball if it will get him one step nearer to a win. He’s incessantly lauded as the perfect shot-blocking guard the sport’s seen since Dwyane Wade, and for good cause: No different backcourt participant has tallied something near White’s 163 blocks over the previous two seasons, which is greater than all however 17 gamers at any place.
Add it up and also you’ve acquired a dude who, regardless of comparatively modest per-game scoring numbers, graded out by a slew of superior analytics fashions as one of many 25 greatest gamers within the NBA this season. (The metrics that see White that method embrace, however will not be restricted to: estimated plus-minus, worth over alternative participant, win shares, field plus-minus, Opta’s DRIP and Neil Paine’s Estimated RAPTOR.)
Excessive effectivity, low turnover and even decrease drama; comfy taking part in a smaller position, however capable of scale up his utilization when known as upon; a menace to attain and facilitate on or off the ball; able to guarding throughout perimeter positions and offering secondary rim safety at an elite stage. It’s arduous to overstate simply how good a match White has confirmed to be in Boston — how a lot he helped the Celtics get to the promised land, and the way a lot that has impressed different would-be contenders to seek for their model of White.
Whether or not they’ll discover it stays to be seen. What’s clear, although, is that Boston’s not desirous about letting its model go anytime quickly.
