The NBA playoffs are upon us. The 18-64 Wizards are predictably sitting at home or in some tropical destination watching the games on their TVs, but a number of familiar faces are still out there competing for a championship, including one former Wizard who could be the x-factor of the entire playoffs.
Kristaps Porzingis has series-swinging potential for the Boston Celtics, who will likely face off against their toughest Eastern Conference opponent in years in the Eastern Conference Finals versus the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Porzingis spent a season and a half in Washington as the team’s no-brainer best player. He was an efficient post scorer and knockdown shooter who averaged career marks in scoring, posting 22.9 points per game in 82 total games for the franchise.
Porzingis, unfortunately, was miscast as a part of a “big three” of himself, Bradley Beal, and Kyle Kuzma, a trio for whom even the play-in tournament appeared a pipe dream.
Porzingis was shipped up to Boston in the summer of 2023 in a deal that netted the Wizards Tyus Jones and some draft capital; then-future Wizard Marcus Smart was also involved in the deal, though he was sent to the Memphis Grizzlies and wouldn’t become a Wizard until 2025.
Porzingis has been a hand-in-glove fit in Boston as the team’s third or fourth option offensively and a menacing paint presence defensively. However, as with every other stop in Porzingis’ career, the Latvian big man has struggled through injuries during his time in Boston. He was limited to 57 games last season and just 42 this year.
Boston nonetheless won the NBA title in 2023 with a partial season of Porzingis. In the NBA Finals, he was limited to just three of the five games and did not play more than 23 minutes in any game; when he played, though, he gave the Mavericks’ Daniel Gafford and Derrick Lively II problems with his inside-out scoring ability and contributed to the buzzsaw that was the 2023-24 Boston Celtics.
Porzingis’ availability at the end of this season can best be described as “limited,” but he is off the Celtics’ injury report for Boston’s first round series against the Orlando Magic.
With Porzingis in the lineup, the Celtics are one of the best teams in NBA history. The versatility on both ends of the floor from all five starters — Porzingis, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, and Derrick White — is simply an insurmountable burden for any team other than the Oklahoma City Thunder.
That being said, Porzingis’ game-to-game availability is a massive question mark. Will Boston have him available and tear through the Eastern Conference like they did last year? Or will they stumble early, perhaps against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and fail to defend their title?
