The Celtics Have Found Their Much Needed Center And His Name Is Enes Kanter

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We were all waiting to see who Ainge would land with his RME to fill his big man void, and we now have our answer in Enes Kanter. Let me start this off by making myself extremely clear. Enes Kanter does NOT fill the Al Horford void. They are different universes, and there’s no chance that Plan A was Enes Kanter when this summer first started. But, you have to play the hand you’re dealt, and when you looked at the available bigs for this type of money there are reasons to like Kanter. For starters, he’s a consistent scoring/rebounding player on a team that desperately needs both. His DREB% of 22.8% is more than adequate and he does flourish around the basket which is an area we’ve seen previous Celtics big struggle. Kanter can be useful in P&R and designed handoffs which will be a part of the Celtics offense, but the defense is the giant question. To say it’s a drop off from Horford would be the understatement of the century. It’s bad, real bad. He really struggles big time in P&R defense, teams just switch on him and he has a tough time guarding smaller players. Brad is going to have to figure that shit out rather quickly.

What he also doesn’t do is “stretch” the floor. Do not think Kanter is going to be a pick and pop player like Al where he was used to stretch the defense out to the three point line. That’s not his game. Personally, I preferred Looney, but it looks like he’s going to be too expensive

So if he’s off the list I get why Ainge went with Kanter. It’ll be interesting to see what else they do with their minimum deals to see if they bring in another defensive minded big because that still has me really nervous. I know Timelord exists, but he’s unproven. Kanter is also a guy that sort of needs touches to be effective, and everyone has already been on edge about taking shots away from the Jays.

There’s also this to consider as well. With everything go on with Kanter and Turkey, he can’t travel out of the country. What does that mean for every game up in Canada? What if the Celtics face the Raptors in a playoff series? That whole situation is crazy to the point where if Kanter leaves the country he has to fear for his life.

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But hey, at least Ainge found a guy who fills two needs to play for that $10M. It was starting to look a little sketchy as more and more bigs came off the board, and hey at least now we’ll have an elite shit talker on the squad when they play Philly. That should be fun.