The Cleveland Cavaliers took on the Boston Celtics at Rocket Arena on Sunday, and their head coach, Kenny Atkinson, raised eyebrows with his comments in his pregame press conference. Atkinson was asked about the Celtics’ success without Jayson Tatum this season and explained why he isn’t surprised by it.
“Derrick White, he’s a top 5 player in this league,” Atkinson said, via MassLive’s Brian Robb. “I know no one says that in the standard media, but analytically, you look at all the advanced stuff, he’s top 5 player in the league, superstar. Jaylen [Brown] is obviously having a great year. [Neemias] Queta is analytically one of the top 30, probably.
“They have a lot of talent even without Jayson,” Atkinson added. “So I think if you just kind of look, oh my gosh, Jayson Tatum’s out, they’re going to be terrible, I never bought into that.”
Now, Derrick White is undoubtedly an excellent player, but one of the five best in the NBA? Even White might not consider himself to be that good. Hall of Famer Charles Barkley certainly wasn’t buying what Atkinson was selling, as he dismissed the claim on Inside the NBA.
“The reason nobody says that, Kenny [is] ’cause it’s not true,” Barkley said, via HoopsHype. “You can make numbers mean what you want to.”
Barkley certainly would be in the majority there. Atkinson hadn’t elaborated much on that comment pregame, which led to him being asked about it in his postgame press conference.
“What probably people aren’t measuring is his defensive impact,” Atkinson stated, via Celtics on CLNS. “That’s hard to measure, and it’s hard for your kind of average person… He’s elite on both ends. So that equals to me, for coaches in this league, for players in this league, that’s how we look at him as a great player in that in that bucket.
“So again, analytically, I think it’s probably proven in various places that he is that player, and that’s how we treat him,” Atkinson continued. “He really disrupts you defensively. He’s an elite rim protector. Probably the best guard, rim protector in the league. So just take all those things and put it in there, and with the shooting, you got a great player.”
White is one of the best two-way players in the NBA. You’d consider him somewhere between a top-tier role player and a star, but Atkinson says the coaches know he is far better. You wonder then why White didn’t make the All-Star team in 2026, considering it is the coaches who choose the reserves. Perhaps that isn’t as common an opinion as Atkinson thinks.
The timing of these comments is interesting as well, as while White has been excellent defensively, he isn’t having a great offensive season. The 31-year-old is averaging 17.2 points, 4.4 rebounds, 5.7 assists, 1.2 steals, and 1.5 blocks per game for the Celtics while shooting 39.2% from the field and 32.8% from beyond the arc.
White has been very inefficient, and that was the case here against the Cavaliers, too. He finished with six points (2-9 FG), seven rebounds, and five assists as the Celtics won 109-98. They improved to 43-21 on the season with the win, and it’s ridiculous just how good they have been, considering Tatum has played only two games. He looked pretty good against the Cavaliers, too, scoring 20 points.
The Celtics were completely written off before the start of this season, and they’re now being talked about in some corners as the favorites to win the East. It’d be quite the story if they pull that off.
We’ll see the Celtics in action next against the San Antonio Spurs at Frost Bank Center on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET.
