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Jaylen Brown believes Celtics center should win notable NBA award
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- Jaylen Brown believes Celtics center should win notable NBA award
BOSTON — Neemias Queta knew this season would be an important one in his career, so before it even started, he had a conversation with his agent. He wanted to aim for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award — and it’s something he thinks about “all the time.”
As the Celtics near the No. 2 seed in the East , Queta has been a massive and pleasant surprise for the team. While he was a serviceable depth big man last season, Queta has blossomed into a legit starting center this year. Jaylen Brown backed up Queta’s beliefs, saying the big man should be in the race for the league’s Most Improved Player award.
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“Neemi’s been great,” Brown said. “He’s been just consistently getting better, protecting the rim, finishing, making those little shots, rebounding. He’s been great. In my opinion, he’s probably one of the Most Improved Players this year, and I don’t know if he’s up for the award, but he should be.”
The big man was excellent for the Celtics in their win over the Raptors on Sunday . He finished with 18 points and seven rebounds on 9-for-10 shooting. The Celtics found him near the basket often as they finished with 76 points in the paint, their most in the play-by-play era since the 1996-97 season.
Queta hasn’t received much buzz for the award despite his great campaign. The likely winner will be either the Hawks’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker or the Pistons’ Jalen Duren . Both guys have enjoyed breakout seasons of their own. Duren has led the East-best Pistons and earned an All-Star nod. Alexander-Walker has averaged 20.6 points per game to help out the No. 5-seeded Hawks.
But that doesn’t take away anything from Queta’s season. Queta arguably has been the league’s best player compared to preseason expectations. Even though he entered the year as Boston’s projected starting center, producing on a nightly basis is a different question. All Queta has done is prove he can be a major contributor on an East contender.
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“I feel like I made a good case for it,” Queta said. “But like we said, that’s stuff that we can’t control. At the end of the day, I’m just just helping the team win, and that’s my main goal. Obviously, that’s secondary, the most improved. But I’m just glad I’m helping my teammates getting to the spot we’re at right now. And whether I win it or don’t win it, it’s not gonna change my perspective and the approach I take every night.”
Of course, what matters is the Celtics are a legit contender to come out of the East. They’ve played some of their best basketball with the playoffs less than two weeks away. Queta will be tested in a playoff setting, but he’s also proven during the regular season how important he is on a consistent basis.
“He was great defensively, just his positioning and protecting the room for us, also his rebounding,” C’s coach Joe Mazzulla said. “But offensively, like you said, different guys have different coverages. There’s different matchups. He was guarded by some few people, and he’s just doing a great job making reads in the game and controlling the paint on both ends of the floor with his offensive rebounds, getting more comfortable finishing in the paint.”
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