Boston Celtics guard Brad Wanamaker shoots against the Brooklyn Nets during the first half of an NBA game earlier this month in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
AP photo
Guard is key piece of Celtics’ playoff run
The Boston Celtics’ Brad Wanamaker shoots next to Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid during a first-round NBA playoff series in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
AP photo
Something about the play looked eerily familiar to Brad Wanamaker, adding a sudden tinge of torment to an otherwise jubilant moment.
With his Boston Celtics holding a two-point lead over the Philadelphia 76ers with about one minute remaining in the third game of their first-round NBA playoffs series, Wanamaker watched from the sideline as teammate Kemba Walker went to work. Coming off a screen, and with the much larger Al Horford switching on him defensively, Walker took a couple of dribbles, crossed his opponent over and, in a fraction of a second, abruptly halted his drive, stepping back and burying a mid-range jumper that solidified a 102-94 victory.
Almost as soon as Wanamaker started celebrating, though, he had to stop himself. The same play and sequence of events that had just helped Wanamaker’s team take one step closer to its championship dreams was, roughly speaking, the same play and sequence of events that created one of the most painful memories of his college career — when Walker, then a standout at Connecticut, hit a step-back buzzer-beater to beat Wanamaker and Pitt in the Big East tournament in 2011.
“It’s been, what, 10 years, so it’s easier for me to digest and joke about it, but in the moment when it happened, I honestly didn’t like him,” Wanamaker said recently with a laugh.
It’s an occurrence Wanamaker takes in stride. There isn’t much, not even the most agonizing sense of deja vu, that can get him too down these days.
As the Celtics prepare to face the defending NBA champion Toronto Raptors in the second round of the playoffs, they’re doing so with Wanamaker playing a pronounced role. One year after being a 29-year-old rookie largely relegated to the final minutes of a lopsided game, Wanamaker is firmly a part of Boston’s playoff rotation, averaging 17.3 minutes per game in the sweep of Philadelphia.
He has been productive in that time, too, seeing his scoring average nearly double from the previous season and, most notably, finishing the regular season with the highest free-throw percentage in the NBA (92.6%). A player who had to wait long and work hard to reach the NBA is starting to experience the kind of success for which he could once only hope.
“I had questions coming into the NBA, like whether I was an NBA player or whether I could play in the game,” Wanamaker said. “For things to come full circle this year and me being out there playing playoff minutes, it’s a dream come true. It’s still a surreal moment for me. Before and after the games, I’m calling my brothers, sisters, family and friends and saying like, ‘Yo, I just played in the NBA playoffs. I’m going against the Philadelphia 76ers, a team I grew up loving.’ It’s cool. I’m humble and appreciative of everything. It’s definitely what I dreamed of as a kid.”
It’s an indescribable sensation he has felt much more this season.
After averaging 9.5 minutes per game last season as part of a crowded backcourt that limited his opportunities for playing time, Wanamaker logged 19.3 minutes per game during the regular season, aided both by his own improvement and the free agent departures of guards Kyrie Irving and Terry Rozier. That increased role has not only boosted his stats — from 3.9 points and 1.6 assists per game in 2018-19 to 6.9 points and 2.5 assists per game in 2019-20 — but has given him a forum to showcase the skills he spent his post-Pitt years developing. In those minutes, he has played with energy, exhibited excellent ball-handling and decision-making, and has played physical and effective defense.
The sharpest evolution in his game, one that has been building for the better part of a decade, is seen in his free-throw shooting. By going nearly 93% from the line, which included 37 consecutive made attempts from Feb. 3 to Aug. 5, he became the first Celtic in 30 years to lead the NBA in free-throw percentage. The last player to do it? Larry Bird.
It’s a feat that’s all the more impressive considering where Wanamaker once was. As a freshman at Pitt in 2007-08, Wanamaker made just 48.4% of his free throws, albeit with a small sample size of 31 attempts. In those lonely moments at the line, his shot would often appear unsure as left his hands, regularly going long and clanging off the back iron.
Those numbers improved over the course of his career but peaked at 76% as a senior in 2010-11. So what changed? How did a guard who overcame early struggles to become a slightly-above-average free-throw shooter become the NBA’s best?
Part of it was mental. Wanamaker said he learned to calm himself when he stepped to the line, clearing his mind and focusing on what he needed to — getting the right arc on his shot, enough to get the ball just over the front of the rim. He worked at being consistent, taking the same number of dribbles every time he got to the line, lining up the same way and having the same release point on his shot.
“It’s all the little things that people don’t pay attention to that are so important when you’re trying to make sure you shoot the same shot every time,” Wanamaker said.
After shooting 66.7% and 78.4% in his first two seasons as a pro in Europe, Wanamaker said he encountered a breakthrough while playing for Italian club Pistoia. There, he refined his shot, regularly working on his free throws and beginning to consistently knock down 3-pointers. After his lone season there, he made fewer than 82% of his free throws in just one of his final four seasons in Europe.
Once he signed with the Celtics in 2018, it validated the belief that those close to Wanamaker long had in him.
“I always thought he was an NBA player and was going to be an NBA player,” said former Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, now at TCU. “You have to understand, he was the best guard in Europe. The best guard in Europe is going to be able to play in the NBA.”
Making it to the NBA was the realization of a dream, but his first season in the league hardly was one. The Celtics, pegged by many as the Eastern Conference favorite following LeBron James’ departure from Cleveland, were a dysfunctional disappointment, winning six fewer games than they did the previous season before getting bounced in the second round of the playoffs in five games. After being a star in Europe, Wanamaker was forced to cope with spotty playing time, leading to what he described last year as “a lot of mental battles.”
Nonetheless, when the option to come back to Boston arose, he took it, agreeing to a one-year contract last offseason.
“My first year didn’t go as planned,” Wanamaker said. “I wanted to come back and redeem myself. I didn’t play as much as I wanted to, and the team, we didn’t have as much success as we planned. It was more so just me coming back and redeeming myself, just trying to make a name and earn everything.”
In his second season with the team, he has started to do just that. In a season in which Walker and fellow guard Marcus Smart missed a combined 26 games, Wanamaker became a steady, dependable presence off the bench who could play major minutes when needed, appearing in a team-high 71 games. At 31, he’s the Celtics’ oldest player, someone Boston coach Brad Stevens described as “a quiet leader for us” earlier in the season. In that role, he has been able to provide guidance for some of the team’s younger guards who might be caught in frustrating situations similar to the one in which he found himself a year earlier.
“He’s like 55 years old, I think, so he comes in during the game and just gives us a different intensity,” Celtics rookie Grant Williams said of Wanamaker to CBS Sports in December. “Something that Kemba brings is that quickness and that speed and that ability to pull up off the dribble, and then Brad comes in with the sturdy, grown-man, low-man game. With no dunks in the world.”
It’s a role and lifestyle he’s relishing. While out in public in Boston, at least before the shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Wanamaker said people would stop to tell him, “Good game last night” or an array of other compliments, unlike last year when greetings were merely limited to a recognition that he played for the Celtics.
His life is changing and his profile is rising. The rewards of a destination he waited patiently to arrive at are now starting to show themselves.
“Every game, my role was changing,” Wanamaker said. “I was still finding myself within the team and within the system. But once it clicked for me and I had two good games in a row, I gained that confidence that I was able to be out there on the floor with the guys. It made it easier to be comfortable with them. Once the team and coaches trust you, everything flows easier.”
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