Does the center rotation need tweaking?

It’s amazing how much you can learn about a team in such a small sample size. Just four games into the new season, and we already know some of the more prominent pros and cons of this Boston Celtics team. Unfortunately, sometimes knowing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Over the past 24 hours, I’ve been trying to figure out how Boston adjusts their center rotation to combat opposing teams that decide to go big. Against the Orlando Magic, both Wendell Carter Jr. and Bol Bol had their moments, from blocking shots to controlling the glass, then Nikola Vucevic and Andre Drummond taught a weight room lesson in the middle of the game.

Having some size issues at center isn’t anything new for the Celtics, especially not during the Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown era. But as we continue trending into a My Little Pony era of basketball where there are unicorns at every turn, having a rotation of single-skill big men just doesn’t seem to cut it.

Up next, is the Cleveland Cavaliers, who boast Evan Mobley, a unicorn in his own right, and Jarrett Allen, a rim-runner with the explosiveness to teleport across the court to chase down blocks or provide weak side annihilation.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the four ball-handling lineups and am a big proponent of figuring things out with the current rotation and scheme. But, it’s hard not to ask yourself how the Celtics are going to overcome both the hulks of the league and the new hybrid centers that can do everything from everywhere.

“Anyone that was expecting fireworks from Noah Vonleh had not been paying attention. He was out of the league last season. He was playing in China. He’s made his way back over, earned himself a roster spot, but he was always, in my eyes, going to be quite low down in the big man rotation. Now, obviously, I dunno what’s happened with Luke Kornet since his ankle injury, but he just doesn’t seem to be the flavor of the month that we were all expecting him to be,” Adam Taylor said on a recent episode of the CelticsPod podcast.

Outside of Kornett and Vonleh, the Celtics can call upon Al Horford, Blake Griffin, and Mfiondu Kabengele. Even at his current age, Horford is the best big man option from that rotation by a considerable margin, so, while the Celtics wait for Robert Williams to return to action, there are going to be some grimacing nights in the paint.

Is moving back to a double-big lineup the answer? Sliding Horford back into the 4, and having Vonleh or Kornett…