{"id":555910,"date":"2026-01-23T17:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/555910\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T17:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:35:15","slug":"celtics-neemias-queta-making-history-while-proving-something-important-to-boston-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/555910\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics’ Neemias Queta making history while proving something important to Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celtics’ Neemias Queta making history while proving something important to Boston<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neemias Queta has already made history in his NBA career.<\/p>\n

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The Boston Celtics<\/a> center is the first Portuguese-born player to play in the league.<\/p>\n

This season, though, Queta is doing more than that. He’s proving to the Celtics that he belongs.<\/p>\n

The Celtics took a risk in the offseason by letting Al Horford, Luke Kornet and Kristaps Porzingis all go elsewhere. It created a big void in the middle.<\/p>\n

Queta has filled it admirably.<\/p>\n

ESPN’s Tim Bontemps wrote<\/a> on Friday that Queta “might be a starting-caliber center.” That’s not something that was viewed as a certainty when this season got underway.<\/p>\n

“When\u00a0Kristaps Porzingis,\u00a0Luke Kornet\u00a0and\u00a0Al Horford\u00a0departed via trade or free agency this offseason, a giant hole opened,” Bontemps writes. “The Celtics turned to the 26-year-old Queta to fill the gap. He has done so admirably, with Boston 5.4 points per 100 possessions better when he plays, with a defense that would rank second in the league when he’s on the court. Queta, who is the first Portuguese-born player in NBA history, has played a significant role in Boston’s impressive first half without injured superstar\u00a0Jayson Tatum.”<\/p>\n

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MORE:\u00a0LeBron James gives cryptic response to trade question<\/a><\/p>\n

Bontemps also quoted a scout on Queta.<\/p>\n

“I think he’s a starter,” a Western Conference scout told Bontemps<\/a>. “He does everything you want in a center.”<\/p>\n

From a traditional stats perspective, Queta is averaging 10.4 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game while shooting 65.7% from the field.<\/p>\n

Boston will gladly take that as Queta continues to prove he can make it work as an NBA starter.<\/p>\n

More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtics’ Neemias Queta making history while proving something important to Boston originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[869,7,45,75,3798,46,871,185,4996,6,4986,1275],"class_list":["post-555910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-celtics","tag-al-horford","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-boston-celtics","tag-bostonceltics","tag-celtics","tag-kristaps-porzingis","tag-lebron-james","tag-luke-kornet","tag-nba","tag-neemias-queta","tag-tim-bontemps"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115945624297941621","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}