The Boston Celtics spent the last few years building around a veteran core. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown carried the weight, and young guys mostly sat and waited. That changed in a big way this offseason. Now heading into 2026-27, the Celtics need affordable production from their rookies and second-year players. Enter Chris Cenac Jr., a 6-foot-10 forward with the kind of modern skill set that gets scouts excited. He can shoot from the outside. He can protect the rim. But Summer League exposed something that could derail his chances at real minutes.
The kid isn’t afraid to let it fly from deep. That’s good. But the shots aren’t falling. Through multiple Summer League games, Cenac is shooting 36.6 percent from the field and 27.3 percent from three. Yes, Summer League is a small sample and the settings are weird. Young guys get asked to do too much. But that number lines up with what you see on film. He rushes. He forces contested looks. He doesn’t let plays develop before taking a bad jumper. Those are exactly the kinds of shots that NBA defenses live to create.
Here’s why that matters more than usual for Boston. Joe Mazzulla’s whole offense depends on spacing. Every guy on the floor needs to at least make the defense think about leaving the paint. That’s how driving lanes open up. That’s how Jayson Tatum and others get clean looks. But the Celtics just signed Mitchell Robinson, who is a monster on the glass and a legit rim protector but does not stretch the floor at all. So now Boston needs its other bigs to space the floor. That’s Cenac’s job, basically by default.
If defenses don’t respect his outside shot, they’ll just sag off and clog the paint. That makes life miserable for everyone else. It turns one of Boston’s biggest offensive strengths into a weakness. That’s the concern. Not just that Cenac is missing shots, but that his misses make the whole offense harder for everyone else.
To be fair, there’s a lot to like. Cenac moves really well for his size. He competes on defense. He grabs rebounds and helps at the rim. And the shooting itself feels fixable. Young bigs often improve their percentages once they stop being asked to create so much offense themselves. Under Mazzulla, his role would be cleaner. He’d spot up, catch and shoot, roll to the rim. Less decision-making, more repetition. That alone could bump his efficiency.
The Celtics don’t need Cenac to become a 40 percent three-point shooter overnight. They just need him to be consistent enough that defenses can’t ignore him. If he does that, his versatility makes him a real piece for a team in transition. If he doesn’t, teams will keep loading up the paint and Boston’s offense will struggle in ways it didn’t have to. Summer League doesn’t decide careers. But it does tell you where the work needs to start.
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