What do the Celtics do with… Tyler Zeller?

The offseason is here, and there are a lot of questions with Boston’s roster as Danny Ainge dives into the next chapter of this rebuilding process. In this series, I’ll be looking at what the Celtics choices are with certain players considering their past performance and where the team is going. We continue with one of the team’s restricted free agents, Tyler Zeller. 

Past players profiled: Evan Turner  |  Jared Sullinger

At a glance:

2015-16 regular statistics: 6.1 ppg, 3.0 reb, 47.6% fg, 81.5% ft, .4 blk
2015-16 advanced statistics: 59.9% TS, 13.3 reb%, 12.0 to%, 23.0 USG, 15.4 PER
Age to start next season: 26
Last season’s salary:  $2,616,975
Qualifying offer: $3,695,169

How he played this season

Tyler Zeller spent the preseason tabbed as this year’s starting center, then promptly lost the job when Jahlil Okafor demolished him on opening night. Since then, he mostly had stints of less than 10 minutes and he finished the season sitting out 22 games with a “DNP-Coach’s Decision.”

However, this season wasn’t a TOTAL disaster for Zeller. In February and March, he found his way back into the rotation and back to being somewhat productive. His offensive rating jumped from 76 in January to 106 in February and 116 in March as his minutes nearly doubled. For Zeller, it was a necessary display of effectiveness when given an opportunity to play. He had just 11 double-digit scoring games this season (including a season-high 26 against Milwaukee on April 8), all but 3 of them came after February.

So while we can certainly make the case for this being a lost season for Zeller, he definitely had enough swaths of productivity to show us, and potential suitors, the he can contribute.

What do the Boston Celtics do with him?

I would expect the Celtics to take the Jared Sullinger approach… make the $3.7 million qualifying offer and see how he does on the market. Unlike Sullinger, there isn’t much risk of teams turning to Zeller early in July to fill holes in their rosters. The Celtics can go out and try to make their offseason splash with Zeller still on the hook in case they need a back up familiar with the system. They can always rescind the offer and renounce his rights if they need to free up cap space (his cap hold is $6,542,438) for a bigger name.

There’s a huge question about what Zeller can get on the open market. If a team is looking for a decent pick-and-roll or pick-and-pop center, I can see Zeller getting $8 million-plus to come off someone’s bench. Personally, I like Zeller and I think he’s a solid 20-minute-per-game guy who will always work hard and never complain. Sure, he has shortcomings, but if used properly, he can be a nice piece on someone’s bench (maybe in New York as part of the triangle offense?).

One potential development that could change things for Zeller: The development of a 3 point shot. The only 3-point attempt of his career was a heave with Cleveland, but in 2014-15, he took 23 shots from 19-22 feet and shot almost 48% from that area. (I used that season because of his limited playing time this year. He was 2-10 from that area this season). If Zeller can hit at that high a rate from that far out, it’s not inconceivable for him to work on stepping back a couple of feet and at least adding a corner 3 to his repertoire.

Suddenly, corner-3 threat Zeller becomes a more important player than mid-range threat Zeller… and he becomes more likely to be used in a Brad Stevens offense if he actually does return. My inclination is to say Zeller is almost definitely gone, but, like Sullinger, he could hang around on the market long enough for suddenly capped-out Boston to consider bringing him back. In fact, Zeller is almost certainly a “fill out the bench” kind of player who hangs around unsigned until later in July. The Celtics will have time to figure out how to handle him. And if he extends his range to become even a 30% 3-point shooter, he might be a surprise next season.

Wildcard scenario: Restricted free agents do have the option to sign their qualifying offers, play for one year under that contract, and then become unrestricted free agents. I’m 99.99999999999999% sure that won’t happen with Zeller this summer…

… but… here it is just as a wild possibility…

If he feels like he could actually get minutes next season and then go back to being “productive Zeller” (he averaged 10 & 6 in 2014-15 with a PER of 18.9 and much better advanced stats across the board), he might… MIGHT… feel an inclination to make less in one season to make more over a longer contract. If that happens, it will almost certainly be because he’s not getting any good offers. But in this market, with this cap, I’m still expecting him to get something like a 3-years, $20-something million offer from someone that’ll be too good to refuse.