{"id":224202,"date":"2025-10-19T08:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T08:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224202\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T08:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T08:47:09","slug":"why-neemias-queta-is-the-celtics-starting-center-for-2025-26-nba-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224202\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Neemias Queta is the Celtics’ starting center for 2025-26 NBA season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics<\/a> have lost a lot of their size.<\/p>\n

That has them set up to have a new full-time starting center for the 2025-26 NBA season in the form of Neemias Queta.<\/p>\n

He’s not a household name, but for the Celtics to contend this season with Jayson Tatum out injured and both Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford departed, they’ll need Queta to be at his best.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Why the Warriors cut Seth Curry in a waiver move<\/a><\/p>\n

Why is Neemias Queta the Celtics’ starting center?<\/p>\n

Queta got the job because he does the simple things well.<\/p>\n

In 2024-25, he averaged 13.9 minutes per game and averaged 5.0 points and 3.8 rebounds while shooting 65% from the floor.<\/p>\n

He’s not a major playmaker, but he does what a center is supposed to do.<\/p>\n

It’s a huge opportunity for Queta, who was once a second-round pick by the Sacramento Kings<\/a> and is originally from Portugal. This will be his fifth NBA season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be hard on Neemi and I\u2019m really looking forward to coaching him throughout the year,\u201d\u00a0Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla told The Boston Globe<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cBut as I told him, this is what you worked your whole life for, a chance to start for the Celtics, and you see this with players when they step into different phases of their career. It\u2019s easy to be the rookie, kind of easy to be the fourth-string big, and then it\u2019s kind of easy to be the backup. And now you have to develop a mindset to deliver every night, and I think he has that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 7-foot Queta is 26 years old. This is his chance to prove he truly belongs in the NBA for the long run.<\/p>\n

More NBA News:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Celtics have lost a lot of their size. That has them set up to have a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-224202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}