It was a couple weeks before the trade deadline when Bill Simmons declared on his podcast (and I’m paraphrasing) that Payton Pritchard was too small to be an effective NBA player, that Celtics needed to upgrade his rotation spot. While it might have been a knee-jerk reaction, there was some truth to the simplicity of the statement.
It wasn’t only that the 6’2” Pritchard is small for an NBA player, but he played small. Jalen Brunson, TJ McConnell, and Terry Rozier are roughly the same height, but their longer wingspans and stronger frames mitigate the obstacles of playing against guys who are, let’s say, more vertically privileged.