Celtics offseason acquisition Mitchell Robinson has been on head coach Joe Mazzulla's radar for years.
The Boston Celtics began their training camp Tuesday and the team will have several questions to sort out when it comes to the new additions to the roster.
The Celtics made big moves to the surrounding cast of franchise superstar Jayson Tatum, including trading former NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers in return for Paul George.
Boston also signed several free agents to deals over the offseason, one of them being center Mitchell Robinson, who's coming off an NBA Finals-winning campaign with the New York Knicks last season.
Robinson was in a backup/reserve role with New York but was the team's primary rim protector, which ended up proving invaluable in a conference feature notable bigs and centers such as Bam Adebayo, Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo, among others.
There's questions over how Robinson fits in the rotation at center and whether he'll be the starter or a backup, there's not lack of confidence from his new head coach, Joe Mazzulla.
"I'd say (I knew Robinson was one of the best bigs) two-to-three years ago," Mazzulla said in a news conference Tuesday in a video shared on "X" by Celtics on CLNS. "His ability to be versatile on both ends of the floor — We play (the Knicks) five, six times every single year so you get a lot of good reps at seeing him. There's coaches, there's players, there's situations that always give you problems that you have to really look to tweak to be able to take advantage of them. And he was one of those guys that it was very difficult for us to find advantages in certain situations. Just always had a lot of respect for his game and I think he makes the team better."
Robinson will be entering his first year with the Celtics coming off an eight-season stint with New York from 2018-26. During that stretch, he averaged 7.5 points across 397 games (215 starts) on 70.2% shooting from the floor. He also averaged eight rebounds and 1.7 rebounds.
In his final year in the Big Apple, Robinson played 60 games (16 starts) and averaged 5.7 points on 72.3% shooting from the floor. He also brought in 8.8 boards and blocked 1.2 shots per game.
The former NBA All-Rookie selection will be a focal point of the roster regardless of whether he receives starting minutes or comes off the bench.
Robinson and the rest of Boston's roster will get a chance to show off what they can do together for the first time in the team's preseason opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers at 7 p.m. ET on Oct. 4.
