NEEMIAS Queta

Last season Queta played 76 games for Boston and averaged 25.3 minutes. He put up 10.2 points, 8.4 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.8 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. He turned it over 1.0 times a game. Efficiency is the headline. He shot 65.3 percent from the field and had a true shooting percentage of 67.4. Those numbers come from finishing plays other people create: lobs, dump-offs, putbacks. His usage rate was 14.5, which fits that role. The three-point shot is not part of his game. He hit 12.5 percent from deep last season, and the attempts were rare. At the line he shot 70.3 percent. His plus-minus was 6.3 last season. Boston was better with him on the floor, and that is the best case for giving him more of the center minutes this year.

Last season closed with a run of games against Philadelphia, and Queta's role in them grew as they went on. In the first loss he had 8 points and 6 rebounds in 27.8 minutes. Boston won the next two. He had 6 points and 7 rebounds in 12.8 minutes, then 9 points and 8 rebounds in 17.4 minutes, with Boston +12.0 in his time. Then the results turned. He grabbed 14 rebounds in 26.2 minutes of a loss, then 11 rebounds in 20.3 minutes of another. His best game came last. He scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in 32.6 minutes, with Boston +9.0 while he played, but the Celtics lost. Rebounding held up the whole way. That is the part of his game Boston can count on against size.

Boston has kept Queta's early workload light, and it has been rest, not injury. He was listed as day-to-day for rest before the Cleveland game and did not play. He was cleared before the next game against Philadelphia and returned to the lineup. The same thing happened again later in the month. After his 16-point game against Charlotte, he went back on the list as day-to-day for rest. He was cleared the next day and played against Detroit. Neither listing came with a specific injury. For a center who played 76 games last season, this looks like a team pacing a big man in October rather than a health concern. The thing to watch is whether the rest days keep coming once the schedule fills with back-to-backs.

Queta's role has been part of the conversation around this roster. A September Celtics Notes item grouped Queta with Gonzalez and Pritchard in a discussion of Boston's starting lineup. That is lineup talk, not a decision, and nothing about who starts has been confirmed. The case for Queta is on the stat sheet. Last season he shot 65.3 percent from the field, averaged 8.4 rebounds in 25.3 minutes and posted a 6.3 plus-minus. The case against is spacing. A center who shot 12.5 percent from three does not pull a defender out of the paint. However the lineup settles, his job will not change much: rebound, protect the rim, finish what he gets and stay out of the way of the ball handlers.