Boston Celtics sixth man point guard Payton Pritchard may have played an outsized role in abetting his team’s front office, led by team president Brad Stevens, when it came to its latest move.
Per Noa Dalzell of SB Nation, championship Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla recently explained Boston’s decision to ink 24-year-old power forward Miles Norris to a new two-way contract. Mazzulla did cite Norris’ one year of overlap at Oregon with Pritchard as being critical to getting him into the Celtics’ crosshairs.
Joe Mazzulla on why the Celtics signed Miles Norris:
“His length, his athleticism, he’s shown a decent ability to shoot the ball.”
Also adds that he’s someone Payton Pritchard vouched for as they were college teammates pic.twitter.com/xfrVsPUb7W
— Noa Dalzell 🏀 (@NoaDalzell) March 4, 2025
“His length, his athleticism, he’s shown a decent ability to shoot the ball,” Mazzulla offered of the Celtics’ interest in bringing Norris into their organization. “He showed a decent ability to shoot the basketball.”
The 6-foot-10 big man played in Oregon during his 2018-19 true freshman season, then suited up for City College of San Francisco in 2019-20.
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Norris wrapped up his NCAA career with UC Santa Barbara from 2020-23, but went undrafted that subsequent summer. He has since suited up for the College Park Skyhawks and Memphis Hustle, the G League affiliates of the Atlanta Hawks and Memphis Grizzlies, plus Turkish club Çağdaş Bodrumspor.
“He played with Payton one year in Oregon so we already knew about him,” Mazzulla said. “If you know guys that know other guys and that can vouch for them, how they are — especially in the locker room [and] outside of the court — that definitely helps.”
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As a two-way player on a reigning champion, Norris will be toggled between Boston and its NBAGL affiliate, the Maine Celtics, but seems unlikely to have a major role on Boston proper — at least this year. Whenever Norris does play for Boston this season, he will be making his NBA debut.
Clearly, he is a developmental prospect that Stevens, Mazzulla, and unofficial scout Pritchard regard pretty highly.
In 22 regular season games with the Hustle this year, Norris averaged 17.1 points on .460/.395/.864 shooting splits, plus 5.0 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 1.2 steals and 0.7 blocks.
