The mythical greatness of Derrick White

Derrick White isn’t the best player on the Celtics, but I feel like he is.

Sometimes in sports, we confront feelings we don’t understand, and we often reject them out of principle alone. Jayson Tatum is the guy on the cereal box, having made two consecutive All-NBA First Teams and perennially leads the team in scoring.

By my count, he has single-handedly won two elimination games, and is simply the first guy most people would think of if you asked them to “name a Celtics player.” No metric-test, eye-test, smell-test or taste-test supports anyone other than Tatum being the best player on the Celtics, and so he is now and ever shall be.

But then there’s the feeling-test, the blatantly unscientific way to evaluate who feels like the best player. It’s based on recency bias, emotions, and—above all else—religiosity. Despite my better understanding, I feel like Derrick White is the best player on the team.

Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

In the real world, a factually inaccurate feeling that causes blind devotion to an individual is called a cult. “The Cult of DWhite,” of which I am a member, aims to convince the rest of the world that White has achieved a higher state of basketball consciousness. He has ascended past the media narratives that we NBA fans are bound by, and attained basketball enlightenment. Stay with me.

White has managed to be both the fourth-best player on his team and the best player in the NBA simultaneously. Does that make sense? No. Is that even possible? Also, no. But this is a cult, not a rational discussion group. Our leader is above the rest, untethered by earthly concerns in pursuit of something greater.

Another characteristic of a cult leader is their ability to insulate their followers from the troubles of the larger world. In White’s case, he routinely makes game-saving plays that rescue the Celtics — and my extension myself — from damnation. In recent days, that damnation was going to be losing at home to two terrible teams: the Detroit Pistons and Toronto Raptors.

But White said no.

This shot was what began my investigation into the Cult of DWhite, as it was so baller, so filled with divine energy that I had to look for a mystical answer. Not only does White hit the dagger, he does so with such conviction and certainty. He didn’t hesitate or defer, he just gave himself the green light and won the game.

And he did so after having a truly horrid first half. How many “complimentary players” do you know that would rebound from a half of slip-and-sliding all over the place and throwing away multiple entry passes to hit a dagger in overtime? It was no problem for White, though. He got some new shoes and went back to work, and was the engine of the comeback to send the Pistons home with a broken heart.

The Pistons—like so many others before them—succumbed to the Cult of DWhite. But there was no time to waste, as one day later the Raptors came to town. This time, only Jaylen Brown was there to represent the Celtics’ nominal top-four, and he played great. But who saved the game once again?

This is a ridiculous shot. It was an end-of-the-shot-clock-dribble-step-back-contested-three down by two. If I told you that someone had hit that shot, who would you answer? Kevin Durant? Luka Doncic? Michael Jordan?

Have we seen that shot anywhere recently? Oh yeah, remember when the Celtics lost to the Golden State Warriors, but more specifically to Stephen Curry hitting an end-of-the-shot-clock-contested-three in overtime? Another element of cults is to compare their leader to a godlike figure, and anyone familiar with my opinion of Curry will know that’s exactly what I’m doing here.

If you think that all this is a bit much, that’s because it is, and that’s because that’s the point. The “Make Derrick White an All-Star” hype train is running at full steam, but I’d argue he’s actually something more than that. He should absolutely be an All-Star, but he’s already a mythical figure.

There’s an alternate universe in which White took a step back this year, with the additions of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis muting his effectiveness. His legacy could have become the legendary Game 6 tip-in against the Heat, and that would have been great.

But that tip-in merely served as the beginning of a movement to understand White’s unique greatness, and he has continued adding levels to his mythology as his stature in Boston continues to grow. He may never be the best player on the Celtics, but he’s already become a heroic figure. Who knows where his legend will go next?