If There's One Thing Kristaps Porzingis Has Already Mastered, It's Pandering To Celtics Fans Through Instagram

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Every once in a while my brain is reminded of just how weird it is that come October, we're going to see Kristaps Porzingis in a Celtics uniform. Even though it's been a few weeks since the trade and everyone has made their peace, it's still very weird. If you told me this was going to be possible this time last year, there's no way I'd believe you. Hand up, I did not have Kristaps Porzingis on my bingo card, and I'm guessing you didn't either.

Of course, the trade was not without a cost. In the same way it's going to be weird to see Prozingis in green it's going to be equally as weird to not see Smart in green. But you know what helps with that? Pandering. The quickest way to my and probably a lot of Celts fans' hearts is to pander your face off. We got our first taste of it at the end of June when Porzingis put this out

I mean right off the bat we're off to a great start here. Nothing, and I mean nothing is more beautiful than the parquet floor. You show love to that and you immediately buy yourself points with my brain. If you're telling me you love it the same way I love it, we're off to a great start. 

You know what comes next? The summer workout videos. Few things get the blood flowing like an awesome summer workout video and I don't give a shit if it's different from an NBA game. That's not what I want to see. I just want to see things that I can get irrationally excited about.

Check and check

I'd say watching a 7ft unicorn drain three after three after three was enough to do the trick. You're lying if this didn't pump blood to the parts we don't talk about.

But we're not done. When you are putting on a pandering clinic, we need more than just a love of the parquet and a workout video. The smart ones take it up a notch

Yup, that picture does the trick. Again, it's still very weird to see Porzingis in Celts gear, but I can't sit here and tell you my heart isn't jazzed up after seeing this post. Maybe part of it is the fact that I'm already having Celts withdrawals combined with me just praying for the best with this whole thing, but whatever. I'm a sucker for a good pandering post and that is exactly what KP did there.

Of course none of this matters if things don't work on the court, but there's plenty of reasons to think it will as long as everyone stays healthy

The versatility KP provides offensively both as a floor spacer and a guy who dominates switches and in the post, it's an element we've never really had around Jayson Tatum before. Defensively, he's arguably the best P&R defender in the league who is joining a team that desperately needs P&R defensive help from the big position. Brad has clearly made the choice that he wants this team to play with size at all times, and KP in theory gives you the best of both worlds. He helps your rim protection/P&R defense while not sacrificing anything in terms of shooting or spacing and gives you the ultimate trump card to switching defenses. Remember, this is basically all Brad has cared about this summer

So by my account, the Kristaps Porzingis era is off to a fantastic start. Now we just need to get through the FIBA World Cup clean and get to training camp healthy. If that happens, I think we're all going to like what we see once the games start back up for real.