brilliant player on signing with boston

Jay Scrubb talks about joining Boston, making the rotation, and other topics.
Jay Scrubb talked about how happy he was to join the Boston Celtics and what he was looking forward to this season.

Jay Scrubb’s journey to the NBA wasn’t linear. There was no NCAA basketball. No McDonald’s All-American team selections. No high school rankings to put him on the national radar. All Scrubb had was a dream and an insatiable work ethic.

The list of players who have traveled the JUCO to NBA route is short. To further complicate things, most players on that list used their time at the JUCO level to earn a roster spot with a Division I school. Not Scrubb. Instead, the free-scoring guard continued to trust in his work ethic and the product he was putting on the court, hoping that an NBA team would take notice.

In 2020, Scrubb’s hard work paid off. After declaring for the NBA Draft, the LA Clippers selected the JUCO player of the year with the 55th pick.

“It was a blessing hearing my name called,” Scrubb told me during a recent interview. “I wasn’t able to walk across the stage due to COVID, but hearing my name called made it better, man. And, of course, silencing the doubters. Everybody who said I wouldn’t make it up until that point. It goes farther back [to my time] in middle school and high school and things like that, just to be able to silence all the critics and silence all the doubters, man, that was the most exciting thing I could do. Just for me and my family, with everything that we have been through, it was a surreal moment, man.”

Entering his fourth year in the NBA as a free agent, Scrubb participated in Summer League as he looked to find a new home around the league. After multiple impressive performances for the Celtics, Brad Stevens extended Scrubb a two-way contract.

Now, he will be aiming to follow in the footsteps of Sam Hauser by not just playing for the big club, but potentially cracking Boston’s rotation next season.

It’s literally that mentality just coming in and the same way Sam did. Being what the team needs coming in and being that knockdown shooter, being that guy that could come in and guard and come in and be that glue piece. It’s sort of that same mindset just coming in and being that added piece that added boost for the team. That’s the main thing.”

Scrubb will face a tough challenge in breaking into Boston’s backcourt rotation. Even after Marcus Smart’s departure, the Celtics have Derrick White, Malcolm Brogdon, Payton Pritchard, and Jaylen Brown consuming the majority of the minutes. Under head coach Joe Mazzulla, though, scoring is placed at a premium, and that’s where Scrubb excels.

During Summer League, Scrubb showed an ability to score in a multitude of ways. We saw flashes out of the pick-and-roll as a ball-handler.