In the NBA, depth is a necessity.
With an 82-game regular season and a culture which (rightfully so) prioritizes health and injury prevention, there are many games when bench players – sometimes even players who might normally be DNP’s – must pick up the slack and play big minutes for their teams.
On the Celtics, we’ve seen Payton Pritchard, Luke Kornet, and Blake Griffin abruptly increase their roles in these exact scenarios. Furthermore, on other teams with star players who don’t play as much as Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown do, effective bench players are even more imperative if playoff seeding matters (and, I know this might be news to some NBA teams, but it actually does).