Payton Pritchard

Payton Michael Pritchard (born January 28, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Oregon Ducks, where he earned second-team all-conference honors in the Pac-12 as a sophomore. Pritchard was a finalist for the Naismith College Player of the Year in his senior year. Selected 26th overall in the 2020 NBA draft by the Celtics, Pritchard reached the NBA Finals with the team in both 2022 and 2024, securing a championship in 2024. In 2025, he was named NBA Sixth Man of the Year.

Pritchard won four consecutive state titles with West Linn High School and earned 2014 and 2015 Todd Pratt Player of the Year, Oregon Class 6a Player of the Year and Gatorade Oregon Player of the Year 2015. He averaged 22 points and 5.8 assists per game as a junior (2014–15) and 23.6 points, 6.8 assists and 3.1 steals as a senior (2015–16). A four-star recruit in the ESPN ranking, Pritchard committed to the University of Oregon Ducks in August 2015. He had previously committed to Oklahoma, where his father Terry played football. Pritchard scored 45 points in the Northwest Shootout, an all-star game between players from Oregon and Washington.

In his freshman year (2016–17), Pritchard made 39 appearances for the Ducks, averaging 7.4 points and 3.6 assists per game. In a game against UCLA, he made a deep three-point shot to pull the Ducks within one point and assisted on Dillon Brooks' game-winning three-pointer over Lonzo Ball. Oregon made its first Final Four appearance since the first NCAA tournament ever, and Pritchard was the only freshman to start in that year's Final Four.