You’ve heard all the completely different descriptions of this upcoming Celtics season – reset yr, hole yr, step again, and so forth.
You recognize that Boston, the NBA’s winningest staff over the past decade, is predicted to be nowhere close to championship competition after dropping half of its rotation this offseason.
You might need seen that Joe Mazzulla’s squad is a +5000 lengthy shot to win the title (14 groups have higher odds), with its over/below wins whole pegged at 41.5. That might be the franchise’s fewest victories in a non-COVID-shortened season since 2014-15. It’s the trade-off the Celtics accepted after they nuked their roster this summer time to flee the dreaded second apron.
Banner 19 is a pipe dream, no less than for this season. However that doesn’t imply this Celtics staff is assured to be lottery-bound. They nonetheless are able to being a related playoff staff within the watered-down Jap Convention, although their margin for error is way decrease than it was in earlier years.
Here’s a roadmap for Boston to surpass expectations this season:
1. Jaylen Brown appears like a legit No. 1
Brown has waited his complete profession for this chance. Boston’s longtime 1B has stated previously that he has the expertise to be “the best on the floor on offense or defense” on any given evening, and he’ll have an opportunity to show it whereas Jayson Tatum works his means again from Achilles surgical procedure.
Boston’s clearest path to competitiveness includes Brown enjoying at an All-NBA stage – a standing he’s reached simply as soon as in his 9 NBA seasons, a second-team nod in 2022-23 – with out resorting to hero ball and chucking up 25 pictures on a nightly foundation. Assume one thing resembling the numbers Brown posted within the 22 video games during which he performed and Tatum didn’t over the past three seasons: 28.0 factors, 7.6 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 51.2% field-goal share, 34.8% on 3-pointers.
Brown bought off to a promising begin towards weak competitors in Wednesday’s preseason opener, scoring 21 first-half points against Memphis’ backups on a mixture of outdoors pictures, elbow jumpers, makes on the rim and drawn fouls. Importantly, he confirmed no sick results from his offseason meniscus surgical procedure. Which brings us to…
2. Crucial gamers keep wholesome
If rotation holdovers Brown, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser all carry out at or above their earlier ranges, the Celtics will nonetheless have a stable nucleus of playoff-tested veterans. What they not boast, nevertheless, is the depth that was important to their latest success.
Although final yr’s staff finally wilted within the playoffs, it received 61 regular-season video games regardless of having its full beginning 5 accessible for simply 24. Boston went 15-4 with out Brown and 8-2 with out Tatum. The 2023-24 championship squads went 48-11, postseason included, when no less than one starter sat.
These groups had sufficient trusted, dependable reinforcements (in gamers like Pritchard, Hauser, Al Horford and Luke Kornet) to each stand up to accidents and permit Mazzulla to dole out extra relaxation days with out the on-court product cratering. This present Celtics roster doesn’t have that luxurious. Dropping a key participant like Brown or White for any vital size of time may tank their season.
3. Anfernee Simons turns into a playable defender
Simons can rating. Everybody is aware of that. He can even put up the type of 3-point quantity that’s outlined Mazzulla’s offenses. Over his three seasons as a full-time starter in Portland, Simons was certainly one of simply 10 NBA gamers to common no less than 20 factors and eight 3-point makes an attempt per sport (and the one member of that group with out an All-Star nod on his resume).
However can he be no less than respectable on the defensive finish? That’s the massive query going through the 26-year-old guard. If the reply is “sure,” he has an opportunity to be an actual weapon for Boston as both a starter or, extra seemingly, a high-impact sixth man. If he’s a turnstile, as he usually was with the Path Blazers, it’s arduous to see Mazzulla trusting him sufficient for Simons to make a significant influence.
“Coming right into a tradition like this, you’ve to have the ability to adapt otherwise you’re not going to be within the place that you just need to be in, whether or not it’s enjoying or not enjoying,” Simons stated earlier than coaching camp. “To me, it’s actually that easy. That’s the sincere conversations we’ve had about it.”
4. The frontcourt exceeds its low expectations
The transfer from Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet to Neemias Queta, Luka Garza, Chris Boucher and Xavier Tillman is a gigantic downgrade on paper. The Celtics will want profession years from no less than certainly one of these huge males to area even a league-average frontcourt. Queta, the projected beginning heart, wants to comprehend the potential he flashed at occasions over the past two seasons, smoothing out the inconsistency that usually drew Mazzulla’s ire.
Garza, who boasted after signing that he “can shoot it with one of the best of them,” has to assist exchange Porzingis’ and Horford’s 3-point manufacturing, since most of Queta’s contributions seemingly will come within the paint. Boucher can chip in there, too; mixed, he and Garza averaged 14.0 3-point makes an attempt per 36 minutes final season. Tillman, who says his troublesome knee is lastly healed, rediscovering his prior type after a dreadful 2024-25 season would give this group one other much-needed enhance.
5. A number of depth wings turn out to be dependable rotation gamers
Jordan Walsh? Baylor Scheierman? Josh Minott? Hugo Gonzalez? With no confirmed depth on the wing behind Brown and Hauser, the Celtics will want no less than half of these inexperienced backups to play actual roles this season. If they’ll – and Minott and Gonzalez, particularly, looked like good fits for Boston’s new up-tempo fashion in Wednesday’s preseason opener – this roster would turn out to be a lot much less top-heavy than it presently seems.
6. The East is as wide-open as anticipated
Any argument for the Celtics remaining aggressive this season ought to begin with the standard of their convention. The reigning East champion Pacers misplaced their finest participant (Tyrese Haliburton) for the season. The Knicks modified coaches. The Cavaliers have been uncovered within the playoffs. The Magic are unproven. Giannis Antetokounmpo is perhaps angling for a midseason commerce out of Milwaukee. The 76ers might be one of the best staff within the East or one of many worst, relying on the supply of Joel Embiid. Not less than three groups already appear like lottery locks.
If the Celtics have been enjoying within the far more formidable Western Convention, their odds of being related this season could be far decrease. But when the East is a crapshoot, the C’s can hold round till…
7. Jayson Tatum returns for the stretch run (and appears like himself)
Tatum has made clear he desires to return sooner or later this season, and by all accounts, his rehab is progressing wonderfully. He seems to be effectively forward of the place most gamers are 5 months faraway from Achilles surgical procedure, to the purpose {that a} spring comeback now looks like a sensible chance.
It could make little sense for Boston to reactivate Tatum and threat additional harm if the Celtics are a non-competitive staff on the All-Star break. But when Brown and Co. can scrap their means into the thick of the Jap Convention playoff race, they couldn’t ask for a extra useful midseason addition than a wholesome Tatum.
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