Opinion: The Celtics are going to be much better than you expect
Ehhhh I wanna see it before I over project how good they will be. Defense and depth could be an issue but one thing I know for sure is Joe will coach em up and make sure they compete on a nightly basis.
I’m not worried about the competitiveness with Joe. Slightly worried about schemes, xs and os, and defense
I think this offense and team will be served best playing a very fast pace and probably jacking up a lot of 3’s with an emphasis on offensive rebounds and pick up’s in transition. The defense might be bad in the half court setting. I think Joe’s emphasis on rebounding has been important and telling at one of the issues he and this coaching staff think is important going into the season. Here’s hoping we get PP 3.0 and 6 man of the year Simons.
Its not that I think they will be bad. They’ll just be in nba purgatory, the worst place to be. Now they have a bonafide super star returning for the following season instead of a lottery pick and further development, but it still sucks to be in that 38-44 win range. Good enough to make the playoffs in the East, not bad enough to get a high draft pick out of it
Those are the teams winning the lottery nowadays lol
In all seriousness, a good draft pick is less important if we are able to find some diamonds in the rough this year. If we can find 2 future playoff rotation worthy players among Queta, Garza, Minott, Scheierman, Hugo, Walsh, etc. and we find it while playing .500 ball, then it’s not purgatory.
It becomes a season of growth and finding hidden value.
We would NEED 2 of those players to be rotation players in the playoffs. Does that mean they’re rotation worthy? Every team has a bunch of bench project pieces that can pan out. We’re not different
We already know what all these guys are except for the players in the latest draft: G League tank commanders.
I remember having these same conversations about Luke Kornet
The only guy I was selling a little short is Queta. And I’m being generous with Scheierman and Walsh.
And when people said the same thing about Kornet, they weren’t selling him short, They were accurately describing his value. A correct evaluation of talent today, doesn’t mean correct evaluation of talent tomorrow or in future years.
That’s asking a lot of those in that group and this is my point. We don’t need these guys to be super stars. Thats true NBA purgatory. Celtics aren’t in that because they already have a super star that is returning
Is it? I’m not asking any of them to be starter-level, but if Queta could get to a level Kornet gave us and/or Minott can prove to be a solid back-up wing behind the Jays, then that’s enough.
I’m not asking any of them to be starters, but can they keep us afloat in the playoffs when they are next to a couple of other starters.
It’d be nice to get a high draft pick out of this season, but the only way it’s happening is if JB or DWhite miss a huge amount of time.
We’re going to be way too good to match the worst teams.
They don’t need a top 5 pick, they have the Jays next year. Free up the money to sign a major F.A. center next year and develop the bench. I’m not sure if they can afford it, but I’d love to see Bam in green in 26⁄27.
That is what I said. They’ll likely be in purgatory record wise, but they have the ability to get out unlike most teams because they actually have a super star coming back, not because they need to draft and develop one.
I know, I’m agreeing with you.
I had made the prediction of 40-42 right when all the trades happened.
I’m sticking to that outcome and would be very proud of our team too!
Next year will be very interesting, depending on who we add to our squad.
It would have to be a “win-now” 3 year window
That record is the literal worst case scenario! and realistic!
It could easily be worse. Any extended absence of Brown or White and it could be a low 30s win team.
Edit: people can downvote all they want. You take an All-NBA/All-Star level player off an (expected) .500 team and you have a lottery team.
Thats way better! The Spurs jumped to the #2 with 34 wins last season and grabbed an elite prospect. We need that!
That hamstring could take JB out for a month easy. But I think he should be super cautious and take two months.
He could also play tonight.
Oh, I know, he probably will. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t hate it if he just needed to be out until January just to be safe. :)
He means worst as in, not good, but not bad enough to get a good pick.
40 wins without Tatum is great? He’s probably been like a +15 win value add guy over last few seasons. I think you’re overestimating how good a team should be missing a top 5 player lol. So you’re looking at a team, if he’s on the court, that is winning like 55 games which makes sense. If you’re playing near .500 or slightly over .500 ball without your best player for long stretches you are a great basketball team.
I just think that the East is comparable to the West now and getting to 40 wins is respectable given all of our starter changes and experience level is drastically lower.
Oh lest we forget our 1A is out…
Yes I argree I just really hope we are better then 40 games and if not then I Want us to be in the lottery! not mid!
Try 50+
Baaaahahahahahahaha
That is kind of disrespect of how good the East is
Winning 40 is solid
Try 60+
I think high 40s, and it comes down to two things…do they beat the teams they are supposed to beat and does Mazulla and staff take risks. For rhe risks piece, the Celts have left wins on the table for the last 2 years. They’ve experimented with lineups, left guys in a little long, and generally played through runs. I dont believe these are errors by the coaching staff…these are intentional choices for the players to work through and learn from. You’ll see new plays that aren’t brought out until rhe post season, or the typical “in case of emergency” plays and sub patterns. Do they take risks in season? Do they prioritize player development? We’ll see, but I imagine there’s a lot more on the table this season and a lot less screwing around….its not like any of the “prospects” have really high ceilings, doesn’t make a ton of sense for development. On the other side is beating teams they should beat. Going through the league, what teams actually have more talent? Theres a whole d league level (utah, wizards, nets, pelicans, hornets, etc). Celts should be winning what, 80% of those? Unless these bottom feeder teams really improved, that should be 25-30 wins in itself. Then it’s a matter of splitting most games with other teams. I think the hardest games are going to be ones with offensive centers…Embiids and Jokers of the league. But the Celts will play with pace and may end up with small lineups, running him off the court. Mid to high forties is within reach.
We don’t have KP anymore
We don’t have Big Al anymore
We don’t have Jrue anymore
All that depth, winners, and post season experience is gone
You don’t magically make that up with freshmen. And JB can’t play all game, every game.
So 40 wins is solid in this new East
I’m well aware of the losses. At the end of the day there’s only one ball, and each of those players you’ve listed (and ones still with the team) were not playing at 100% of their capabilities. They couldn’t with one ball. Celts were in a league of their own the last two years. Again, they really need to win those winnable games against the bottom of the league. They can’t have games they shy from physical contact and just play the perimeter, or not give 100% on the defensive side. They won’t be able to coast to a .500 record like they’ve been able to the last 2 years, where they just tried to have a knockout punch and take the night off. The scheme change on offense is a good start, they just need to figure out the big man rotation. It’s not enough right now, but if they’re competetive, I bet they’re picking up someone around the all star break. And if Tatum can get back in limited spurts, they may be in ok shape. There’s still plenty of really bad teams that they should have a pretty good record against. It would be embarrassing if Nets, Wizards or Hornets out hustles them into a win, or a few other teams out there that still don’t have the same level of talent.
Yea but, high 40’s?
I just don’t see how they would fare better than 40% against the best of the West, 50% against the best in the East, and then 60% against everyone else…
Yea I just don’t see that.
I think we show that we are better than all the rebuild teams, but it becomes obvious that we aren’t a contender basically right from the get-go.
These expectations are healthy. It’s a simple fact that we need the Jays and a heavy rotation of healthy bench players in our last window.
We are far away from that.
I hope so Noa, but I think they will really struggle if either JB or White are out. That’s an easy 20 losses.
edit: I guess if JT is back in February, those guys can get some rest without the games being a near automatic loss.
JB’s got hamstring issues and Tatum is out for the season in the year of maybe the best draft since 2003. Probably don’t get another chance like this for Tatum’s career.
I think its very unlikely at this point that Tatum is out all season. Not saying it’ll make a difference in the end, per se, but I think the team and he both have said enough at this point on it - they aren’t ruling it out, meaning its going to happen. Just a matter of when.
My prediction was 50-32. I still feel confident in that and I don’t think this team puts up a losing record this year.
6 seed. Been saying it.
They’re good enough to compete, they have enough shooters to win some games they shouldn’t, and they should be good enough defensively to play tight games.
The East also sucks.
I think they’ll overperform expectations by a little bit but I’m certainly excited to see them play hard and scrap for wins like the IT era. That team wasn’t stacked with top end talent but man they were fun as hell to watch.
Im pessimistic (not to be confused with unhappy or depressed) about us this year. Ive got us at 42 or below. Jaylen has missed at least 12 games just about every year in his career, the East is better than people think with only about 3 teams I think we should definitely beat every time, and we have a terrible rebounding problem. I just don’t see a 45+ win season unless we have near perfect health and we really click. I also think Tatum wont be back until at least March. March is one of the hardest months on our schedule and you cant expect JT to be impactful even when he does comeback.
It’s funny that people think we’re actually tanking. Like I promise you that Brad Stevens signed Luka Garza, Josh Minott, Chris Boucher and so on not because they’re terrible and going to make us lose, but because they have good analytics in limited minutes and he’s trying to find diamonds in the rough that will help us win this season
Define “much better”.
Was tillman holding his knee?
Can we protect the paint or can our defense hold up without elite paint protection? Can we rebound? Can we handle the ball under pressure when it’s not White or PP handling it?
In the pre-season, the defense held up, but the rebounding wasn’t great and handling of ball pressure outside of White and PP was pretty bad.
I’ve become a little more confident in our defense than I was before, Joe’s focus on rebounding is exactly what we need, and we largely struggled with ball pressure when it was more deeper bench guys and not starters. So there are some promising signs.
If we have to go without White or Brown for an extended period of time though, I just don’t see us producing enough offense.
All that to say, I think we can be better than expected, but it feels like a fragile proposition where multiple things are needed to go right. Now, some of those things already look promising, (i.e. defense) and some of them don’t, (Brown may miss games and rebounding never really got fixed).
We lost three starters idkm
I think we should expect them to look like the magic of last year. A good team with some high level top guys, missing key pieces. 6-8 seed and a hard first round out
I hope so. It’s +250 for 46.5 wins this season
Doomer central up in here. This sub has been more JT fans than Celtics fans for a while now. Queta is going to be a big factor and are going to run and gun, with JB driving and dishing. PP, White, Simons, Hauser raining 3s. Boucher, Garza, Minott bringing the rebounds and stretch. Hugo and Walsh bringing energy. Baylor, Max, Amari, Harper, Xavier, probably not a lot there beyond non competitive time.
Then we get JT to play a stretch 5 in place of Queta in the playoffs. PP-Simons-White-Brown-JT raining 3s.
Our best player tore his Achilles and this draft could be the best since 2018. Not really dooming when it’s the best case scenario.
If Queta has to be a big factor we’re rightfully doomers. If JB has to drive and dish as the 1st option we should all be doomers. Boucher, Garza, and Minott, Walsh, Baylor are barely hanging in the league.
43-39
Besides Cleveland and the Knicks, the East is wide open. Bucks just ain’t the same anymore. Philly could be good but they probably won’t. Orlando could be good too if they mature a little. I didn’t think a 3-4 seed is entirely out of the question, not that I’m expecting it but wouldn’t be surprised
That is not an opinion.
It is a fact.
I see no reason to believe this is more than a 35 win team unless Tatum is making a miraculous return and becomes the first player ever to return from that injury and make 1st team all nba.
The idea that they can make up for lack of talent with extra effort is nice but just isn’t how the league works.
47-35 should be good enough for 6th seed and if JT is back who knows?? Let’s go Celtics 🍀
Lots of positivity for the opening day, cant complain. After watching the Rockets and OKC last night, it became very clear we are not on that tier of team.
Both of those teams would shred us in a series. We have no real hope without a big and Tatum’s return.
“That means that offseason additions like Chris Boucher, Josh Minott, and rookie Hugo Gonzalez — among others — could find themselves playing a critical role from the jump.”
We’re cooked lmao