Brad deserves most the credit (and ainge). They consistently find plays who exceed expectations or out perform their market value and have no problem selling important pieces before they lose them for nothing or clog the salary cap. Evan turner, Jae Crowder, Marcus morris, horford, porzingis, Simon’s. The system was started when Ainge traded half a roster that had minimal value for KG then traded KG before he truly fell off for future pieces and it’s been wash rinse and repeat ever since for the Celtics.

I’ve been saying for years that Stevens is by far the best GM in the league. He doesn’t have Presti’s war chest of picks, but he’s made amazing decisions every year in his career as a GM so far. White, Pritch, bringing back Al, etc etc.

Pistons fan nominating the Celtics coach for COTY while Pistons are first in the East after being a joke for years.

The call is coming from inside the house.

Darko winning that

Don’t forget my guy Luka Garza. Unreal.

Ask any Celtics fan before the season and they would’ve been happy with just 1 of those guys you named to be decent

Hugo was a fun sleeper in draft groups. Going to an org like Boston, he definitely had that “he’ll be solid” aura around him after the pick.

I’ve been excited about Walsh since the draft really, I thought he was a good player.

This is the sort of stuff I dream of when I play sports video games in franchise – getting the best out of a bunch of nobodies.

idk i feel like brad stevens was already seen as a really good gm before

That 2020 Utah State team might have made one hell of a tourney run if it hadn’t been cancelled. Queta and Sam Merrill have become real hidden gems from the 2nd round. Their last game with Merrill’s buzzer beater to beat #3 San Diego State was insane, they were peaking at the perfect time.

He just needed a chance. Dude was always a hooper but just undersized 

That we kind of expected. He’d shown every sign he can be a starter in this league just needed a chance.

True Celtics fans didn’t do that lol

My biggest grip with Mazzulla last year was wasting minutes with KP in the lineup. He was a massive negative in the playoffs and I think we would have been better of giving Luke consistent minutes in his stead

Tbf, up until December our bench was getting it’s butt kicked and that was with Simons. You might expect Simons to give your bench an offensive lift, but would you expect a Simons/Garza led bench to not be getting killed on defense?

Since December, the impressive thing about our bench is that it’s held it’s own defensively despite playing Simons/Garza a ton together.

Figuring out how to weaponize our bench without getting killed ourselves is the surprising thing

Simons has been great for the last two months or so, but was absolutely dismal defensively and inconsistent offensively for the start of the season.

Think this stat has to do more with the overall energy of the young bench wings — Hugo, Walsh, Scheiermann. They come in and just win every ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ ball which goes a long way.

Simons obviously important because he’s the only potent offensive threat on the bench, but Joe does a lot of staggering so it’s rarely more than 3 bench guys on the floor at any time.

Hes all over the place and his PPG is like 14 but its more like games of 20-30 and then games of single digits you gotta give credit to the rest, Garza is shooting like 50% from 3, Walsh is legit a top 10 defender in the LEAGUE, Hugo is the second coming on the “hes only 19” meme and the rest too

Net rating includes defense too

(I like Simons! He’s a microwave scorer and tries hard on defense, but he’s a negative on D and needs support to make the scoring matter more)

Probably, but I don’t want him to get. It feels like a poisoned chalice. They can give it to someone who will be fired within 2 years

The pistons have 1 more loss than the thunder

I think its has to be between him, Bickerstaff, and Mitch Johnson assuming what’s currently happening stands.

I’d like to give an honorable mention to Jordan Ott since we were supposed to be dogwater and we’re pretty close to passing our projected wins before the all star break has even happened, but I don’t think our record will be good enough and its going to be tough to improve it with Book out.

Agreed, he has every reason to play with a chip on his shoulders and make it known

Those same people will be using this to force a wedge between him, the Cs/JT… just so they can get clicks and put food on their plate lmao.

He has proved a lot of people wrong this season. And I for one, think it’s great to see.

Okay but the hairline. Why spray paint on your head.

Facts. They’re second because most of the East sucks lol. They’ll be even better when Tatum comes back. It’ll be a little rough at first I assume with bringing back him in but hopefully he’ll adjust and add to the team.

Yeah - I think JB has picked up some slack and they’ve gotten great contributions from younger guys blossoming. But this team is still 10 wins off of what they would be with Tatum.

Nah man, I feel extremely confident if I took the time I could put together a whole low-light reel of sports media people saying Jaylen Brown could no5 do what he’s doing right now.

It’s for sure a whole organization thing, but as a basketball player JB deserves to be able to talk his shit right now (& he didn’t even go overboard with it here IMO).

Sure. But they arent the focal point of the team. And honestly given that you could probably make a lengthy compilation of shit talking that towards JB before the season really got underway he deserves to talk his shit.

At one point people were saying D-White was significantly better than him.

Raptors are still a ways away from the bucks/pacers/cavs of last year imo

Holy shit guys he said Hornets. What a time to be alive

Brother, Cavs are a half game of passing you all and everyone has been injured all year. Missing 2 starters basically all year. Strus hasn’t played at all, and Garland and Merrill have played less than half the games.

People are about to realize the Cavs are fine.

Hornets are better, but still not in the same class as the other teams you’ve mentioned. This is still a 19-28 team at the end of the day

Oh lawd we comin

Hornets 19-28. I know that’s great by their standards, but got a laugh out of that. The bar was set low

Be fr all those teams you mentioned would get wiped out in the first round against a west team

lol Bucks, Pacers, and Cavs were teams that have been good for years. There is a difference between teams that are just getting good and teams that are comfortable contender-types.

36.9% yikes

“The east is just as shitty as usual… which is actually a bit better than the past couple years” - nowwhathappenedwas

ima be honest this is just numberslop. how the the 12-15 seed in 1 conference does vs the 12-15 seed of the other conference isn’t relevant at all.

this is about Boston being the 2 seed last year vs this year. which means you only need to look at the 1-4 in the east vs 1-4 in the east at this point in the season (all star break) year over year.

i would just be looking at the difference between this: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2026_standings_by_date_eastern_conference.html

and this: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2025_standings_by_date_eastern_conference.html

and looking at what BOS has had to do to get to 2 this year vs stay at 2 last year.

🤫 LOL

The quote JB said here is literally “it’s almost been no drop off”. A 10+ win difference is a drop off.

They’re just a bunch of lunch pail-type guys that are gym rats and play the game the right way. You have to love it.

Thanks, man. We get the organizational stability and competence, you guys get the automatic #1 FA destination. Being rich in Riverside, CA is just different.

Well you’re clearly using his career stats with Brown which includes his younger years. His stats with Brown recently have still been clearly #1 option level.

Yeah exactly this. There were even “trade Brown” rumors for so long, Jaylen Brown was very disrespected up until this year pretty much. Glad he’s able to get his flowers

He won a FMVP and got a supermax. What did he lose? What did he sacrifice? A few PPG that wouldn’t have led to a bigger contract anyway? You got a ring, recognition, and fame. I’m not buying into this sob story about not being looked at as a true 1st option.

He can say whatever he wants, and he can be justified in saying it because of what people have been saying about him, still doesn’t change how this came off 🤷🏽‍♂️

He probably doesn’t care, but as I said l, it’s not that big of a deal what the media and fans think, it’s much more interesting to see what his team really thinks, and does this have any lingering effects.

So that means he should disrespect his teammates? They weren’t the ones disrespecting him.

True, as competitive as they both are, if they’re good friends and been through as much as they have with each other then they should be able to work through this and Tatum should be happy to see he’s got someone like that on their team.

The media has stirred the pot, but this is the most explicit he’s said that the team is just as good with him as the number 1 (if not better because they lost a bunch of other guys too)

Uhhh well, saying we have not gotten worse without Tatum because I can now stop sacrificing my own potential is pretty close to saying we don’t actually need him.

I also just fundamentally disagree that being in 2nd place means the team has no drop off from last year.