Lakers don’t own their arena either though.

I think there are other factors at play:

1. The Lakers’ brand recognition. They do make more than a team like Boston, but not to the extent that they would be worth double. Investors are spending more because they think they can take that brand recognition further.

2. The Kushners are buying up everything while they can. They’ve got blank cheques to spend money without oversight while Trump is in power. They also have deep ties / pockets via the Saudi royal family and seem to be taking a page out of their books in terms of sports/media washing.

By the time Trump is out of office, they’ll be too entrenched for anyone to do anything.

1. The expansions have probably inflated the market. Before spending big on LA they were looking at expansion teams. These teams will cost billions to buy, billions to set up and you’ll have to wait years before you can count on a local fanbase that’s big enough to start paying off the costs. Alternatively, you can just buy an existing team that is already established.

Plus the Lakers didn’t do anything to justify the price hike over 14 months. They sold for 10b in 2025 and 12.5b in 2026.

I get it, but we won?

When this Era becomes history, this scandal will be part of the story. And the “punchline” is the Clippers didn’t win.

Milwaukee…won before they cheated? (Gary Trent) That’s the sort of detail that gets lost in the wash thirty, forty, fifty years down the road.

The Celtics “playing by the rules” and winning is a big part of that story.

Integrity matters.

Provided we have good health, we are going to be so much better in the regular season than everybody else thinks. We will possession max, we will have much better ball movement sans Jaylen and a lower turnover rate, we have a chip on our shoulder, and we have in my opinion – quite clearly the best regular season coach in the NBA in terms of setting an identity, holding players accountable to that identity, the consistency of which they perform to that identity, and having the competitive fire to maintain that identity over the grueling 82 game schedule.

I do foresee some problematic issues in the playoffs with our offense though and particularly our lack of rim pressure and our ability to beat switching defenses. I also foresee issues with our man defense against some of the elite offensive players in the Conference, all of JT, PG, and DWhite are better off ball defenders than on ball defenders.

I don’t think we’re going to ask Pritchard to take Jaylen’s usage though, that will be largely soaked up Tatum’s return.

If I had to do a Usage Rate guess for the team this year, it’d be something like:

Tatum - 30

Pritchard - 23

George - 23

White - ~20

^ Those are obviously the only guys who will have a usage rate at or above 20%.

Agreed on all points. We’ve seen PP iso against the most elite playoff defenders and it’s not pretty. Last year, in the non-JB minutes, we ran a pacers-like system where queta was planted at/above the elbow, setting screens as pp and dwhite fly off of them. Our offensive rating was bonkers good in those regular season minutes. Let’s see if that’s what mazz has decided to lean into. There’s also the question of what JT would look like in that pacers system. JT is one of the most flexible stars in the league, so everyone just handwaves off the fit question. However, nobody would say JT is the type to fly around the court on offense.

A lot of Celtics fans love to bash on the philly offensive fit with stuff like “there’s only 1 ball.” A season of first option JB has made everyone forget that JB has historically thrived as a play finisher and is one of the best low-touches scorers. JB will be fine offensively alongside the other philly starters if he goes back to that role

> addition by subtraction

Yep. Brad got back the end of the year survey and no one else circled “this was my favorite season”.