Mentality heading into next season

What is your expectations on the future of this team

  • One off run. Next year is back to pre-January mediocrity. Need an overhaul.

    Votes: 2 1.0%
  • They’ll contend in the East but a finals loss is an overachievement. This is the ceiling

    Votes: 16 8.2%
  • With a few moving parts this team has a puncers chance to take the next step

    Votes: 60 30.6%
  • They’re very young. This was a learning curve they had to cross before becoming a title worthy team

    Votes: 89 45.4%
  • Zero doubt. They’ll put up a banner within the next few years

    Votes: 29 14.8%

  • Total voters
    196
  • Poll closed .

Euclis20

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I'm of the mindset that this time is 95% of the way there - incremental changes at best. Horford aging out is the only danger next year - the rest of the roster should be about the same. Looking at other EC teams, the Heat and the Sixers are likely a move away from title contention and the Nets are a house of cards. Only the Bucks are in better shape to get out of the East than Boston over the next few years, and I think we'll take that.
 

BigSoxFan

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I'm of the mindset that this time is 95% of the way there - incremental changes at best. Horford aging out is the only danger next year - the rest of the roster should be about the same. Looking at other EC teams, the Heat and the Sixers are likely a move away from title contention and the Nets are a house of cards. Only the Bucks are in better shape to get out of the East than Boston over the next few years, and I think we'll take that.
I think TL’s knee problem is another major risk factor. Horford covered for it these playoffs by being awesome. If he’s gone or materially worse AND TL’s knee problems persist, then we have a major big problem to deal with since Theis is now trash.
 

DJnVa

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Dec 16, 2010
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A lot of people trying to find the silver lining of this loss are harping on how young the team is and so on.

Am I the only one that thinks there is a better than 50% chance this team doesn’t see the finals again? The East is stacked and this team just doesn’t learn. They don’t make adjustments.
Yep, absolutely NOTHING changed from early in the season. They definitely did not learn and adjust.

JFC
 

BaseballJones

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Oct 1, 2015
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I agree with an earlier poster that said that Milwaukee is the main challengers to Boston for the EC championship. That squad with a healthy Middleton is very very good.

But Boston should be excellent too. They definitely figured something out when the calendar hit January. I wouldn’t be shocked at a 60+ win season, and maybe the #1 seed in the East.

Not that the home court advantage actually helped them in the playoffs but still.
 

Captaincoop

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It will be very interesting to see how Tatum responds to the narrative about him that is likely to develop this offseason. That could go a couple of different ways and will go a long way in determining the future of this team.
 

Eddie Jurak

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What if Jaylen is the alpha?
He's not. A lot of his success comes from working in the spaces crated by Tatum. He doesn't see the floor nearly as well at either end, and when the Celtics' defense breaks down due to a missed assignment, it is a lot more likely Brown's assgnment that was missed than Tatum's. He's a step above Tatum as an athlete, maybe, but not as a basketball player. And he handles the ball a lot less than Tatum but still turns it over a lot.
 

JakeRae

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Jul 21, 2005
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What if Jaylen is the alpha?
Jaylen cannot create offense against a crowd. If he faced the stacked defenses Tatum sees every night, he’d be a double double guy, and not in a good way. In many ways, this is the biggest problem the Celtics current roster has. They have a really good secondary scorer, but he’s not a guy you can leave on an island against playoff defenses, and there isn’t another guy to create for him (although some nights Smart, White, or Horford can fill that role). That’s why Tatum had to play massive minutes all playoffs. They don’t have another option. They probably don’t strictly need one as no team is perfect, but the idea that Jaylen could lead a contending team is not based on reality.
 

BigSoxFan

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Jaylen cannot create offense against a crowd. If he faced the stacked defenses Tatum sees every night, he’d be a double double guy, and not in a good way. In many ways, this is the biggest problem the Celtics current roster has. They have a really good secondary scorer, but he’s not a guy you can leave on an island against playoff defenses, and there isn’t another guy to create for him (although some nights Smart, White, or Horford can fill that role). That’s why Tatum had to play massive minutes all playoffs. They don’t have another option. They probably don’t strictly need one as no team is perfect, but the idea that Jaylen could lead a contending team is not based on reality.
Yeah, Tatum is clearly the alpha although I would say that Jaylen sometimes exhibits more of that alpha dog mentality, which is something that Tatum needs to work on. The dude wilted in this series under the weight of expectations and the attention. He’ll get better.

I think Tatum is going to face a lot of the questions that Dirk faced after 2006. Some people criticized him and wondered if he had it in him to lead a title contender. Then 2011 happened. Good news is that narratives can switch quickly but the reality is that this performance will stick to Tatum a bit. Just how sports works.
 

j-man

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looking at the east for next season
tier 1 Milw bos mia
tier 2 brook chi cle philly atl
tier 3 cha tor ny
tier 4 wash det
tier 5 indy orl
 

Eddie Jurak

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I think it is weird to look at the Warriors series and see a fatally flawed Celtic team, as some people seem to. Ime is one year into his tenure as coach. The Celtics were less then 5 months in to playing the way he wanted them to, and they were dealing with injuries to at least 3 starters (Rob, Smart, Tatum). One key guy was relatively new here (White). There's no reason to think Tatum has peaked or that this iteration of the Celtics has peaked. I mean, it is less than 5 months into this iteration of the Celtics finally playing well, and some are already predicting that the sky is falling?

Brad has shown himself to be far less reluctant than Danny to make moves, so I expect the team to look somewhat different this time next year.

But if they made no moves whatsoever and ran it back with the exact same 15 guys, they could be a #1 seed, ECF favorite, and champion.

I think Ime is a great coach, but I think he was outcoached by Spoelstra and Kerr, both of whom have a lot more experience than him. He made some game 6 adjustments to his rotations that went over like a lead ballon and keyed the Warriors 35-8 stretch that all but put the game away. Some of that was lack of options, of course, but Ime wasn't forced in game 6 to do anything he hadn't done in 1 through 5. I expect him to imprve as well in his second year.

My biggest concerns about this team are 1) Rob's injury, 2) the short offseason, 3) Horford's age. Those aside, there are no problems here that Brad can't fix.
 

jmcc5400

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Sep 29, 2000
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Jaylen cannot create offense against a crowd. If he faced the stacked defenses Tatum sees every night, he’d be a double double guy, and not in a good way. In many ways, this is the biggest problem the Celtics current roster has. They have a really good secondary scorer, but he’s not a guy you can leave on an island against playoff defenses, and there isn’t another guy to create for him (although some nights Smart, White, or Horford can fill that role). That’s why Tatum had to play massive minutes all playoffs. They don’t have another option. They probably don’t strictly need one as no team is perfect, but the idea that Jaylen could lead a contending team is not based on reality.
It’s why the first two + minutes of the 4th quarter in Game 6 with Curry sitting were so rough. Jaylen as the initiator without much help around him was a disaster offensively when any chance they had left hinged on taking advantage of non- Curry minutes.
 

DJnVa

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After last season, many here and many outside "experts" thought the Celtics were in purgatory--no real tradeable assets or high picks. Salary cap issues. Then we kicked Stevens upstairs and brought in a guy that's never coached before. And then----we were 2 wins away from winning it all. I can't believe the pessimism of some. It's just...odd.
 

Jimbodandy

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After last season, many here and many outside "experts" thought the Celtics were in purgatory--no real tradeable assets or high picks. Salary cap issues. Then we kicked Stevens upstairs and brought in a guy that's never coached before. And then----we were 2 wins away from winning it all. I can't believe the pessimism of some. It's just...odd.
This.

They didn't burn through the bucket of TPEs or future draft picks and still have tradeable assets. There's a shitload of ways to incrementally or fundamentally remake this team. I get why folks are disappointed, but I agree that the negativity here stinks and sucks and Larry Bird isn't walking through that door.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Yeah, I think even the most optimistic here (of which I was certainly not one) didn’t see making it to game 6 of the finals as a very realistic possibility. It’s hard to not feel a lot more optimistic about this team now than you did a year or six months ago.
 

PRabbit

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Apr 3, 2022
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This team went from a 36-36 treadmill roster to one who got out of the toughest Eastern Confrence we've seen in at least a decade, and the only old player we got is Horford. I'm finding it pretty hard to be pessimistic about the short and medium-term outlook. What needs to happen IMO is adding a 3-and-D wing (get back Richardson with the TPE? SA has a glut of wings) and a 3rd guard who can actually set the offense for 15-20 minutes a game.

The future is pretty bright, just need to work on the margins.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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After last season, many here and many outside "experts" thought the Celtics were in purgatory--no real tradeable assets or high picks. Salary cap issues. Then we kicked Stevens upstairs and brought in a guy that's never coached before. And then----we were 2 wins away from winning it all. I can't believe the pessimism of some. It's just...odd.
People acting like they were preseason favorites, absolutely wild. Last summer we were just happy that they came out of the offseason with more flexibility to build a stronger team in the future, never mind immediately contending.
 

tims4wins

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This is neither here nor there, but I was watching a documentary on the 2008 Celtics (Anything is Possible) and I was reminded just how incredibly deep that team was in comparison to this year's team. Technically this year's team had 9 playable guys - the starters plus PP, Grant, White, and Theis - but it really felt like they were about 7.5 deep.

The 2008 team had a legitimate 12 guys that Doc could put on the floor:
Starting 5 (Rondo, Allen, Pierce, KG, Perk)
Guards: House, Cassell, Tony Allen
Wing: Posey
Big: Baby, Powe, PJ Brown

Plus their scrubs were Scott Pollard and Scal who both played in over 500 NBA games.

It's much like the Warriors this year. They just had a lot more playable guys.

The Celts need to get deeper next year.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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This is neither here nor there, but I was watching a documentary on the 2008 Celtics (Anything is Possible) and I was reminded just how incredibly deep that team was in comparison to this year's team. Technically this year's team had 9 playable guys - the starters plus PP, Grant, White, and Theis - but it really felt like they were about 7.5 deep.

The 2008 team had a legitimate 12 guys that Doc could put on the floor:
Starting 5 (Rondo, Allen, Pierce, KG, Perk)
Guards: House, Cassell, Tony Allen
Wing: Posey
Big: Baby, Powe, PJ Brown

Plus their scrubs were Scott Pollard and Scal who both played in over 500 NBA games.

It's much like the Warriors this year. They just had a lot more playable guys.

The Celts need to get deeper next year.
The way it ultimately benefited them is exactly how this years team could have used a boost to get over the hump.

Rondo was really hurting the offensive spacing because he couldn’t (and wouldn’t) shoot, so we had Cassell for stability and House for shooting. House played almost no role in the playoffs and then suddenly was getting 15-20 minutes in the finals, while Cassell had huge moments in earlier rounds and played less against LA. Same with the bench bigs.

We just didn’t have that kind of flexibility to mix and match when, for example, Grant was marginalized for most of the Finals, PP couldn’t shoot, etc.
 

nighthob

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The 95 Magic, 96 Sonics, 12 Thunder were young (or youngish) teams that never got back. This current version of the team is one season away from Jaylen entering a contract year (as a UFA). Not a ton of time to figure this out.

Tatum enters his contract year the following season, and I'm sure the Lakers have noted that the Anthony Davis contract expires when Tatum's does.
The '95 Magic lost Shaq and the '12 Thunder broke up their own team to avoid having three max guys on the roster. I'm pretty sure that Wyc & Co learned their lesson in '09 (when they neglected to spend money on another F during the summer (while letting Posey walk) only to find that fall that Garnett needed knee surgery).
 

tims4wins

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The way it ultimately benefited them is exactly how this years team could have used a boost to get over the hump.

Rondo was really hurting the offensive spacing because he couldn’t (and wouldn’t) shoot, so we had Cassell for stability and House for shooting. House played almost no role in the playoffs and then suddenly was getting 15-20 minutes in the finals, while Cassell had huge moments in earlier rounds and played less against LA. Same with the bench bigs.

We just didn’t have that kind of flexibility to mix and match when, for example, Grant was marginalized for most of the Finals, PP couldn’t shoot, etc.
Exactly. When Grant and/or Theis was unplayable, there was nowhere else to turn.
 

Eddie Jurak

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I read that as Brad saying they will spend to add depth but are basically happy with the core they have, i.e. no blockbuster trade for Beal.
 

lexrageorge

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I read that as Brad saying they will spend to add depth but are basically happy with the core they have, i.e. no blockbuster trade for Beal.
Expect to see some needed improvements to the Grant/Pritchard/Theis bench rotation. But agree it’s unlikely the core changes.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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Jun 26, 2006
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Agree with others that it's about changing and adding to the depth and not worrying about the starting 5. At points this year, the starting five was the best starting 5 in the NBA and historically good in terms of balancing offensive production and defensive prowess. Run that shit back.

But having the options of Grant Williams, Payton Pritchard, Derek White, and Daniel Theis to play with just didn't leave Ime enough options.

Pritchard, Williams, and White were collectively 33-92 from the field (36%) and 16-49 from 3 (33%). That's just not going to cut it.

Now, you could argue that if Williams and Pritch shoot to their averages, the Cs maybe take the series, so it's possible that's just shooting variance in a series and shit happens, but I think you need someone with a little more pedigree to rely on. Brad will find someone.
 

BigSoxFan

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Agree with others that it's about changing and adding to the depth and not worrying about the starting 5. At points this year, the starting five was the best starting 5 in the NBA and historically good in terms of balancing offensive production and defensive prowess. Run that shit back.

But having the options of Grant Williams, Payton Pritchard, Derek White, and Daniel Theis to play with just didn't leave Ime enough options.

Pritchard, Williams, and White were collectively 33-92 from the field (36%) and 16-49 from 3 (33%). That's just not going to cut it.

Now, you could argue that if Williams and Pritch shoot to their averages, the Cs maybe take the series, so it's possible that's just shooting variance in a series and shit happens, but I think you need someone with a little more pedigree to rely on. Brad will find someone.
Yup. Clearly a reliable wing scorer is a need. We can't rely on Nesmith at all here. Whatever he gives us in 2022-2023 is a bonus. If the plan is to keep Horford, which I imagine it is, then the need for a big is still there but not as pronounced. But I would gladly upgrade Theis if we could.

Thus, I think the priority, which most seem to agree with, is finding that 6'6-6'8 wing who can score off the bench and not get smoked on defense is the top priority. Honestly, getting JRich back from the Spurs might be the best realistic option.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Stevens is not going to signal anything towards any deals, Beal or otherwise. There is a lot of downside and no upside in doing so.

Brad Stevens and his people have plans. Things can change quickly.
 

reggiecleveland

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I expect we may be surprised by who they bring in. White certainly exceeded expectations because of how well he fit. As Brad said, they are defending great, so they want guys that will fit on the defensive end. When you are this close a guy who is just incrementally better can make a big impact.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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I like that Brad seems to be a little more forthcoming. Obviously still short on specifics as any GM would be, but Ainge was basically Mr. "We are always looking to improve the roster" and tended to be cagey to the extreme until player-movement season was over when he would then become Mr. "We were close on a lot of things" both of which could be really frustrating (and I say that as an Ainge fan and someone who found a lot of the GFIN-type moves people have promoted over the years to be pretty stupid).

He conveys the sense that they have a strong list of options, know exactly what they want to do, and already have frameworks in place. Maybe that is just me projecting based on the confidence of the White trade and, going farther back, the Kemba/Al trade.