Re: the talk of the Celtics being mediocre next year...
Someone on RealGM (named sam_I_am) posted this, and to a certain extent I agree:
It’s amazing. The Celtics were a 48 win team before Irving and Horford, were a 49 win team with them, but are now a 20-30 win team just because they are leaving? Absurd. I think with minimal tweaking the Celtics can win 45-50 games and still lose in second round. The only path to a title next year was getting Anthony Davis and once Kyrie flaked that ship sailed. We are not at ground zero of rebuild again. In fact, we are 5 years into the rebuild with 5 very exciting prospects in Smart, Rozier, Brown, Tatum and RW. We are still a top 6 team in East if Tatum and Brown show no growth and Hayward gets no better.
I think there are the obvious caveats: (1) the East is better now, (2) IT's "King of the North" version isn't on this squad, (3) We now have introduced dreaded "chemistry issues" into the fold, (4) They won't be a 50 win squad.
With that being said, I do think this Celtics team is better than a 30-win squad.