The 10 Most Disappointing Celtics Seasons of the Last 30 Years

[PhoSita]

TP. Well done thread. I agree that in the time frame given, that first year after Reggie was the worst.

I wonder why the 30 year cut off? That 1986-87 year after Reggie died that the C's lost to the Lakers in the Finals that was pretty disappointing. Or 2 years before where the team lost a Finals to the Lakers for the first time ever.

And then there was the John Y. Brown Celtics, the first time the word disappointing could probably ever be used for a Celtic team. This group was so bad it led to Hondo retiring, Tommy Heinsohn being fired, Cowens being driven so nuts he went to go drive a taxi and made Red want to quit to join the Knicks.

You want disappointing. Welcome to the 1977-78 and 1978-79, Wicks-Rowe-Barnes-McAdoo, John Y. Brown Celtics.

The thirty year cutoff is mostly arbitrary.

Also, much further back and we'd be talking about seasons that most people won't personally remember.  The idea for the thread was to get some perspective from somewhat recent history that will remind people of the disappointment they personally felt compared to now.

[Big333223]

TP, great post.

I started watching the Celtics right around 2001, when they started putting things together under O'Brien. The '02 season was the first where I watched most of the games. Boy, was I excited to watch this young team that made the ECF grow and get better. Oops. But as disappointing as the '03 season was, I remember the '04 season being brutally disappointing for young me. They were just so bad. Antoine was gone. O'Brien quit. Nothing went right. Getting bounced in the first round with just 36 wins was disgraceful.

After that, as far as seasons I've witnessed, the '13 season was really disappointing. I thought they still had another run in them. I thought Rondo was going to take over. I was Jeff Greened. The funny thing is, this is one of my favorite Pierce seasons, because after Rondo went down, he put the team on his back and carried them into the playoffs. But that was definitely not the season I thought it would be.

Those are the two big ones, for me. Maybe there's someone here who can talk about the '78 season?

I'll wait and see what happens in the playoffs this year.

[footey]

Great post.

I would not list the 09/10 season. That team did not disappoint given how close it got to winning it all. Plus I felt the Lakers were better that year.

There were some seasons during Bird era you left out. Like the season we got knocked out by the Bucks.

Also the 72/73 season was a huge disappointment after crushing it in regular season only to get screwed by refs in Knick series. Not to mention Hondo shoulder injury (I was at that game LOL). But that was more than 30 years ago.

Too soon to put this season on the list. Ending hasn’t been written yet.

[Donoghus]

'08-09.

If KG doesn't get hurt, I think they repeat.   You also have to wonder how that waterfalls into the '09-10 season.

[PhoSita]

'08-09.

If KG doesn't get hurt, I think they repeat.   You also have to wonder how that waterfalls into the '09-10 season.

That's a good one to bring up that I didn't consider.  They were so good to start the year, and then when KG went down it lowered the ceiling on the season.

They did win 62 games and got to Game 7 against the team that went to the Finals.  But it does hurt that they were almost certainly the best team in the league before KG got hurt.

[Donoghus]

'08-09.

If KG doesn't get hurt, I think they repeat.   You also have to wonder how that waterfalls into the '09-10 season.

That's a good one to bring up that I didn't consider.  They were so good to start the year, and then when KG went down it lowered the ceiling on the season.

They did win 62 games and got to Game 7 against the team that went to the Finals.  But it does hurt that they were almost certainly the best team in the league before KG got hurt.

That team was 44-11 the night KG got hurt.

[RJ87]

'08-09.

If KG doesn't get hurt, I think they repeat.   You also have to wonder how that waterfalls into the '09-10 season.

This is my vote. I'd also have to throw out the 10-11 season with Shaq. We got off to a great start before injuries doomed us again.

[timpiker]

This year is #1 in 70 years - underachievers

[PhoSita]

'08-09.

If KG doesn't get hurt, I think they repeat.   You also have to wonder how that waterfalls into the '09-10 season.

That's a good one to bring up that I didn't consider.  They were so good to start the year, and then when KG went down it lowered the ceiling on the season.

They did win 62 games and got to Game 7 against the team that went to the Finals.  But it does hurt that they were almost certainly the best team in the league before KG got hurt.

That team was 44-11 the night KG got hurt.

Yeah that was rough.

I will say that the post-season run that year was fun, and left an overall positive impression for me.  They fought really hard and went far despite missing their best player. 

Remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HKT0rE1M-g

[footey]

This year is #1 in 70 years - underachievers

Why don't you wait until the season is over before proclaiming this.

[CptZoogs]

The list seems a little scattered to me and I think that may be due to how we are defining “disappointing”.  For some of the seasons, the disappointment seems to purely be a function on expectations vs. results.  But then some of the seasons were just bad seasons.  I personally would put the 96-97 season in there.  Yes we were tanking, but it was the franchise low point for win total and win percentage.  Not only that, but we had TWO shots at Duncan in the lottery and ended up with the 3rd pick!  Maybe not part of the season, but that was the whole goal of the season.  Franchise altering event.

[CptZoogs]

Also, we let Fox and Wesley go in the off-season, both of whom went on to have pretty productive careers.  And for salt in the wound, it was our 50th anniversary season.

[liam]

TP. Well done thread. I agree that in the time frame given, that first year after Reggie was the worst.

I wonder why the 30 year cut off? That 1986-87 year after Reggie died that the C's lost to the Lakers in the Finals that was pretty disappointing. Or 2 years before where the team lost a Finals to the Lakers for the first time ever.

And then there was the John Y. Brown Celtics, the first time the word disappointing could probably ever be used for a Celtic team. This group was so bad it led to Hondo retiring, Tommy Heinsohn being fired, Cowens being driven so nuts he went to go drive a taxi and made Red want to quit to join the Knicks.

You want disappointing. Welcome to the 1977-78 and 1978-79, Wicks-Rowe-Barnes-McAdoo, John Y. Brown Celtics.

1986-87 was really disappointing but it was Len Bias who died not  Reggie, he died in 1993.  1986-87 was also riddled with injures. Purely from memory ( correct me if I'm wrong) but Walton, McHale, Parish, Wedman all had injury prone seasons and McHale played on the broken feet. Nothing is worse than losing due to injury.

[PhoSita]

The list seems a little scattered to me and I think that may be due to how we are defining “disappointing”.  For some of the seasons, the disappointment seems to purely be a function on expectations vs. results.  But then some of the seasons were just bad seasons. 

I agree with you -- it's important, and difficult, to define what is meant by "disappointing."


I began making this list by looking at the seasons where there was the biggest gap between the winning percentage of the season before and the winning percentage of the following season.

That will leave out a lot of seasons where the team won a lot of games in the regular season but had a disappointing result for whatever reason.  It also leaves out seasons that might have been disappointing but were preceded by an even worse season.


I agree that the key distinction is between seasons where the end result was bad or frustrating, and seasons where there was a huge gap between expectations and results.

For the most part I was looking at "disappointing" as a function of the latter.

I do think that that kind of disappointment is the most appropriate comparison to this season, since in many respects this has been a perfectly fine season by lots of objective measures, yet many people seem to be really down on the team because the pre-season expectations were so high.

[nickagneta]

TP. Well done thread. I agree that in the time frame given, that first year after Reggie was the worst.

I wonder why the 30 year cut off? That 1986-87 year after Reggie died that the C's lost to the Lakers in the Finals that was pretty disappointing. Or 2 years before where the team lost a Finals to the Lakers for the first time ever.

And then there was the John Y. Brown Celtics, the first time the word disappointing could probably ever be used for a Celtic team. This group was so bad it led to Hondo retiring, Tommy Heinsohn being fired, Cowens being driven so nuts he went to go drive a taxi and made Red want to quit to join the Knicks.

You want disappointing. Welcome to the 1977-78 and 1978-79, Wicks-Rowe-Barnes-McAdoo, John Y. Brown Celtics.

1986-87 was really disappointing but it was Len Bias who died not  Reggie, he died in 1993.  1986-87 was also riddled with injures. Purely from memory ( correct me if I'm wrong) but Walton, McHale, Parish, Wedman all had injury prone seasons and McHale played on the broken feet. Nothing is worse than losing due to injury.

Yeah, brain fart is all. It was indeed Bias. TP for pointing it out.