Are the Celtics a Top 6 team in the NBA right now?

[Chef Parish]

After this week's activity so far?

[Jamilmac99]

LOL!!!

[footey]

Top 10 but not top 6. Not right now.

[Birdman]

no way

[Bobshot]

Too early to say. Hayward must take a step up, and they have to establish control of the paint with a dominant center.
Right now, Vegas has them 20-1.

Can't see a serious challenge until they improve in the paint with a top rim protector. Tacko and Williams must develop.

[hodgy03038]

I would say top 6 in the East at this point.

[SHAQATTACK]

9-12 range

If Gordon can get his freak n mind right ....and serious, if he doesn't  really,fast early on .....i don't believe he ever will.

[Silky]

This team made the ecf finals 2 seasons ago.

Yes we lose Horford
Yes we lose kyrie
Yes we lose morris, rozier and Baynes

But

Tatum and brown are older
We gained a hopefully healthy hayward
We gained all nba kemba
We added some youth and replacements playera up front

[MikeB12]

Don't think so....not sure the Celtics will even have the 10th best record in the NBA next year.  Probably not, maybe the 12th best record.

MikeB

[obnoxiousmime]

I think it'd be more informative to rank by tiers.
Contenders
Playoff teams that could win it all but only under fortunate circumstances (e.g. injuries, favorable matchups, lucky bounces)
Playoff teams that have no real shot at title no matter what happens
Teams that are playoff borderline
Teams that are bad
Teams that are really bad/tanking

[nickagneta]

I would have

Milwaukee
Philadelphia
Indiana
LAC
GSW
LAL
Houston
Denver
Utah
Portland

all ahead of the Celtics, right now. And with the Celtics tremendously inexperienced bench(from players 7-15), it is going to take some really great arguments to make me believe the the Celtics deserve to be considered as better than these teams. Celtics are a very, very thin team overall. Basically 6 players deep, so they don't deserve to be any higher than 11th overall right now.

[slamtheking]

top 6 - no.  would require
- Hayward to be Utah Hayward
- Jaylen and Jayson to make the leaps this upcoming year that we were hoping for last year.
- Smart to be good-shooting Smart that started out last year
- Kanter to develop into at least an average defensive center at a minimum
- Grant Williams, Timelord and Theis to be better than average bigs off the bench.
- Kemba to become the facilitator we hoped Kyrie would be while also being that go-to guy at the end of games with Utah Hayward.

IF all that happens, yes, this could be a top team in the mix with the teams Nick listed out.  (I disagree the Lakers are a better team.  Lebron and AD are a great one-two punch and Kuzma a decent young player but their team depth is about as thin as ours.)

[green_bballers13]

#6 My top 10:

1-LAC
2-PHI
3-MIL
4-LAL
5-UTAH
6-BOS
7-DEN
8-POR
9-IND
10-GS/HOU

[rondofan1255]

No, unless Hayward becomes what he was AND Jaylen +  Jayson live up to their previous hype

[zeitgeist49]

There's too many question marks right now for the Celts to make a meaningful prediction. Will Walker be a good fit in Stevens' system ; will Hayward return to his Utah form ; how much will Brown and Tatum improve ; what kind of D will Kanter, Poirier and Timelord provide ; will we get more points in the paint and more free throws than last year ; will any of the rookies provide significant production in the rotation ? Right now, on paper, I would rank the teams :
1. LAC
2. LAL
3. MiL
4. Phil.
5. Utah
6. Denver
7. Houston
8. G.S.
9. Ind.
10. Boston
However, if most of the ifs break Boston's way, we could be a top 5 team. Lots of ifs though.