Unpopular Opinion: We are better than last year

[action781]

Chemistry should be improved just by a couple of malcontents leaving.  But, I worry about the loss of size, toughness and veteran voices. These were already issues, and they got worse.

Chemistry - yes.  Loss of size and toughness, I agree with you at the moment, but we could turn out to be even bigger if two of Theis, Poirier, RWIII turn out to be decent rotational players.  A bit to ask for though.

But I don't know if we lost veteran voices. 
-We lost Kyrie, who acted nothing like a real veteran, and we replaced him with an actual veteran in Kemba.
-We lost Horford, who certainly was a great veteran presence, but replaced him with Enes Kanter who has 8 years of NBA experience.
-We lost Rozier, who like Kyrie gave us no better veteran presence than a rookie would.
-We lost Marcus Morris and Baynes which I think is a loss for us.  But hopefully the re-emergence of a real veteran in Gordon Hayward, plus another year of gained experience of Smart, Jaylen, and Jayson can offset those losses.

We're a young team, but I think overall, we're not *too* young.  Our starting lineup plus our 6th man (which probably accounts for 75-80% of our team's minutes on the court) will be all players in their 3rd year or beyond.  The young guys behind that will be playing with intensity and effort to earn their minutes which is what we need from those roster spots. 

[Mahk E Mahk]

one overlooked aspect i believe will contribute to a better team next season is brad. from everything i read, he took the results of last season personally, & began breaking down film as soon as the season ended. he’s certainly coming into this season with a renewed sense of motivation & focus, but without the drama that derailed last season’s team.

it might be another unpopular opinion but i regard brad as a future popovich, who will maximize each player’s talent and build a team whose sum is greater than its individual parts.

[wiley]

one overlooked aspect i believe will contribute to a better team next season is brad. from everything i read, he took the results of last season personally, & began breaking down film as soon as the season ended. he’s certainly coming into this season with a renewed sense of motivation & focus, but without the drama that derailed last season’s team.

it might be another unpopular opinion but i regard brad as a future popovich, who will maximize each player’s talent and build a team whose sum is greater than its individual parts.

Very glad Brad is the coach.  His only real mistake imo was starting Hayward off the bat.  Going forward, I'd like him to add a sense of riding the hot hand, whether offense or defense, a little more than he has in the past.  For example, if Robert Williams is in and makes a couple blunders, but also has ignited the crowd and team with some great defense, then let him play a bit longer.  You'll have even more to teach him from the film session later when he sees the blunders he made.

[obnoxiousmime]

one overlooked aspect i believe will contribute to a better team next season is brad. from everything i read, he took the results of last season personally, & began breaking down film as soon as the season ended. he’s certainly coming into this season with a renewed sense of motivation & focus, but without the drama that derailed last season’s team.

it might be another unpopular opinion but i regard brad as a future popovich, who will maximize each player’s talent and build a team whose sum is greater than its individual parts.

The Celtics clearly are behind Stevens 100% and want to build their team the same way as the Spurs. They're not going to be the kind of team that makes wholesale changes just to placate a star player, letting them run roughshod over the coach and GM, like say Cleveland and LeBron. Sure, LeBron was able to win one title doing that, but he also ruined the team's future and then left. I don't think the Celtics want to win that way.

That is why the players, especially the franchise players, have to be chosen carefully. The Spurs had Duncan as the anchor. Since he listened to the coach, everybody else had to as well. It's the same with Brady and Belichick.

This is where the Kyrie experiment failed miserably. He was our best player but he didn't get along with Stevens. He also wasn't committed to being in Boston long term. He was the opposite of an anchor.

They need to be careful with the young guys right now. If Brown still thinks this team is holding him back by continuing to sign star FAs who need shots, he's going to wonder if the organization really considers him a franchise player or if they're just keeping him around as an asset. The same thing with Tatum when his deal is up.

If Danny wants to be like, "Hey I was dealt away from Boston, I'm old school, they need to get tough, I won't hold anybody's hand, tough noogies," then that's his prerogative. But just don't be surprised if some players can't handle that and "empower" their way out of town.

[Surferdad]

Things I question
-Ainge drafting Langford. Not sure why he drafted him if he's not able to participate in summer league due to injury. He could've simply drafted another big (Goga) or drafted a healthier shooting guard (Alexander Walker, Kevin Porter, etc.)

-Vincent Poirer: I wouldn't mind Ainge getting another experienced NBA center as a back-up. Not sure what his fascination is with these un-drafted players from the Euro league.

Isn't this a touch short-sighted? I'm not a fan of the Langford pick either (wanted Goga or Alexander-Walker), but if Ainge thinks Langford ultimately has the most potential, being able to help win a Summer League title is really far down the list of requirements.

I'm not concerned about a Summer League title (lol)

What I'm saying is if he's too injured to play in the summer league, wouldn't that hinder his transition from college into the pros?

Sure, but what's the impact of that?  A slow start to what Ainge hopes will be a long NBA career with the Celtics.  It's not a good enough reason to not draft him.

[Sketch5]

Things I question
-Ainge drafting Langford. Not sure why he drafted him if he's not able to participate in summer league due to injury. He could've simply drafted another big (Goga) or drafted a healthier shooting guard (Alexander Walker, Kevin Porter, etc.)

-Vincent Poirer: I wouldn't mind Ainge getting another experienced NBA center as a back-up. Not sure what his fascination is with these un-drafted players from the Euro league.

Isn't this a touch short-sighted? I'm not a fan of the Langford pick either (wanted Goga or Alexander-Walker), but if Ainge thinks Langford ultimately has the most potential, being able to help win a Summer League title is really far down the list of requirements.

I'm not concerned about a Summer League title (lol)

What I'm saying is if he's too injured to play in the summer league, wouldn't that hinder his transition from college into the pros?

Sure, but what's the impact of that?  A slow start to what Ainge hopes will be a long NBA career with the Celtics.  It's not a good enough reason to not draft him.

Yeah, it's not like he's a crucial part of the team winning right now. I bet if he had the surgery a couple weeks  earlier he'd be playing now, it's not like he's out for a couple more months. And he's able to do all the walk throughs, just can't go full strength.

From what some people say, if he didn't get hurt he may have gone top 5. Depending on what DA is going to do with Brown and how fast LAngford catches on, he may be Brown replacement if DA doesn't want to pay him MAX and wants to move Brown for a Big at the deadline. I don't think this will happen, but seeing how the last couple weeks went, anything is possible.

[nickagneta]

I don't see this team winning 49 games like last year's underperforming team did. I also don't see this team going into the 2nd round of the playoffs, like last year's underperforming team.

The starting five might be as effective as last year's starting five but, this bench is a disaster. After Smart there is no discernable talent that has any type of decent or in most cases, any NBA experience.

I have this team, that I guess everyone is going to love over last year's team, at 46-47 wins, max maybe, maybe, maybe 49 wins. A win total as low as 43 would not surprise me. If any of the top 6 players go down for the year, early in the year, this team could top out at 40 wins or less.

I really love the top 6 players but just absolutely hate that Ainge if forcing Stevens into having a bench with practically zero NBA experience and no top end NBA potential or talent.

[Donoghus]

Unless you get the "leap" from one of the kids, I'd be very hardpressed to believe that the '19-20 Celtics will be better than the despised '18-19 bunch. 

Still a very raw roster with plenty of questions including but not necessarily limited to;

1)  Will the offense look much different from last year with Kemba taking the Kyrie role?  Will the distribution and flow be better? Will the offense still be too reliant on ISOs and settling for jumpers & 3's?

2)  How effective will the bench be from an offensive standpoint?

3)  Major frontcourt question marks?

4)  Will defense be improved at all?

They might be more fun to watch given the new faces and youth, I'm just not exactly sold on this team actually being better than last season, though.

[PhoSita]

I don't see this team winning 49 games like last year's underperforming team did. I also don't see this team going into the 2nd round of the playoffs, like last year's underperforming team.

The starting five might be as effective as last year's starting five but, this bench is a disaster. After Smart there is no discernable talent that has any type of decent or in most cases, any NBA experience.

I have this team, that I guess everyone is going to love over last year's team, at 46-47 wins, max maybe, maybe, maybe 49 wins. A win total as low as 43 would not surprise me. If any of the top 6 players go down for the year, early in the year, this team could top out at 40 wins or less.

I really love the top 6 players but just absolutely hate that Ainge if forcing Stevens into having a bench with practically zero NBA experience and no top end NBA potential or talent.

I'm not that worried about the bench.


It shouldn't be hard to mix the starting wing guys in with the second unit.


The bench is lacking established players, but it's not entirely lacking in experience.  Theis and Poirier have been playing professional ball for a while.  Theis was a part of the team the last two years even though he didn't play a ton of games or a ton of minutes.  Semi has played in a lot of big games even if he played a small role.  Wanamaker has also played professional ball for quite a while and is for all intents and purposes a vet.

Edwards and Grant both played three years in college and were a part of teams that got a lot of time in the tourney.


The way I look at it, the top 6 of the rotation is set.  You need a solid 8-9 man rotation by playoff time.  The Celts will have 8-9 guys vying for 2-3 spots in the rotation.  All the Celts need is a few of those guys to be solid enough to play 15-18 minutes or so.  I don't think that's asking a lot.


With that said, I agree that it is a bit of a problem that the Celts will need to spend the regular season basically holding an ongoing tryout for the last 2-4 spots in the rotation.  They will probably lose at least a few games that they otherwise ought to win as a result of that.



None of that bothers me too much, though.  This is a building / "figure out what you have" kind of season.  They have more than enough talent to win 45-50 games and have a chance at winning a playoff series.  Talent is no guarantee, though, as we all saw last year.


Ultimately the fortunes of this team will come down to the development of Tatum and Brown.   How good can they be?  How quickly can they reach their ceilings?  The answers to those questions will determine whether the Celts have a shot at playing meaningful games beyond the first week or two of the playoffs.