Celtics Crying Out For Veteran Leadership

[Fred Ziffel]

Brown and Tatum excellent young players. But they are too young to lead this team.  It may be time to bring in a couple veterans that can become leaders on this team.  After games Brown in particular has taken responsibility for the team playing poorly but it's not carrying over.   

[nickagneta]

You mean like Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart, veterans that have been absent for long periods of this year?

[cman88]

Normally I would say that Tatum/Brown are young and we generally never see teams with stars that young win in the NBA.

BUT, these two have experienced alot of success in their young years. and this is the modern NBA where players if they arent winning request a trade.

The clock is on danny now. He has the next 5 years to win a championship with these two and show them that this is the team to be on. He needs to at some point "stop" hoarding his draft picks for the future and build to win now.

if he doesn't get a big upgrade at the TPE (which is our best chance to improve). I am not sure what his options are other than nailing the draft and the smaller exceptions they get

[Fred Ziffel]

No.  What I mean is that talk is cheap.  Everybody is saying the right thing. But eventually that falls on deaf ears.  Play a good game and then not show up is a pattern. I love Jaylen Brown's play.  But when you are a .500 team and you are losing to the last place team in your division again maybe you don't flex your muscles after making a good play.  That says look at me. This isn't me it is us. And maybe we should win 5 or 6 games in a row before anybody celebrates .  We have two all-stars, a former all - star, a defensive player of the year candidate, and we are are middle of the road. And it's getting worse. We were 8-3. We are now 13-12. 

[Phantom255x]

Maybe Kyrie was right all along ("we need a 14-15 year vet")

 

[Fred Ziffel]

And you know what they say about excuses.  Enough. We have injuries. We have Covid.  We have day games.  We have back to backs. We have no fans. Stop crying.  Every other team has similar challenges.  As good as Brown and Tatum are- and they are awesome.  They take plays off defensively.  They have lapses.  They - particularly Tatum complain about calls constantly.  Stop. Play the game. The officials are not intentionally screwing you.  And leadership is more than just scoring 30 points.  Show by example.  we lost Hayward. Danny do what you can to replace him.  But other than that stop talking and start playing better.

[timpiker]

#1 - they lost their security blanket in Gordon Hayward.  This team is pitiful and I'll say it - they are underachievers. 

[cman88]

#1 - they lost their security blanket in Gordon Hayward.  This team is pitiful and I'll say it - they are underachievers.

I will say though, there is time to turn it around. we are still #4 in the east! same amount of losses at the Nets and only 2 more than the Bucks. Not sure if the east has gotten tougher or what but most of the teams are hovering around .500

[NKY fan]

#1 - they lost their security blanket in Gordon Hayward.  This team is pitiful and I'll say it - they are underachievers.

I will say though, there is time to turn it around. we are still #4 in the east! same amount of losses at the Nets and only 2 more than the Bucks. Not sure if the east has gotten tougher or what but most of the teams are hovering around .500

Just a weird season for all teams. Another thing is that the easiest way for bad teams to improve is to start playing better shooting players from 3 (whether drafted players or internal development) this makes games a lot less predictable.
Even the worst teams can shoot 19-40 on 3pt on any given night against the best teams (that’s ~1.5 PPP) and beat them handily.

[cltc5]

Brown and Tatum excellent young players. But they are too young to lead this team.  It may be time to bring in a couple veterans that can become leaders on this team.  After games Brown in particular has taken responsibility for the team playing poorly but it's not carrying over.

Well you can’t very well step up and be a leader sitting around with your thumb up your butt waiting for someone e
Set to do it.  No excuses.  They all need to man up

[Moranis]

Tatum and Brown are fine as leaders.  The rest of the team just isn't good enough.

[Donoghus]

Veteran leadership really isn't a problem for this team.

[Somebody]

You mean like Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart, veterans that have been absent for long periods of this year?

^^^this.

[Ogaju]

You mean like Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart, veterans that have been absent for long periods of this year?

Kemba? Smart? lol When Smart stood up in the  bubble last year he caught all kinds of smack. Kemba is not a leader, he has deferred to the Jays from day one. What people do not want to accept is that the OP is absolutely right on this. I have been saying this for a while now the team has been handed to the Jays, and they are not even close to being ready. In a way this happened because of their success in that fantastic run to the ECF in Tatum's rookie year. It got to their head, so much that they refused to wait their turn. They refused to defer to Kyrie. Horford, or Hayward much more Smart.  The coach, the organization, and perhaps the GM, did not instill a pecking order that would have the Jays wait their turn so they handed them the team by default without even determining which one is the Alpha. This is the product of that failure of leadership. Horford walks, Kyrie walks, Hayward walks.  Two years ago Danny was  genius and well respected around the league with the potential he gathered for the team, now it appears that potential has been mismanaged by the organization. For everyone that responds by saying give it time, please remember that the team must consolidate its position to maintain its edge because other teams are not static but constantly striving to get better. What is apparent is that Ainge has no consolidated the position of that team that went to the ECF against the Cavs, and because of that the league has caught up and many teams have surpassed the Cs in the last three years.

[footey]

I find this leadership stuff kind of bogus. We have plenty of strong character guys with experience.  What we lack is depth in our roster and length in our players.   We need smoke and mirrors to defend longer teams.  And we can't rely on the 2Js for 40 plus minutes, they are going to get hurt.