Celtics Off-Season News

[DefenseWinsChamps]

In a recent appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Celtics assistant coach Sam Cassell shared some insights into Tatum's recovery and his overall mindset. "He's coming," Cassell said. "Everybody's counting him out. I don't know his plan for returning this season, but I like what I see so far. He's not on crutches, he's not hopping around. He's active. Jayson Tatum, he heals fast. He's not a guy who gets hurt and sits down. He may miss a day or two, but he doesn't like missing games."

Sorry JT, we need the lottery pick

That is not happening even if he sits, so height as well play when he is ready.

How is that not happening? Have you seen our frontcourt (or lack thereof). Bit of a deeper field too.

You?re all too pessimistic here.  Get ready for a younger Celtics squad to play with a lot more pace on both ends.  And it is not a deep field.  The East sucks.

I'm curious to see how it goes.  I share the concerns about the bigs.  On paper, they're going to be a liability on both ends.  But, let's see what the coaching staff comes up with.

I don?t deny the bigs are our weakest position group and will be a limiting factor, but to hear some talk about it you might think we were playing 4-on-5 or even 3-on-5.

technically, it'll be 5 on 5 on the court.  watching them play offense and defense will feel like 4 on 5 or worse yet, 3 on 5.

Bold prediction: our big rotation won't even be in the bottom half of the league by the end of the season.

[Roy H.]

In a recent appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Celtics assistant coach Sam Cassell shared some insights into Tatum's recovery and his overall mindset. "He's coming," Cassell said. "Everybody's counting him out. I don't know his plan for returning this season, but I like what I see so far. He's not on crutches, he's not hopping around. He's active. Jayson Tatum, he heals fast. He's not a guy who gets hurt and sits down. He may miss a day or two, but he doesn't like missing games."

Sorry JT, we need the lottery pick

That is not happening even if he sits, so height as well play when he is ready.

How is that not happening? Have you seen our frontcourt (or lack thereof). Bit of a deeper field too.

You?re all too pessimistic here.  Get ready for a younger Celtics squad to play with a lot more pace on both ends.  And it is not a deep field.  The East sucks.

I'm curious to see how it goes.  I share the concerns about the bigs.  On paper, they're going to be a liability on both ends.  But, let's see what the coaching staff comes up with.

I don?t deny the bigs are our weakest position group and will be a limiting factor, but to hear some talk about it you might think we were playing 4-on-5 or even 3-on-5.

technically, it'll be 5 on 5 on the court.  watching them play offense and defense will feel like 4 on 5 or worse yet, 3 on 5.

Bold prediction: our big rotation won't even be in the bottom half of the league by the end of the season.

Based upon our current healthy bigs?  Or are you predicting a player addition / the return of Tatum?

Right now we've got:

Queta
Boucher
Tillman
Garza

Those are the "true" bigs.  Hauser and perhaps Minnott will probably have to shift up to PF.

I have a hard time seeing 15 teams having a worse big man rotation than that.

[Vermont Green]

Our big rotation includes (in no particular order):

Boucher
Garza
Minott
Queta
Tillman
Williams (2-way for now)

There isn't even one in that group that historically has been a starter, and Boucher is probably the only one that you could say was a full time bench guy last  season or ever.  And Boucher only appeared in 50 games last season.  These are mostly historically 3rd string, end of the bench guys who are going to be thrust into much more prominent roles on this team.  I don't think any of this group is even better than Kornet.  This group looks pretty bleak to me.

The good news is that the guard and wing rotation is not all that bad.  Brown and White are both likely all stars, or at worst contenders for all star status.  Simons, Pritchard, and Hauser are all established players who are fringe starters or better.  Then you have Scheierman, Walsh, and Gonzalez as developmental players, who may not be all that much worse than our starting bigs.

I don't know, I am not all that optimistic in a general sense.  I think some of these bigs will out perform their recent production, but even that isn't saying much.  The best I see in this group is that a couple play well enough to earn bench roles on the team for 2026-27.