without PREDICTING injuries where do you rank Celtics out of east?s 15 Squads ?

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Detroit has a better starting lineup than Boston in part because they have the best player on either team (without Tatum). And before anyone cries foul, Cade was 3rd Team All NBA last year and finished 7th in MVP voting as a rising 23 year old 4th year player.  He is going to better this year.

Also not sure why Ausar Thompson isn"t starting at SF since he did last year in his 2nd year.

Cade, Ivey, Thompson, Harris, Duren. With Hardaway instead of Ivey starting last year, that team won 44 games.  They should win more than that this year given everyone but Harris is still on the upswing.  And with Strasser, Robinson, LeVert, Stewart, Holland, and Reed on the bench, they might be a sleeper to come out of the East if Cade takes the next step up and the other young guys have their natural progression.

They are pretty clearly still one piece away. They don't have a Jaylen Brown-Jaylin Williams 2nd banana. I don't think Ivey is that guy.

I like their team and how they are building, but calling them a sleeper is a big-time stretch.

Ivey is an excellent shooter and certainly has 20 ppg potential, though may be best suited as a 3rd scorer and not 2nd.  I really like Duren down low, but obviously is not a shooter at all. If he can develop a mid range shot, it will really unlock something for them, but even if not he doesnt miss in close.  I think Thompson is the guy that can make some big strides though.  If he can get his scoring up to even like 15 pog, it will help a lot.  So Cade in the upper 20's, Ivey around 20, and then Thompson, Harris, and Duren in the 12-15 range is enough scoring from the starting unit.  They have some solid shooters (Robinson, LeVert) on the bench and Holland who turned 20 last week.  Outside of Harris, Robinson, and LeVert the team is basically all still on rookie contracts and they have a lot of very high draft picks on those rookie contracts.  I think they will be a lot better this year and they won 44 games last year and pushed the Knicks hard. Honestly they should have gone for someone like Holiday. He'd have given them a steady hand, but even without that, I think 50 wins and home court in round 1 is very doable for them. Do that next year in a conference without any dominate teams and who knows what they can do (like the 4th seeded Pacers last year).

For being as negative as you are toward the Celtic roster, you are pretty gracious toward a very middling Pistons roster.

Again, I like what the Pistons are doing, but to call them a dark horse is a bit much.

[Moranis]

Detroit has a better starting lineup than Boston in part because they have the best player on either team (without Tatum). And before anyone cries foul, Cade was 3rd Team All NBA last year and finished 7th in MVP voting as a rising 23 year old 4th year player.  He is going to better this year.

Also not sure why Ausar Thompson isn"t starting at SF since he did last year in his 2nd year.

Cade, Ivey, Thompson, Harris, Duren. With Hardaway instead of Ivey starting last year, that team won 44 games.  They should win more than that this year given everyone but Harris is still on the upswing.  And with Strasser, Robinson, LeVert, Stewart, Holland, and Reed on the bench, they might be a sleeper to come out of the East if Cade takes the next step up and the other young guys have their natural progression.

They are pretty clearly still one piece away. They don't have a Jaylen Brown-Jaylin Williams 2nd banana. I don't think Ivey is that guy.

I like their team and how they are building, but calling them a sleeper is a big-time stretch.

Ivey is an excellent shooter and certainly has 20 ppg potential, though may be best suited as a 3rd scorer and not 2nd.  I really like Duren down low, but obviously is not a shooter at all. If he can develop a mid range shot, it will really unlock something for them, but even if not he doesnt miss in close.  I think Thompson is the guy that can make some big strides though.  If he can get his scoring up to even like 15 pog, it will help a lot.  So Cade in the upper 20's, Ivey around 20, and then Thompson, Harris, and Duren in the 12-15 range is enough scoring from the starting unit.  They have some solid shooters (Robinson, LeVert) on the bench and Holland who turned 20 last week.  Outside of Harris, Robinson, and LeVert the team is basically all still on rookie contracts and they have a lot of very high draft picks on those rookie contracts.  I think they will be a lot better this year and they won 44 games last year and pushed the Knicks hard. Honestly they should have gone for someone like Holiday. He'd have given them a steady hand, but even without that, I think 50 wins and home court in round 1 is very doable for them. Do that next year in a conference without any dominate teams and who knows what they can do (like the 4th seeded Pacers last year).

For being as negative as you are toward the Celtic roster, you are pretty gracious toward a very middling Pistons roster.

Again, I like what the Pistons are doing, but to call them a dark horse is a bit much.

The Celtics roster is garbage after Brown, White, Simons, PP, and Hauser, and those guys are all smalls.  It is poorly constructed and lacks depth.  It also isn't young.  I mean Simons is the youngest one of that group at 26, but he is entering year 8.  He'd be the 4th oldest Piston as only Harris, Robinson, and LeVert are older than him.  Pistons are young with a lot of high level draft picks.  They won 44 games last year.  They are on the up swing, Boston is not.  Now sure if Boston had a healthy Tatum and still had KP and Jrue (Kornet and Horford wouldn't be bad either), this upcoming season would be a lot different.  Boston would rightfully be the favorite in the East (even after losing to the Knicks), but Tatum blew out his achilles and everything changed.  Boston isn't the favorite, dumped Jrue and KP, watched Kornet and Horford leave, and have no big men worth a crap on the roster.  The top 5 guys though are good enough to keep Boston from truly bottoming out, which is absolutely what they should do this season.  They need that uber high draft pick to get back to contending. 

[timpiker]

I don't know and I don't care.  All I care about is Banners and this year is going to suck.

[celticinorlando]

I think it is pretty clear that the roster as is will be the roster most of the season. Do think they have shopped Simons but there isn't any interest.

White
Simons
Brown

Those are three good starters

Niang
Garza

That is a horrendous starting front court.

Bench isn't much better. PP and Hauser very good.
Baylor was absolutely awful in summer league.
Walsh can't be counted on to be a regular
Queta is Queta
Minott really is nothing more than a poor man's Brissett
Tillman looks washed.

I see them struggling to be a top 10 team in the east. Worst frontcourt in the NBA. Will be a very poor defending team.

[Kernewek]

Detroit has a better starting lineup than Boston in part because they have the best player on either team (without Tatum). And before anyone cries foul, Cade was 3rd Team All NBA last year and finished 7th in MVP voting as a rising 23 year old 4th year player.  He is going to better this year.

Also not sure why Ausar Thompson isn"t starting at SF since he did last year in his 2nd year.

Cade, Ivey, Thompson, Harris, Duren. With Hardaway instead of Ivey starting last year, that team won 44 games.  They should win more than that this year given everyone but Harris is still on the upswing.  And with Strasser, Robinson, LeVert, Stewart, Holland, and Reed on the bench, they might be a sleeper to come out of the East if Cade takes the next step up and the other young guys have their natural progression.

They are pretty clearly still one piece away. They don't have a Jaylen Brown-Jaylin Williams 2nd banana. I don't think Ivey is that guy.

I like their team and how they are building, but calling them a sleeper is a big-time stretch.

Ivey is an excellent shooter and certainly has 20 ppg potential, though may be best suited as a 3rd scorer and not 2nd.  I really like Duren down low, but obviously is not a shooter at all. If he can develop a mid range shot, it will really unlock something for them, but even if not he doesnt miss in close.  I think Thompson is the guy that can make some big strides though.  If he can get his scoring up to even like 15 pog, it will help a lot.  So Cade in the upper 20's, Ivey around 20, and then Thompson, Harris, and Duren in the 12-15 range is enough scoring from the starting unit.  They have some solid shooters (Robinson, LeVert) on the bench and Holland who turned 20 last week.  Outside of Harris, Robinson, and LeVert the team is basically all still on rookie contracts and they have a lot of very high draft picks on those rookie contracts.  I think they will be a lot better this year and they won 44 games last year and pushed the Knicks hard. Honestly they should have gone for someone like Holiday. He'd have given them a steady hand, but even without that, I think 50 wins and home court in round 1 is very doable for them. Do that next year in a conference without any dominate teams and who knows what they can do (like the 4th seeded Pacers last year).

For being as negative as you are toward the Celtic roster, you are pretty gracious toward a very middling Pistons roster.

Again, I like what the Pistons are doing, but to call them a dark horse is a bit much.

Nature is healing

To answer the question, I think we'll be competing for the bottom half of the playoffs. Somewhere between 7-10 seed.

[slamtheking]

Detroit has a better starting lineup than Boston in part because they have the best player on either team (without Tatum). And before anyone cries foul, Cade was 3rd Team All NBA last year and finished 7th in MVP voting as a rising 23 year old 4th year player.  He is going to better this year.

Also not sure why Ausar Thompson isn"t starting at SF since he did last year in his 2nd year.

Cade, Ivey, Thompson, Harris, Duren. With Hardaway instead of Ivey starting last year, that team won 44 games.  They should win more than that this year given everyone but Harris is still on the upswing.  And with Strasser, Robinson, LeVert, Stewart, Holland, and Reed on the bench, they might be a sleeper to come out of the East if Cade takes the next step up and the other young guys have their natural progression.

They are pretty clearly still one piece away. They don't have a Jaylen Brown-Jaylin Williams 2nd banana. I don't think Ivey is that guy.

I like their team and how they are building, but calling them a sleeper is a big-time stretch.

Ivey is an excellent shooter and certainly has 20 ppg potential, though may be best suited as a 3rd scorer and not 2nd.  I really like Duren down low, but obviously is not a shooter at all. If he can develop a mid range shot, it will really unlock something for them, but even if not he doesnt miss in close.  I think Thompson is the guy that can make some big strides though.  If he can get his scoring up to even like 15 pog, it will help a lot.  So Cade in the upper 20's, Ivey around 20, and then Thompson, Harris, and Duren in the 12-15 range is enough scoring from the starting unit.  They have some solid shooters (Robinson, LeVert) on the bench and Holland who turned 20 last week.  Outside of Harris, Robinson, and LeVert the team is basically all still on rookie contracts and they have a lot of very high draft picks on those rookie contracts.  I think they will be a lot better this year and they won 44 games last year and pushed the Knicks hard. Honestly they should have gone for someone like Holiday. He'd have given them a steady hand, but even without that, I think 50 wins and home court in round 1 is very doable for them. Do that next year in a conference without any dominate teams and who knows what they can do (like the 4th seeded Pacers last year).

For being as negative as you are toward the Celtic roster, you are pretty gracious toward a very middling Pistons roster.

Again, I like what the Pistons are doing, but to call them a dark horse is a bit much.

Nature is healing

To answer the question, I think we'll be competing for the bottom half of the playoffs. Somewhere between 7-10 seed.

perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic but with this roster I don't see how they even make the play-in.  they have far and away the worst front court in the league and the depth at guard and wing is pretty thin.  There's only 5 players on the roster that could reasonably expected to contribute to a win on any given night in Brown, White, Pritchard, Simons and Hauser and you can't have all of them on the court at the same time.  anyone else providing decent, nevermind good, contributions is going to be a rarity this year. 

there are some teams in the East that look pretty bad on paper this year but they have something we don't -- young players taken in high lottery slots that still project to improve.  This is going to be a very demoralizing year for the C's after about a decade of improving year after year (for the most part).

[SHAQATTACK]

42 wins
40 losses

7th east



I?m being too generous.  For a TANK driver ?..it?s the best they ll do

[paintitgreen]

42 wins
40 losses

7th east



I?m being too generous.  For a TANK driver ?..it?s the best they ll do

I think this is right on. This team is so low on talent. I could see 35 wins more easily than 45 but as a Celtics fan I don?t want to believe they?re a sub-.500 team. And while I?ve never been a big Mazzulla guy, I am trying to maintain some hope that maybe he can get something out of castoffs like Stevens used to. My big worry is that this season exposes Jaylen - whom I like a lot as a person and Celtic - as nowhere near a number one and therefore quite substantially overpaid. And that whatever ?huge? offers may have been available for Jaylen will no longer be there by the trade deadline because he?ll start to be viewed as an okay player with a crippling long term contract. I hope I?m wrong because I really like Jaylen a lot. But my head tells me he is the person they should have started the trading with, Jrue should have gone for nothing the way KP did and I would?ve held KP to try to resuscitate some value before thinking about a deal. But hey it is what it is. And hopefully Mazzulla and Jaylen are ready to take this subpar roster to a top 5 finish in the East. 

[ozgod]

NBA.com's John Schuhmann basically thinks we suck balls and are only better than Washington, Charlotte and Brooklyn. He thinks we will finish 12th in the East.

(click to enlarge)

https://www.nba.com/news/offseason-power-rankings-east-2025

Basically, everyone thinks our team is a useless bunch of no-hopers.

[Goldstar88]

NBA.com's John Schuhmann basically thinks we suck balls and are only better than Washington, Charlotte and Brooklyn. He thinks we will finish 12th in the East.

(click to enlarge)

https://www.nba.com/news/offseason-power-rankings-east-2025

Basically, everyone thinks our team is a useless bunch of no-hopers.

If both teams are healthy, I don?t see how the Celtics are better than the Hornets.

Starters: LaMelo Ball, Colin Sexton, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, Mason Plumlee

Bench: Mann, Dinwiddie, Josh Green, Knueppel, Grant Williams, Salaun, Kelkbrenner.


That?s a much better roster than what Boston has.

[ozgod]

NBA.com's John Schuhmann basically thinks we suck balls and are only better than Washington, Charlotte and Brooklyn. He thinks we will finish 12th in the East.

(click to enlarge)

https://www.nba.com/news/offseason-power-rankings-east-2025

Basically, everyone thinks our team is a useless bunch of no-hopers.

If both teams are healthy, I don?t see how the Celtics are better than the Hornets.

Starters: LaMelo Ball, Colin Sexton, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, Mason Plumlee

Bench: Mann, Dinwiddie, Josh Green, Knueppel, Grant Williams, Salaun, Kelkbrenner.


That?s a much better roster than what Boston has.

Do you feel like our team is worse than the team we had just before the Jays were drafted, in 2015-16?

This is what we had:

Ball handlers: IT, Avery, Smartacus, RJ Hunter, Terry Rozier
Wings: Jae, Evan Turner, James Young, Coty Clarke, Jerebko
Bigs: Amir Johnson, Kelly, Sully, David Lee, Tyler Zeller

We had more depth in bigs back then, this season we have more in ball-handlers and wings. We weren't paying anyone max contracts then either.

This team finished 48-34 for 5th in the East. Obviously the competition we had might have been different back then.

(click to enlarge)

[slamtheking]

NBA.com's John Schuhmann basically thinks we suck balls and are only better than Washington, Charlotte and Brooklyn. He thinks we will finish 12th in the East.

(click to enlarge)

https://www.nba.com/news/offseason-power-rankings-east-2025

Basically, everyone thinks our team is a useless bunch of no-hopers.

they're not wrong.  only 5 guys on the roster look to be pretty reliable night in and night out to contribute to winning and none of them are in the front court.  This team is going to get lit up badly on defense every night and they definitely cannot affort to have anyone have an offnight shooting if they hope to win a game.

[SparzWizard]

42 wins
40 losses

7th east



I?m being too generous.  For a TANK driver ?..it?s the best they ll do

This is a sub .500 team. Probably lucky to be a play-in seed.

[Vermont Green]

42 wins
40 losses

7th east



I'm being too generous.  For a TANK driver ?..it's the best they'll do

This is a sub .500 team. Probably lucky to be a play-in seed.

42 wins feels like too many.  ESPN has the O/U at 43.5 (same as PHI, interestingly enough) That seems like and easy under.  Not sure what the betters are seeing.

[slamtheking]

42 wins
40 losses

7th east

I'm being too generous.  For a TANK driver ?..it's the best they'll do

This is a sub .500 team. Probably lucky to be a play-in seed.

42 wins feels like too many.  ESPN has the O/U at 43.5 (same as PHI, interestingly enough) That seems like and easy under.  Not sure what the betters are seeing.

only explanation is expected moves by Brad during the season to balance out the talent because it can't be based on the current roster unless they know something about Minott and Garza nobody else has seen