I am of the opinion that Celtics should have hit the reset button in the offseason.
The Celtics could have traded Tatum for Cooper Flagg.
Then traded Brown & White to the San Antonio Spurs for Dylan Harper, 2028 Celtics draft pick & salary filler.
Queta
Barnes
Flagg
Harper
Prichard
Kornet, Hauser, Johnson, Simons, Olynyk, Hugo Gonzalez
That is a fun developmental team. It is good enough to win some games but not too good as to jeopardise the Celtics chances at a top 3 pick in the 2026 draft.
You're underestimating how good Tatum will be in the next five years. He will make the team a contender on his own (assuming healthy).
Does he? Even assuming he gets back to the level he was at before his injury (and that is a big assumption), there are lots and lots of teams throughout history with a top 5 player that aren't actual contenders. I mean Philly has had Embiid for years (even with him winning the MVP) and has never been out of the 2nd round. Even the Bucks with Giannis have done almost nothing since winning the title (one 2nd round appearance the year after and 1st round exits the last 3 years). One injury to Middleton and their window closed with that group. And Giannis is a clearly several tiers above Tatum in the scale of goodness. Embiid obviously hurt a lot, but even when healthy, even when playing with Jimmy Butler, they lost in the 2nd round.
Yes you need a player like that to win a title, but having a player like that doesn't guarantee you are even a contender. Tatum alone is nowhere near enough to make Boston a contender. The team needs A LOT more.
Nothing is guaranteed either way, personally I'll roll with the Tatum-Brown Duo who has made 5 ECF and 2 NBA Finals together. If I'm going to believe in any group to get us back to the finals it's the group (Brown/Tatum/White) that's already gotten there twice. They've proven they can do so with different assortments of supplementary talent whether its Horford/Robert Williams/Smart/Grant Williams or Horford/Porzingis/Holiday/Pritchard.
I'm just not sure why people are so quick to want to throw away formula we KNOW works.
As for Tatum, if he comes back and isn't at least very close to what he was before than nothing else matters. Say for example he's now the 10th best player rather than the 5th best, historically that's simply not good enough to win a title. It won't really matter whether they trade White, Brown or how they rebuild in that case because they won't really have a shot either way. You sort of need to, for now, operate from the persepctive tat he will return 100%.
