Revisiting Last Fall

[Donoghus]

So we have a couple of days to kill, I decided to go back and take a look at what people were saying on here before the season started.  As expected, some takes aged like milk sitting on the back porch of a house is Mississippi during the summer solstice.  Will protect the names but feel free to own up to the errors of your ways. Great entertainment.

There are 11 teams in the West that I have above the Celtics. The East is more of a mess. There are 5 teams I have clearly above Boston. Then it gets muddled.

So I have Boston somewhere in the 17-24 range. It wouldn't surprise me to see them finish in that 17-21 range and be the 6th-10th seed in the East. Or in that 22-24 range and finish outside of the play-in spots.

Love the positivity, but I think it is far more likely that if they avoid the play-in it is because they are 11th or worse than 6th or better.

This roster is achieving the goal that the front office clearly wants this year i.e. getting a high draft pick.  No changes needed other than to drop more salary and get put of the tax.

This is what I have tried to get across, this team is going no where fast. The only player missing is Tatum. This is not a title winning roster.

You did a good job summarizing my feelings for Walsh. Queta as a starter will be a disaster.

35-40. Bench and front court stink. Queta, Garza and company just are not any good.

At some point I expect Brown to be shutdown for a stretch of games with this injury.

I really hope this is the last year we see Queta, Walsh, Garza and Minnot in a Celtics uniform.

I get this year is lost because this is an unserious roster made up with spare parts. But next season needs to change.

Anyone would be a better coach for this team than Mazzulla. Sorry guys, I am just so frustrated by what I see as a championship era being wasted on an incompetent coach.

I think it is far more likely Brown is shut down for the year (at some point) than Tatum is to play at all this year.

It is going to be a wasted year, I can almost guarantee it. Not along the line of contending, but of pointless mediocrity.

Mazzulla is insanely competitive. He will not play the kids anywhere near enough to help them develop. Stevens is a hands off GM so he will not pressure Mazzulla to use this opportunity to develop the newly acquired young talent.

[Roy H.]

Ouch.  I don't think any of those are mine, but I was definitely in the "bridge year" thinking.  As I recall, I predicted around 40 wins and the 6th seed.  After watching the first 3 games, though, I recall thinking we could fall into bottom-10 territory, because I didn't think the front court issues could be fixed.

JB balled out, but Queta was perhaps the guy who saved our season the most.  He went from a seeming liability to a plus-starter, pretty much overnight. 

[Moranis]

Couple of those could be mine.  I definitely did not think the team was going to be any good this year.  Definitely proved me wrong. 

[Vermont Green]

My take was a 0.500 team.  I got it wrong by quite a bit.  So many exceeded my expectations.  To mention just a few:

• Queta becoming a competent starter.  There were hints based on his play in the summer international turnament.
• Walsh starting a chunk of games and playing like an all star for a stretch.  The all star play didn't last but he leveled out well above what I was expecting.
• Scheierman becoming a solid rotation player.  He got better all season the more he played.  I think he is still getting better.
• Hugo Gonzalez as a 19 year old rookie was a surprise although I really had no idea what to expect from him
• And of course Brown, playing at a near MVP level all year.
• And finally, I was not expecting Tatum back at all.

So here we go into the playoffs as the favorite to win the east. 

[Donoghus]

I had pegged them at 43-44 wins and avoiding the play-in. I felt good about a top 6 seed although, this season, it would've taken 46 wins to avoid it.

Highest win number I saw in the wins predictions thread (outside one 82-0) was 48.   Most people tended to have them somewhere in the 30s.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

I was most definitely wrong about how this season would go, as I expected a pretty terrible campaign -- I can't remember my exact prediction, but I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-40 wins. I'm happy to have been wrong about that.

Edit: That said, I think it was very reasonable to have low expectations, given the injury to Tatum and the departures of Horford, Holiday, and Porzingis. Some fans had a positive outlook, but I'm not sure anyone saw them being this good.

[slamtheking]

that second quote looks like something I probably said.

I had a number of doubts going into the season and was pretty much proven wrong on most of them:
- I had faith Q could be a good backup quality center but he showed he's starter material
- The signings of Minott and Garza would be a waste.  Both showed they could play.  Still wish we had Minott for the playoffs
- Walsh finally showed he can contribute.  He's not as consistent as I would hope for in year 3 of his career but I no longer regard him as a bust.
- Baylor improved into the player I hoped we were drafting and then some.  he's really blossoming into a legit weapon off the bench
-  PP is still a big contributor but much better off the bench.
- I thought JB would up his game in JT's absence but he took it to a level worthy of MVP discussion which I didn't think he'd get to that point.

something I thought would actually get better but was wrong about was White stepping up his game to be a solid #2 behind JB.  I was definitely wrong on that one.  he's regressed offensively to where he now looks like he's less of a factor on offense than PP.

[Redz]

I'm always optimistic, so I was hopeful that this team just go out and play competitive ball, but I was definitely expecting mid 40's for wins.  I was really looking forward to seeing who would step up.  No one could have expected that basically everyone did (though White and Hauser were streaky offensively and PP dodnt really find his groove until he moved back to the bench). 

I will say I put in a preseason bet on the over of 41.5 wins that I sold after they started 0-3.  Let's not forget how scary that was and how comforting those first couple of wins were.

[angryguy77]

I fugured the would be a low seed and hoped JT could give them a shot if he was coming back provided we had competent bigs. Didn't expect this.

[Roy H.]

I've said it before, but what the team pulled off a borderline miracle.  56 wins + getting below the luxury tax without giving up any #1s?  This is the stuff that makes other front offices and owners envious.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

I'm not sure I see how this season could have realistically gone better.

Our established players were even better than most of us thought possible. Brown is an MVP candidate. The young/inexperienced guys all improved and produced in ways that helped us win games. Mazz was awesome. Stevens managed to get us out of the tax while getting a vet we will use in the playoffs. Tatum is back and looks about 90% of who he was pre-injury, with that number rapidly improving.

We are the 2 seed with a good-not-impossible path to the championship.

We retained a lot of assets and TPEs to continue to contend in the future.

Is there a single thing that we could have hoped for that didn't go our way?

[Phantom255x]

I'm usually an optimistic person but I even created a tanking post/thread (oops) 

I thought best case scenario would be around 44-45 wins and play-in tournament but it was very unlikely. Obviously I was dead wrong lol

[Atzar]

I'm gonna pat myself on the back where Queta is concerned because I always thought he had good basketball in him and just needed the consistency/experience to get there. 

That was pretty much the only thing I got right about this team, lol.  Didn't expect Hugo to contribute this early.  Didn't expect Walsh to contribute at all.  Thought Garza was a can.  Liked Scheierman at the end of last season but was put off by what I thought was selfish play in the summer league and preseason.  Always liked JB but wondered if he'd buckle as the #1 option without a real #2 (or arguably even #3) on the roster.  Instead he shouldered arguably the heaviest offensive burden in the league (second in usage only to Luka) and held his own in doing so.

I thought it was time to sell last offseason, honestly.  I thought it would take Tatum two years to look like he does right now.  I thought White and possibly even Brown would be entering the decline phase by the time we were playing meaningful basketball games again.  Instead, we're a 2 seed with an actual chance to make a run, even though I still mostly view this as a house money season.  Mazzulla got good ball out of every single player on the roster.  Guys who I thought would be fungible or irrelevant instead look like useful/valuable players.  As a cherry on top, we snatched Ron Harper Jr, who I believe is a possible every-night rotation guy next year, out of nowhere. 

Fun season to be a Celtic fan.

[Roy H.]

Is there a single thing that we could have hoped for that didn't go our way?

Vuc injury?

Drafting Maxime Reynaud instead of the trade back for Amari Williams?

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Is there a single thing that we could have hoped for that didn't go our way?

Vuc injury?

Drafting Maxime Reynaud instead of the trade back for Amari Williams?

Yeah, the Vuc injury was something. Maybe if he doesn't get injured we catch Detroit for the 1 seed, but it didn't really affect anything.

I'm still firmly planted on Amari Williams island and think he will contribute to winning basketball better than Raynaud.

I guess we could have hoped for lightning to strike and for Hugo or Baylor to elevate themselves even more than they did into a 12-15ppg scorer, but I'm not sure that would have been a "realistic" hope.