Brad has built a better team in Philly than he has in Boston.
JT--coming off a serious injury
PP--ready to start or will Joe even allow this?
White--Lost all of his shooting in a matter of a year
Robinson--good as long as he can stay healthy
PG--lucky to get 50 games out of him
Bench of unknowns and very young in Hugo and Baylor. Walsh is meh. Hauser is a one trick pony. Queta a good number two.
Just do not see how this Boston team is anything more than a 6 , 7 or 8 seed in the East.
The nice thing is that we will be able to see who is right come April. Boston will have a better seeding than Philly at the minimum. Playoffs will likely depending some matchups for both teams, and the rest of the East too, as there is likely no dominant team out there. (Kudos to the Knicks if they pull off a great playoff run twice in a row tho.)
Just think the regular season is going to be a real slog for the Celtics resulting in just getting into playoffs.
Meanwhile I expect it to be a better team than the one that had won 2/3 of its games before Tatum returned. It could be a little tougher because some of the other teams at the bottom will have improved/have less incentive to tank, so there will be fewer off nights where you can do whatever you want against teams like Washington, but:
Tatum > Brown
George > rotating 5th starter
Robinson > Garza
Young guys with more experience > Young guys with less experience.
Sure, George could miss 30 games, but that just means we go back to the rotating 5th starter from last year, and not something lower than last year.
Sure, Robinson could miss 30 games, but again, that just reverts to Garza, and not anything worse than last year.
Tatum missing a lot of time would be how the Celtics find their floor instead of ceiling, especially if coupled with George missing a lot of time too. Or injuries to White and Pritchard at the same time, but those possibilities are things that could have happened regardless of the trade, and we?re not going to be fixed if we had kept JB.
Celtics are still better.