Celtics will be better than anticipated this year

[ScoobyDoo]

If Marcus Smart can play great defense  and then be adequate offensively, whether at the one or two spot,  I think our back court has the potential to be very disruptive and it will have a big impact on how many wins we get.

I also think Smart may be the outwardly emotional type that gets Rondo juiced.

Then, we have Zeller, Faverani, Olynyk, Sully, Green, Turner, Thornton and Bradley, all of whom get up and down the court quickly for their positions, for targets for Rondo?

I really do think this team will be better than expected and at the high end have just as good a shot at ECF contention as any other team, including Cleveland.

I like the IQ, toughness and competitiveness of most of the players on our team. I thinkw e have a lot of "gamers", starting with Rondo, then Bradley, Smart, Pressey, Green, Sully, Olynyk, Zeller.  They're gonna compete every night.

I'm excited.

   

[ScoobyDoo]

The other and possibly most important factor to me is that Stevens seems like the type of coach who knows how to pull the best out of each player. A lot of guys on this team have very good talent - Stevens will have them playing to their strengths every night.

[LarBrd33]

I could see us cracking 30 wins if we're lucky.

Hate to say it, but this team currently seems set up for a long bout with mediocrity.  We do have assets and cap space, so maybe something will shift dramatically in the next few years...  but the Cavs should own this conference for the foreseeable future and the only team I see with the potential ceiling to supplant them is Philly (in like 5 years)... and that's probably not happening either.

This is the early Antoine Walker Celtics playing in an era of Jordan.... except now it's the Rondo Celtics playing in an era of Lord James.  I'm not expecting squat this generation.

[Yoki_IsTheName]

I would agree with the others and go 30-33 wins.

We're not good enough to crack more, but we're certainly better than other teams enough that we should be able to crack the 30 win mark.

That's projecting it with the lineup we have. Now, since there's a chance that they maybe some "fireworks" come trade deadline, it might go up or down.

[Who]

I am thinking mid to high 30s

[Celtics4ever]

35 max but I am predicting 32.

[D.o.s.]

31 is my guess, but even 35 would (probably) see us miss the playoffs.

[nickagneta]

If the OP means that by getting 30-33 wins the C's will be better than the expected 25-28 win area then he might be right. If he means the C's will be a playoff team as opposed to the woeful team they were last year and are expected to be this year, I think he is all wet. No way this team makes the playoffs.

[BleedGreen1989]

I think Tyler Zeller may perform better than some people are anticipating, but this team is lottery-bound as is.

[gpap]

Feels like we had a similar discussion last summer.

There was myself and a few others who were hoping the Celts would shock alot of people last season, but it didn't happen.

Granted, this year we'll have a healthy Rondo playing a full season and an actual center in Tyler Zeller.

However, unfortunately if the current roster is what we start the season with, I wouldn't get too optimistic

Again, the question is, what's the long-term plan of this team?

Is it to tank again next season and get another hopeful lotto pick in 2015?

Is it to just ride out the season with the status-quo, let money come off the books and then be major players in free agency next summer?

This is the part that's frustrating.

[Tr1boy]

I think Tyler Zeller may perform better than some people are anticipating, but this team is lottery-bound as is.

I agree. He has alot to prove and is prob angry he went from starting as a rookie to coming off the bench last season.  Danny has created an uncomfortable environment (over staffed with hungry players up for a new contract) to force this team to be better than it looks on paper.

Worse case he has the "trade button" close to him.

[Donoghus]

I think we'll be back in Lotto Land although I think we'll improve our win total by 5-7 wins or so.  Probably looking at a worse pick than last year unless the lottery gods bless the Celtics. 

I do think we'll see some significant player development from guys like Kelly & AB.  Think we'll see a more improved Rondo from last year and Smart will be a pleasant surprise. 

[bleedGREENdon]

If Marcus Smart can play great defense  and then be adequate offensively, whether at the one or two spot,  I think our back court has the potential to be very disruptive and it will have a big impact on how many wins we get.

I also think Smart may be the outwardly emotional type that gets Rondo juiced.

Then, we have Zeller, Faverani, Olynyk, Sully, Green, Turner, Thornton and Bradley, all of whom get up and down the court quickly for their positions, for targets for Rondo?

I really do think this team will be better than expected and at the high end have just as good a shot at ECF contention as any other team, including Cleveland.

I like the IQ, toughness and competitiveness of most of the players on our team. I thinkw e have a lot of "gamers", starting with Rondo, then Bradley, Smart, Pressey, Green, Sully, Olynyk, Zeller.  They're gonna compete every night.

I'm excited.

   

TP great post

[BudweiserCeltic]

Feels like we had a similar discussion last summer.

There was myself and a few others who were hoping the Celts would shock alot of people last season, but it didn't happen.

Granted, this year we'll have a healthy Rondo playing a full season and an actual center in Tyler Zeller.

However, unfortunately if the current roster is what we start the season with, I wouldn't get too optimistic

Again, the question is, what's the long-term plan of this team?

Is it to tank again next season and get another hopeful lotto pick in 2015?

Is it to just ride out the season with the status-quo, let money come off the books and then be major players in free agency next summer?

This is the part that's frustrating.

Well, you have to take into account that the Summer discussion had the asterisk that Rondo would be ready to go by the start of the season.

Also, most assumed that Humphries would get the bulk of the minutes at Center and Sullinger the bulk of the minutes at PF, those two being our big men starters, which didn't happen (Bass was there all year long).

We also assumed that Bradley wasn't going to be our starting PG (even if Rondo wasn't around since all Celtics fans have already been witnesses to this experiment years prior).

And to say nothing of how Courtney Lee was underused, who was having a great year. And also the lack of consistency in the rotations with a rookie coach, etc.

Despite those issues that are unpredictable from a Summer standpoint, we were on a 32 win pace by the time Lee was traded, which is not too shabby considering all the issues the team was facing. Though that's a projection that is influenced by the ups and downs of the schedule, win/losing streaks, etc. (we were in the middle of a losing streak then).

So keeping that in mind, if that type of roster was on pace to get that type of result or close to it, and we here on CelticsBlog seem to agree that our current roster should be better and play better than last year's team (which we also project to be much healthier) ... then why are we projecting an even worse result from most around here it seems?

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

I know people keep mentioning last season but I think you are forgetting that we weren't horrible but then DA sent out JCRAW (Lee could have helped too if not for his crying). If we kept the team the way it was and shifted Craw to the bench, I think we make the playoffs. AB seemed better with Craw (before the ankle injury) and so did Green. When we sent him out, it was over from there. If we just sent out Lee for Bayless, we would have gotten 8th seed... I know people would have hated that (including DA) but I feel we could have if that was the objective.

It became clear after those moves that we might have been good enough to slip in, DA couldn't have that (I'm still mad a little but I'm getting over it). So here we have everyone claiming we weren't good enough (hell 8th in the east was still bad but u know what I mean). It wasn't that we weren't good enough, it was that we were made to fail after those trades.