Everyone is in the 50's range so I'll play devils advocate and say the injury bug will hit some of our key players for longer stretches this season.
47-35
5th in the East
There is the possibility that Horford, at 30, has some crossings with the hated injury bug, and the team struggles in his absence. Also possible Isaiah has one of his seemingly annual lower back injuries after a fall following a tough layup, and misses some time at an inconvenient place in the schedule.
The team might also have some issues with inconsistency in bench scoring, after letting Turner go.
Even with all of those possible concerns, I'd be surprised if they finish significantly below 50 wins. But I agree it's a possibility.
I'm with you on this. Hard to envision this squad below 50 wins even with injuries. However playing Devil's Advocate doesn't require logic just opposite opinion of others.
No way this is a sub 50 win team with just normal annoying injuries throughout the season.
I've said it before in other threads, but last year the Atlantic Division had the 3 worst teams in the Eastern Conference. It appears that Brooklyn and Philly may be in that range again (though they should be better than 31 combined wins), but NY should be a good bit better and Toronto will still be very good (and the likely favorites in the Atlantic). Thus, Boston might be a better team but end up in the same general win range just by virtue of not playing such terrible competition.
You are also absurdly pessimistic when it comes to discussing the Celtics and overly optimistic when discussing our competitors and other teams/players so it is hard for people to really take these points seriously.
On July 7th, I put the Celtics win total range as 47-52 wins which is pretty much the consensus in this thread. That win total range had them anywhere from 2nd to 8th in the East and I had them at 5th right where they finished this year.
The reality is the team failed to address its major weaknesses and actually became a worse rebounding team by virtue of losing Sullinger. Horford is a very solid all around player, but he isn't a go to scorer, doesn't protect the basket, and isn't a very good rebounder. Those are the three areas that Boston had some issues with last year and none of the offseason moves corrected those deficiencies. Bradley, Thomas, and even Crowder (to a lesser extent) are all pretty close to finished products at this time, so you can't expect all that much improvement. Horford and Johnson are on the down slope. So if Boston is going to make a big jump it will have to be because Smart puts it all together or Brown is an impact player as a rookie. I don't see either of those as that likely. Boston was also pretty healthy last year, which may not happen again. Thus I think my range of 47-52 wins (I guessed 49 in this thread) is a pretty realistic prediction for the current team. It isn't optimistic, but it certainly isn't pessimistic either.
Topic: Bragging rights, Predict Celtics Season Record (Read 20698 times)