Not as optimistic of this team as some

[More Banners]

Just a few things:

My pessimism is for this year. I think Ainge upgraded the talent but a lot of that talent is undeveloped. Long term, I love what he has done. I just don't see 53+ wins and a guarantee to the ECF nevermind beating Lebron to get to the Finals.

My take on the player order last year to this year:

Best player: IT>KI
2nd Best: Bradley<<Hayward
3rd Best: Horford=Horford
4th Best: Crowder>Brown or Morris, whoever you want to place here.
Rest: Last year >> This year due to experience and cohesion.

Part of it might be thinking of the team as an ECF team and having lofty expectations that flow from going deep. Bear in mind: we could just as easily been out in the 2nd, or even the first round. Last year things clicked, but we weren't far from the bottom of the playoff picture either.

Hopefully the roster is more stable now. We'll see.

[KGs Knee]

I'm optimistic.

Kyrie is slightly better than Thomas, Hayward is a major upgrade over Bradley, and Horford is now our 3rd best player instead of our 2nd best player. The bottom line here is that we significantly increased the level of our top end talent.

We may have lost some of our bunch depth and replaced it with lesser experienced players, but I figure by year's end our bench will be just as good, if not better, than last year's.

At the end of the day talent trumps depth, and we have more talent now.

[green_bballers13]

Danny reset the team this year with a different trajectory. It might take a couple years for Tatum and Brown to become stars, but that is OK b/c the Warriors are going to run train on the league for another couple years.

So, they might not win as many games this year, and they could lose before the ECF. In three years, however, they should be a better team.

[nickagneta]

Danny reset the team this year with a different trajectory. It might take a couple years for Tatum and Brown to become stars, but that is OK b/c the Warriors are going to run train on the league for another couple years.

So, they might not win as many games this year, and they could lose before the ECF. In three years, however, they should be a better team.

TP...thats what I have been saying.

[KG Living Legend]

 The regular season doesn't even matter. This team is a better team this year because they are a better playoff team. More talent. Much more Talent at the top of the roster, and that is and always has been the most important part of an NBA team.

[LilRip]

To condense the OP's post, the concerns stem from:
1. Jelling of the new team
2. Less depth
3. Kyrie not performing to the level of IT

--
1. This is a legit concern and the risk you run when overhauling the roster. There are only 4 players from last year. Smart is the longest tenured Celtic. That's crazy! CBS has his work cut out for him.

2. We sacrificed depth to become more top heavy. While this could potentially result in less season wins, I will take the top heavy team in the playoffs. I hope injuries don't wreck us though.

3. This one, we'll have to wait and see. I don't think this will be the case but until the games are played, your guess is as good as mine. I think CBS will get a lot out of Kyrie though and his production may mirror IT's production last year. What'll be interesting to see is IT's production in Cleveland. I think IT is going to play noticeably worse once he comes back. But let's see.

[Chris22]

Irving, Brown, Hayward, Tatum, and Horford.
I'm very optimistic.

[Csfan1984]

I look at the top 8 guys for playoffs and top 10 guys for regular season to anticipate success.

Guards= Irving, Smart, Rozier,
Wings= Hayward, Brown, Tatum
Bigs= Horford, Morris, Baynes, Theis

The bold is for the top players for playoffs we need another guy to emerge as a contributor who teams have play hard against. But overall that should be the ten guys featured every night with possibly Semi and Nader getting minutes if they do well in practice. Playing a tight rotation is key to chemistry. So for BS figuring things out early is important.

[Beat LA]

There is zero question in my mind this team is significantly more talented than last year's team.

How it gels is a good question, and I really don't expect an increase in wins.

But we were going to fall back dramatically without IT thanks to that injury. Crowder will be missed, but I am still laughing over the ridiculous notion that the Croatian Crawler was a top 10 pick - in any draft.

Lol, I assume that the term "Croatian Crawler" will also be added to your signature, hehe?  I'm just busting you, although, and I've said this before, that whole thing about how Zizic would have been taken around the 10th pick in this year's draft sounded like Ainge propaganda to me, and particularly of the James Young variety, as in when reporters asked Danny and Stevens about why he wasn't playing they countered with the classic "he would have been a top 10 pick in this year's draft had he stayed in school" line . Give me a break , but by all means, please keep trying to polish that turd, Ainge .

Third, the Irving trade weakened us for this year. If IT is healthy this year, Irving would have to upgrade his game significantly to become the super efficient high scoring guard we had last year

This piece really doesn't make any sense. IT isn't healthy this year so the Irving trade couldn't have weakened us. I suppose you mean last year's IT vs. this year's Kyrie, but Kyrie is really good and will surprise a lot of people. I also think that the stars aligned last year for IT. It's too bad for him that this wasn't his expiring year and that he didn't finish the season with a perfect hip. I see Rondo-type contracts for the rest of his career...if he can actually get healthy.

TPs to Granath and Moranis for providing more realistic frameworks for how the year should work out. Nobody is expecting us to be the Warriors, but having more star power at the top of our line-up with elite young players coming through the system should give most of us chills.

Don't see where Granath's and Moranis' views are any more realistic than mine. More optimistic, yes. Realistic, no.

You don't win championships with depth.  You win championships with top end talent.  Boston's three best players this year are significantly better as a group than Boston's three best players last year.

I would argue that you need both to win a title .

[mmmmm]

Let's just do a comparison

Irving > Thomas
Hayward > Horford
Horford > Bradley

That is the top 3 players, all are better than their counterpart last year

That's really bizarre math.   Why wouldn't we do that comparison like so:

Irving > Thomas (Today, with an injured Thomas.  Not necessarily last season.)
Horford == Horford
Hayward > Bradley

So really, it's not exactly a case where all three of our best players now are better than all three of our best players last year.   Horford is Horford.  Yes, he may play better with a year in this system.  But he'll also be a year older and the system around him will be with totally new teammates.  And being a 'glue' guy, a lot will be on his shoulders to make all these new parts work together.

Irving is an improvement over Thomas if Thomas is injured.  But he's not an improvement over the Thomas that played last year.  And it remains to be seen how long Thomas will be injured this year or if he'll be able to recover.

Hayward is, no argument from me, a big improvement over Avery.

So you are really looking at an improvement in at ONE of the 'big 3' spots over last year.

Now, I consider that a pretty significant improvement, actually.  Because having just one extra elite scoring option should be a massive help all by itself.

But it is silly to characterize that as having upgrades at all three of the 'three best players'.

Whether the rest of the rotation works out as better remains to be seen.  I firmly believe have a lot more _talent_ in the rest of the roster.  But they are desperately short on _experience_ and the obvious chemistry that last year's roster had.  Much of that lack of experience should be mitigated by the time the playoffs get here, but it will still be a thing.

Overall, because of Hayward and the aforementioned overall bump in talent, AND because more teams in the East are going to suck, I DO think this team will win more games than last year.  I'm down for about 56-58 wins.

But I can also understand a lot of the concerns being expressed.

And if Thomas does come back close to full strength by the time the playoffs get here, CLE if still going to look like a very tough wall to climb over.

It not bizarre math at all.  What he's doing is lining up our best players in order, last year to this year.  So Kyrie versus IT at the top, then Hayward versus Al, and Al versus Avery.  An important element being that Al has gone from our second best player to our third.

Well, I'm sorry, but I find that to be pretty dubious logic.

The difference in talent among our 'best 3' over last year is pretty overwhelmingly wrapped up in Hayward's value over Bradley, no matter how you slice it.    Not in our positional replacements for IT (Kyrie) or Horford (Horford).

[Greyman]

I had my first doubts about the off season when getting Hayward meant losing AB. That is because I liked the way AB had progressed, his attitude and I don't think his contribution has been appreciated by many who had him moved on long before DA sent him away. I accepted this was the sort of change that would have to happen. I know KO was good but not good enough. AB had been so close to good enough it was hard to admit that we could be closer to a championship without him (the truth of this is yet to be tested).

When Kyrie became available and the Celtics were mentioned as a possible destination, I had serious doubts that it would happen. I thought KI was an upgrade over IT (marginal I know) but I had doubts about his commitment to a new team and knew the franchise owed IT for his efforts to promote and recruit. The bottom line in a straight KI and IT comparison has to be IT's injury and age. His ability to recreate more seasons like last has to be questioned. I hope he can and gets his pay day somewhere. The Celtics are better without having to wait to find out how well and when he recovers, and having a player of KI's ability ready to go. We may have overpaid for KI but only time will tell us if that is really the case. This is typical of the risks franchises have to take.

Horford will perform better next season I believe with Hayward and KI alongside him. I also think he could be on borrowed time. To get to the level of GSW the Celtics need a Davis and Horford has the contract that could help provide that. He is unlikely to be playing his best the season after next when I think all the other pieces will have come together, banking on Brown and Tatum both being special. Al has some pressure to be with the Celtics if DA really pushes to get to the level of GSW so his time has to be now.

I think Brown and Tatum will both contribute quite a lot, though it could be another season before Tatum really starts to shine, when he is older and has a year of NBA experience under his belt. They are a big part of my optimism. They are going to be better than AB, KO and Crowder. This team has more depth than people give it credit for.

Finally, these players under CBS should produce one of the most productive offences in the NBA. I have some doubts too but I am definitely more optimistic than many posters. The Celtics weren't going to be better keeping what they had or just adding Hayward, they are considerably better now.

[Stig]

The way I see it:

KI >= IT
Brown < AB
Hayward > Crowder
Moris >= Johnson
Al = Al
Smart = Smart
Rozier = Rozier
rookie Tatum = KO
Baynes > Zeller

We are clearly better than last year, the only player we will be missing is AB. But Smart, Rozier and Brown are all on the way up, I expect they as a group can fill the hole left by AB.

Depth wise, all we need is two of Yabu/Semi/Theis to replace Green/Jereko. They are all "old" rookies with specialities, I think they'll settle in faster than people think.

The jellying is a real problem, offensively we'll be fine as we have more fire power than last year. But defence wise we'll probably have a slow start, so I'm expecting we have a 50% record before Christmas. But that's ok, the Cavs won't do so well either.

[sdceltsfan]

There is one key variable that hasn't really been much of a focus in this discussion.

Last years squad was built to win in the regular season. This team is designed to win in the playoffs, and against the heavy hitters.

IT tapped in to his full potential, for one season. Unfortunately, it also may never happen again, because of his hip. This was our number one scoring option. The supporting cast? An all-around big in Horford.....a guy who should be a 3rd option at best, on a championship level team, at this point in his career. The rest of the team was filled out by specialists. The 3 and D wing in Crowder, the perimeter defending guard (who definitely improved his offensive game) in Bradley. An inconsistent combo-guard in Smart. A top 3 pick. Aaaand a bunch of bench/rotation worthy guys, who yes, some became household names in our eyes as Celtics fans; but in the grand scheme of NBA quality players.....nothing special.

Hence, why Ainge cleaned house.

Guys, that was the best that squad was going to get. It had ZERO chance of ever beating GS, or a Cleveland team with Kyrie (or whoever they traded him for elsewhere, hypothetically). Even if San Antonio somehow upset GS next season, we would still lose to them. IT, contract year. Smart, contract year. Maxed out cap space.

Running it back was not a sound option. BKN 2018 pick and Zizic or not, all that development turns us in to a glorified Sixers, by summer of 2018, when we can't afford to keep both IT and Smart.

Ainge absolutely made the right move! And I can't wait to watch these guys prove it.

Our number one scoring option improved. Imagine Kyrie in place of IT in our lineup last season. You don't think his numbers would be similar, if not better? Put down the kool-aid. Kyrie has 4 All-star seasons under his belt, at 25 years old. IT is 3 years older, several inches shorter, and for all we know, may never repeat his success due to a major hip issue.

Our number two scoring option improved. Horford now becomes the number 3 option, where he belongs. Hayward gets to play with the most elite point guard he has yet to play next to. His spacing for wide open 3's/shots off of the Irving/Horford pick and roll, is going to be abundant! And I trust Gordon Hayward taking those shots over Crowder, Bradley, Smart, and every other extremely streaky option we've had over the past few seasons. Hayward can drive. He is a bigger body. Healthy. Playing for his old coach, who developed him to get where he is now, and is probably drooling over being able to utilize/maximize his improvements to his game.

We actually HAVE a legitimate number 3 scoring option! This is the key! Who was it last year? This question should be able to be answered unanimously, and quickly. This offseason has arranged a clear pecking order in the offense. And we have 3 very unselfish, basketball-minded, team-oriented top-3 players. I can't wait (and I'm sure he can't either), to watch Horford actually play the 4 for most of games! I'm sure the starting lineup will have Horford at the 5 next to Morris.....but Baynes will be coming in to replace Morris first most of the time, and Horford then slides to the 4. I think this will eventually be recognized by Stevens as the most effective front-court, and we will make a move to sign another C, to back Baynes up, moving Morris to the bench to back up Horford.

This is where it gets interesting, and exciting. The bench. Smart and Brown are doing all the right things in the off season. They saw the quality of the parts that went out (IT, Bradley, Crowder)....their brothers.  They saw two all-stars come back. They saw the best pure-scoring wing in the draft come in to the mix. It appears to have sunk in with them, that they are VALUED. They could have both easily been the pieces in those trades. Ainge valued the combination of their youth, ceilings, development curve, and contracts, and they seem to be buying in to the system, and the coach. Three years ago, we were all thinking Smart was questionable at best to ever reach his full potential. Now? He literally has 2017/18 to grab by the balls. Same for Jaylen. One of them is going to be our starting two-guard. The other guy, is likely the first guy off the bench. It's going to bounce back and forth, and depend on matchups, but it's "two dogs, one bone" (as mentioned earlier). Rozier is a guy who couldn't sniff double-digit minutes for quite some time. Too many PG/combo guards with experience ahead of him. He played mostly mistake-free....nothing spectacular, but then he got a few opportunities to put up some shots, and get some transition buckets. The confidence has clearly been developed, and he will be a great backup PG, IMO.

The wild card. Who the hell was our go-to scorer, when the 2nd unit was on the floor last season?      :::::I'll wait:::::

Enter Jayson Tatum. Now, I'm not expecting this to be a right out the gate thing. But dude, this kid can shoot like Pierce. From anywhere, and everywhere. And he looks like he's not even trying. I am so excited to watch the 2nd unit lineup of Rozier/Smart/Brown/Tatum. The speed and athleticism is ridiculous. If they can figure out a solid gameplan, and work well together, we are going to be a very scary team by mid-season.

If everything develops as I described, which is my deductions from why Ainge made the moves he made, I think this team has every capability of beating any team in the East, in a seven game series. I also think, they at least have a chance, and would not be absolutely swept off the court by Golden State.

This is a team that can contractually run it back (assuming we go in to Luxury tax for Smart) next year, and hopefully we get to add another top draft pick in to the fold.

I 100% see what's going on, and I'm buying. It sucks a lot to see all of my favorite Celtics go elsewhere, especially to watch IT play for the Cavs....ugh, terrible! But I have a feeling that this will all make a lot more sense, this time next year!

Let's GO CELTICS!

[Celtics4ever]

Hence, why Ainge cleaned house.

Guys, that was the best that squad was going to get. It had ZERO chance of ever beating GS, or a Cleveland team with Kyrie (or whoever they traded him for elsewhere, hypothetically). Even if San Antonio somehow upset GS next season, we would still lose to them. IT, contract year. Smart, contract year. Maxed out cap space.

Running it back was not a sound option. BKN 2018 pick and Zizic or not, all that development turns us in to a glorified Sixers, by summer of 2018, when we can't afford to keep both IT and Smart.

I agree. TP

But some folks here clearly fell in love with the scrappiness of our guys.  They were overachievers who got exposed when playing CLE or GS.   I was beginning to wonder if IT was a playoff basketball player but he proved me wrong last year and he had a good playoffs.   Still it was clear to me that CLE knew that if you played him physical he would break down.   The previous year they were physical and he had trouble with it.  Last year he was playing well and they broke him down.   Teams seemed to big body IT when they could because of his size.   No matter the size of a guy's heart, you bang a guy enough and he will break down.   

[Moranis]

Let's just do a comparison

Irving > Thomas
Hayward > Horford
Horford > Bradley

That is the top 3 players, all are better than their counterpart last year

That's really bizarre math.   Why wouldn't we do that comparison like so:

Irving > Thomas (Today, with an injured Thomas.  Not necessarily last season.)
Horford == Horford
Hayward > Bradley

So really, it's not exactly a case where all three of our best players now are better than all three of our best players last year.   Horford is Horford.  Yes, he may play better with a year in this system.  But he'll also be a year older and the system around him will be with totally new teammates.  And being a 'glue' guy, a lot will be on his shoulders to make all these new parts work together.

It isn't bizarre at all.  Last year Horford was the #2, this year he is the #3, so while he may be slightly worse as a player, he is a rung lower and will still out perform Bradley who was the #3 last year.