This disgusting, disappointing team has inspired a lot of takes in the last couple of weeks. We're all feeling a certain way about this team. This team has been making us all feel a certain way pretty much all year.
There's one major theme running through much of the discussion in the wake of the latest dispiriting loss: talent.
A common refrain:
The Celtics are way too talented to be this bad.
They are a team of individuals, they don't play the right way, Kyrie isn't a leader, they don't like each other, Brad Stevens is doing a bad job, etc.
But also:
The Celtics aren't that talented!
The Bucks have the best player in the series! Kyrie would not be the best player on any of the other teams still alive in the playoffs! They were overrated all along!
So which is it?
Personally, I feel both perspectives are correct, to an extent.
This Celtics team isn't as talented as they were made out to be since before the season began. They don't have a MVP caliber player on the roster. They only have one no-doubt All-Star, and that guy is not a lock to make All-NBA in any given season.
We never should have looked at this team as the "clear cut team to beat in the East" or anything like that.
Kyrie is a perennial All-Star who doesn't have the size to impose his will against any given opponent and who doesn't make an impact on the defensive end (unless it's a negative impact).
Horford is a complementary player, albeit an elite one. Same applies to Smart.
Hayward isn't anything more than a decent utility bench player who occasionally has a big game.
Jayson and Jaylen are inconsistent, because they're young, but overall, right now, they are solid starting wings with the ability to occasionally take their game up a level.
Rozier is an erratic, excessively confident backup combo guard.
Morris is an excessively confident yet fairly consistent borderline starter who mostly looks for his own offense and brings more grit than discipline on defense.
Baynes is a solid post defender who is very injury prone and gets exposed when he needs to move his feet quickly.
With all of that said ... the Celts are better than this.
This roster is good enough to win 50 games. They have the pieces to have a more balanced distribution of shots. They have more than enough intelligent players to keep the ball moving and respond to adversity by making good decisions instead of reverting to hero ball.
Brad Stevens is not perfect, but he could have prepared the team better than he has.
It feels important to me that we acknowledge both parts of this. Yes, this team was never as talented as the pre-season expectations made them out to be. They never should have been talked about as a favorite to win the East, let alone seriously compete for a title.
At the same time, they have the talent on the roster right now to be a better team than they are. But as I posted a few days ago, simply having the roster isn't enough. You can't just decide one day to be a good team that plays the right way. A good team is built over many months. First by putting the roster in place, and then by building the trust and the habits and the determination over the course of many games, many weeks, many situations.
We as Celtics fans deserve to feel that this team has let us down, even if our expectations for them were too high.
