Sam Cassell examines the state of the Celtics

Sam Cassell examines the state of the Celtics

That’s Dan Shaughnessy on Early Edition. Arbella Early Edition, NBC Sports Boston. He hates the Tatum video. I don’t know why he hates the Tatum video. Because he’s Dan. He just He thinks it’s creating unfair expectations and a distraction. Ah, we’ve got Sam Cassell with us here. This is great. Hi, Sam. How guys doing today? We’re doing great. I I just asked Sam off the air. I said, “How many pairs of Zeni Eyewear do you get to own now as the man we always see in the ads for?” Look at that. And there it is. I have to have more. There it is. I have to have more. So, you don’t get those at CVS? No, I think he’s at CVS. No, something similar to it at CVS. I’m like, but I got a pros for uh how Wait, is practice going on right now? Practice is going on right now. We just warming up right now. So, you know, our chief of staff came got me at um say, “Come on, you got to do this interview with the best radio show, TV show.” Metropolitan. Very good. Come to the next dinner when we go out with Joe. I would love to. He’s like a tape. Oh, he’s he’s he’s the best guy to order food I’ve seen in my life. Like, he wants a little bit of everything. It’d be me and him and maybe Carol might go with us and we’ll have four entre, five every appetizers and he’ll look at me and say, “You think this is enough food? Are you kidding me? Yes, this is enough food. I’m trying I’m 55 years old. I’m trying to watch my weight and you trying to get to start collecting your pension.” 55. I did that at 55. So, uh, hey, you you know this team better than anybody and you see what the transformation that they they’ve gone through. um you know, trying to run it back and keep everybody together kind of wasn’t going to happen. You know, uh things didn’t work out. Um what excites you about this team moving forward with sort of Jaylen Brown taking over the lead with the anticipation of Jaylen maybe maybe coming in at some point. Who knows? Mhm. And I don’t think Jason and I don’t I don’t put that out there because like I know Dan Se is like why would he put expectations on? I don’t think he puts that video out if he’s not sure that at some point I’m going to be able to contribute this year and I don’t I don’t care when he comes back. I really don’t. I want him to be healthy and I want him to help the team. But the elevation of guys like Sam Hower and company um Pritchard like what do you like about this team? Man, we just got a hard playing group of guys. And the good part about our team that they really really enjoy playing for each other. They want to make the best of this. I know they think in their mind they think everybody counting us out because we did have a overload of talent that left this uh program, this organization, but our guys are looking for the opportunity to showcase more more. Sam Howard, Pritchette. Um, we got so many guys. Tillman, you know, Nene, we got guys that want opportunity to play, you know, for the stuff that’s on this level. We know everybody going to be try to gun them for us, but, you know, we going to play hard. We going to compete. Um, we want to be the hardest playing team in basketball. And that’s how our camp is going right now. We having a hard uh training camp. It’s it’s I’ve been in this business for 34 years. It’s my 34th training camp. And this is the hardest training camp right now. It’s only one day, but it’s it’s a lot. But our our players are embracing it. They are embracing. No one is is Why is it the hardest? Because we going 3 hours. We going three hours. We going non-stop. And that’s just the practice time. We going that we going uh 30 for 30, 30 minutes of individual work, 30 minutes of just weight room work, then practice. But the reason I say that is like the modern athlete is viewed as a softer athlete. Load management, all that stuff. We need our brakes and that. Like when you were coming up, man, I I would think that your camps would have been harder. No, this camp is this camp because you know training camp when I first got league was it was a month. So all the veterans use training camp to get in shape. So you’ll see veterans just falling out like just just I had enough for the day. You know what I’m saying? So So we had but we had 28 more days to get ready for opening night and in preseason. You know, you went 30 days and you might have a preseason game sprinkling that. Then you came back to training camp again. So with this training camp we having right now, Joe want to he want to push the envelope. He want to force the issue. He want to, you know, not break them, but take them to a point where, man, this is hard. You know what I’m saying? This is hard. And that’s how we going to have to play this year. We’re going to play this year, you know, balls out. We going to, you know, turn our hat backwards and and get after it. And that’s that’s Joe Mazoula. That’s Joe Mazula. We going to turn our head our hat backwards and get after it. Is that message that the expectations haven’t changed? Is that what that’s about? That despite the roster changing, the expectations are the are the same. The game is still played on the basketball court. You know what I’m saying? So, it’s not, you know, are we lacking talent we had in previous year, you know, losing a guy that averaged 27 28 points, 10 10 rebounds, you know, five or six assists. Not going to make that up with one individual ball player, but collectively as a group, we know we got to get afterthought. You can’t. We got to be the hardest playing team every night. And that’s what our focus on right now in training camp and throughout preseason until regular season starts. Say this team does come together and it is competitive. It will come together. I’m talking about a year or two down the road. Does this team have the room with Jaylen, with Jason to get another mega superstar in here? Oh, absolutely. I think I I need management. I need ownership. just, you know, he said it like I’m I want to put more banners up in that in that garden. So, you know, when you hear that as a as an assistant coach and as a plan, as the Joe Mazilla as the head coach, you know, you got to be, you know, great. That’s more of a Brad thing, right? Yeah. No, that’s the last person I’m worried about cuz Brad gonna figure it out. He knows what this team needs to be successful. He won’t come out with us. Say he likes to drink uh Dr. Pepper. What’s that? It’s a drill. answer you answer. We make him nervous. Put him on the spot. No, we take care. He’s awesome. He’s awesome. He’s a He’s a good president. You know, he he listens. Um he asks questions. You know, he don’t tend to know it all. You know, if it’s a guy that I previous coach in this league or I’ve been around, he has no problem asking me, “You think he’d be a good fit for our team?” So, you’re talking about banners. You helped raise the last two. You were a player in 08 and you were an assistant coach in 24. Mhm. Best of seven series. Who wins that series? 08 or 24? Wow. I think our 08 team was so special. We we we were just like we were psychopaths. You know what I’m saying? Like we have probably beat this team up physically beat this team up. They made him cry. Yeah. We might have been beat cuz we had look look at the guys we had. We had Kevin Garnett start the start the conversation off. You know what I’m saying? There was no hoes bars with him. But the team we had last year and the team we won the championship with um it was a special team. It was a special team to see that run. We had to be really really good to beat that team because they that team gave us problems with you know with Bzingis you know 7 foot one shooting the ball from the parking lot. You know we didn’t have no really no answer for that aspect of it of the game. You know but that team I think both teams far as the personnel was was was similar. you know, uh, we had a guy, you know, we had one of the best sharpshooters in the game, Ray Allen. Uh, Ray Jean was our floor leader, but the guys like the tangible guys like myself and James Posie, who no one talk about that much, he was so big for us because when we went to the small ball lineup, he was the power forward and Kevin became the center. Are you amazed at how much the game has changed from 2008 to what it is right now? Not amazed. Um, I just wish I could play in this era. You know what I’m saying? You know, which I can play at this hour. Just the freedom. We miss we miss about like 15 years. Yeah. The freedom of the freedom of movement. You know what I’m saying? The freedom that you know you could take any kind of shot you want on the basketball court and it’s cool. Yeah. You know, the coaches don’t complain. You know, the coaches don’t complain about shot selection. They want good quality shots. But man, I just wish that know I could have played in this era. You know, the I played there was great. Um, it was a it was kind of hard. It was kind of hard because back then it was teams that literally didn’t like each other. Like if I go to a restaurant, I see the New York Knicks Patin and John Starks and Dark Harper. I’m not eating that restaurant. No matter if I have my mind on that restaurant all day, I see them guys in that restaurant. I will not step foot in that restaurant. And even though I had a reservation, I’m not going in there because I really dislike them guys on the court and off the court. Yeah, this team would go and sit at the table. They seem soft. I’m sorry. It’s a different game. You got to deal with it, right? It’s not It’s not wrong. It’s not right. But it’s different. It was just It was just so different times. Like even in any sport, football is different back then. You know, I look at the quarterbacks, but with when Tom first got in the NFL, the punishment he took. Look at the hit BLO took. Like, oh yeah, that guy right now. He been suspended five games. You know what I’m saying? But that that’s how the game was like like the injury Joe Thman got like you know come back say I heard it snap y you know that’s that’s that’s see Tyreek Hill’s leg the other night. That’s crazy. Oh man that’s crazy. That’s crazy. But that’s injuries is part of the game. You know it’s part of professional sports and so you got to just move on and strive for the best. Y Sam Cassell is with us. Sam, what’s impressed you most about uh Jason’s rehab from what you’ve seen? Joe’s been in there. He’s been rebounding with him. He’s been doing all kinds of things with him. What What impresses you about it? He’s coming. He’s coming. He Everybody counted him out. You know, I don’t know his plan for returning this season, but I like what I see so far. You know, he’s not on crutches. He’s not hopping around. You know, he’s active. And um you know, Jason Tatum, you know, he heals fast. You know, he’s not a guy who get hurt and sits down for, you know, he sprain his ankle. You know, he may miss a day or two, but he he don’t like missing games. See, I think it’s funny this that the perception is that people count him out. I just think people the perception is make sure he’s right before he comes back. Oh, he’s definitely because I think everybody knows he’s going to push it. Oh, he’s going to push it. Uh he’s definitely going to be right. He’s not going to do nothing that it’s probably not going to allow him to do. So, he’s he’s a guy who’s understand preparation. He understand that he needs to get back in the weight room and he’s doing all of that. So, I’m looking forward to him back. You know what I’m saying? if it’s this year, if it’s next year, you know, I don’t put no time table on me personally. And I when he say I’m back and he will be back. Yeah. You know, you talk about the game being different now. You are a coach on a team that is kind of an outlier in the league in that the players want to play every night, right? There’s there has not been load management for Jason Tatum or Jaylen Brown or or anyone over the years. This is not a team that does that, which is rare and becoming increasingly rare in the NBA. Trust me, I’ve been a couple teams, coached a couple of teams that low management from our star players was a part of it. You know, but here it’s so different here, man. Like Jason don’t he don’t get into he don’t get involved in that. He just jail and dawn. They hurt practice. They got to go to practice. They’re here to take you to practice. Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate your time. Great to see you. Thank you. Thanks, Cara.

Sam Cassell joined Zolak and Bertrand to provide his throughts about the 2025-26 Celtics, ranging in discussion points from team building to mentality.

Thumbnail photos courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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