Boston Celtics Media Day | Biggest Storylines and Takaways
Brown lets it fly. Bottom a three from behind. Knocking it away. Tatum passes in. She got it back inside and [Music] what’s up everyone and welcome in to your Celtic source. Happy Tuesday morning here. And you know, the season is finally here, man. It’s been a long off season. trades, free agency, all going, you know, the way we expected it to go. But, you know, obviously a saddening feeling as we look at this team that, you know, we’re going to get into this season and what the uh expectations are and what players are saying and I don’t think they’re going to be, you know, the team overall, they’re not going to be as bad as people are, you know, making them out to be. I think this is a solid core. Um, but it is always um, you know, tough to lose so many veteran players and bring in a whole new squad that doesn’t have the chemistry and all that. It’s going to take time, right? And that is where I’m going to start today. I do want to talk uh, quickly about how Horford signing with the Warriors, which we did expect. Um the the Warriors were waiting out for um I think till the start of uh training camp for financial reasons. I’m not sure exactly what they are, but you know, as for Al Horford, right, he’s going to a team that is trying to compete for a championship in Steph Curry’s last harrah, right? And he’s getting higher pay. He’s contribut contributing on both offense and defense. He is very similar to a guy like uh Draymond Green right at this point. Maybe Draymond Green is slightly better defensively, but they’re both switchable bigs that can play the center position if needed, right? I think the Warriors are still going to go with a center. Maybe it will be Al Horford with Draymond Green on the floor as well. Um but he’s a leader. Not that that team is short on any leaders, but I’m not going to say it puts the Warriors in contention automatically, but I definitely do have them as a top six team in the West, I think, with Jimmy Butler as well, Steph Curry, Horford, uh, Draymond Green, and obviously some of their younger role players around the perimeter, right? As for the Celtics, you know, you lose Horford, you lose on his onc court impact, his presence, um, you know, just a major hole at that center position now, which we’ll talk about. There are a couple players that think Kale, we’ve talked about this all off season, he’s going to be your starter, maybe a Chris Bush, maybe a Garza, maybe, you know, Amari Williams. There are plenty of guys, but it’s going to be a center of committee. Um, and you know, the bottom line of this is really just, you know, Horford made a a rational career maximizing move really um with uh you know, obviously the Celtics are not trying to compete uh we’re not saying not trying to compete, but they are not going allin this season. And given that Horford is not going to be around the league much longer, it makes sense that he would try and go and, you know, see if he can win one more championship uh just to add to his already Hall of Fame career in my opinion. Okay. Um we’ll get into the media day here. Um, as always, right, the start of a season, media day was lively, upbeat, um, you know, a lot of positivity before any game has been played, right? And that makes sense. Um, you know, maybe even more positive, I wouldn’t say more positive than previous years, but definitely on par with them. There was no drop off from the player side at least, right? Um, Tatum, you know, was praised for his offseason work ethic. Uh Joe Missoula I thought did a great job of, you know, sticking up for his player, right? He talked about how whenever he could be around to help Jason Tatum, whether that be rebounding, uh passing, uh you know, in the gym with him, just to help, uh JT get through a a tough off season for him, right? Which makes sense, right? And that’s you’re looking for your coach to do that, which is I think is it’s huge, right? We talk about Alex Core a lot on the Red Sox side and how he’s a players manager, right? He uh he coaches for his players. Um I think Joe Mazo is very similar, right? He’s he might be a, you know, a tough coach, but he definitely is there sticking up for his players rather than, you know, just trying to uh I wouldn’t say, you know, just care about the analytics. Yes, he’s very analytically minded, but he’s also, you know, a guy who can see who’s on who has it going at the moment. Put them in maybe a very similar to a Alex score in that way. Um, you know, I think Jaylen Brown, he looks very relaxed, comfortable, confident as he takes on the role as, you know, the 1A player on this team, right? and he has to be focused on his defense, his playmaking. Those are the two biggest things that we need to for his defense. It has to be back like what he had um in 2024 on in the finals run. Um right, and how he was just guarding the um opponent’s best player, right? Um playmaking, we haven’t seen that in the numbers yet, but I do think last year was a huge step in his playmaking career. And I think now that Tatum’s not there, the numbers will actually follow him. Um, so I think Jaylen Brown, um, you know, a leader. It’s going to be, you know, I think Brown, White, Pritchard, those are the leaders on this team. Um, you also have, you know, I think it’s going to be a lead um, a lead by committee and those three. But I do think it has to be those three. You can’t have I’m not saying there can’t be other leaders, but if those three are not the biggest voices in the locker room, I think this team’s going to have a a tough time, right? And it’s all going to depend on how they start this season, right? If they go, you know, if they go five and 15 to start the season, yeah, it’s going to be a rough season. But if they can find a way to capitalize on some of these easy games to start and get off to a strong momentum and then can carry that through the season, we could see Jason Tatum come back um in mid in middle of winter and this team could be a you know a late playoff contender. Um, but you know, I think I think the biggest thing for this team overall is the style of play because in previous years with Jason Tatum, it was a very, you know, slow, methodical offense. Drive, kick, look for open threes, make the extra pass, make one more extra pass, make another extra pass, and find an open shot. And almost every single guy this year of the returners this year said they want to play with pace and transition, right? Starting with Brown, of course, who has repeatedly um, you know, urged the Celtics to do this, right? And I think that’s just how they have to play. They have to play more like a a Indiana Pacers offense or a uh Oklahoma City Thunder offense where they just get steals and they get out in transition. They don’t wait to set up an offense. If they see a a play, even if it’s not the the play that was called up, they go for it, right? There has to be more of that because they don’t have the guys this year to sit in the corner and shoot threes. They have a couple, but way less than they had last year. And so, you cannot rely on, you know, someone to just bail you out on a three. have to take an opportunity to score a basket when that opportunity comes, right? I want to see I want to see a lot of points scored in the first 10 minutes of a shot clock instead of waiting for the last second to make a a shot, right? Lots of cutting off ball movement. Um, you know, setting picks for um other players, not just the ball handler. Um, you know, it can still be a heavy three-point team, but the spacing is not going to be the same without Horford, Porzingis, Holiday, right? And that combo, right? And so, you have to find a way to, you know, either take threes on the dribble, which Pritchard is great at. I would like Howard to be better at that. Anthony Simmons could be pretty good at that. Um, but other than that, those are you’re going to have to find ways to get a three. um without, you know, relying on some guy to knock it down from the corner, right? And that’s where Anthony Simmons can be a huge factor, right? He, you know, there were lots of rumors this offseason that he was going to be traded for, you know, cap space or whatever it may be. And, you know, we are in training camp here and he is still with the team. I don’t think he’s going to be traded at this point, right? Um, despite all these rumors and whatever. um defense is definitely a concern with him, right? He acknowledged um he actually acknowledged it um yesterday that it’s a choice and that he has to prove that he can buy into this defensive scheme and put in the effort, right? I don’t there are some guys that are just, you know, really bad at defense and it doesn’t it doesn’t matter how much effort they put in, it’s still going to turn out bad. But for most people, most players, you can, if you put in enough effort, you can get out a a solid result. Um, and I do think that is true with Anthony Simmons, right? Pritchard is able to do that at a much smaller size and um uh body shape than Anthony Simmons is. Anthony Simmons can should be able to do it, which I do think with Brown, with White, with Pritchard, with Kada, and with Joe Mazula as the coach, I do think there he’s going to be able to, you know, at least be better than he was last year, right? Especially cuz, you know, it’s a contract year for him, right? So, that motivation could push him to, you know, be a well-rounded uh both sides of the ball player, right? Um, even if he’s not going to be on this team next year or in the plans of another championship run in Brad Stevens or Joe Mazulo’s eyes, he could be a key piece for another team if he can prove that he is worth being that this year, right? And it’s not about being selfish. It’s not like stacking up your stats and whatever, but if he if he plays like he’s in a contract year, it’ll help the team no matter no matter how he if he plays well, it will help the team. That’s what I’m trying to say, right? He’s not going to be that selfish player because they the Celtics just don’t have that kind of um couple those players, right? If Brown wants to be selfish this year, that’s going to lead to turnovers. it’s going to lead to, you know, throwing the ball away. It’s going to lead to all that stuff that we’ve seen in the past, right? So, Brown knows he can’t be a selfish player and just score all the points. He has to, you know, rely on his teammates even if they’re not up to the level that he is at, right? And you know depth is a huge concern in this regard because right you have your top core Brown, White, Simmons, Pritchard Howser maybe. Um, you know, you have a big front court question, right? Kada Garza, uh, Buché, uh, even Amari Williams, all unproven players, right? Kada has the most experience, which is why I’ve been saying for weeks he’s going to be the starter, but it just depends on how he does in training camp. And I do think it will be a, you know, uh, play until you lose the position, right? So okay will start and if he messes up we might not see him again for a while at least in the starting position. Um right and you know bench players the sixth through 15 have to step up and be you know they have to as a committee play like the seventh or eighth guy on the team. It doesn’t have to be all of them at every time but someone each night has to step up right and this could come from you know a number of guys. It could come from uh Jordan Walsh, Bill Shyman, Josh Minet, or Luca Garza coming over from the uh Wolves who don’t have much NBA experience, but they do have more than some of the other players. um you know off offseason decisions here at play. I’m not saying like as we get into training camp these next couple of um weeks, the team could still be uh deciding on, you know, there are there are more guys in training camp than they have spots on the roster. So they could bring in guys, they could cut guys. Um right, Horford, Cornet are gone. Um and Boston, the Celtics did not um you know try and fill those spots because obviously they can’t with the the money um situation, right? And Brad Stevens, he framed it as, you know, these apron limitations. Um he that’s what he framed it as. Um, you know, some guys will say it’s ownership, avoiding spending, but there was no way they were going to spend 500 bucks, uh, 500 million last year or or this year with especially with Tatum out, right? So, there was no way. And I actually do think they got lucky in some cases, right? Getting back uh Anthony Simmons for Drew Holiday is huge because there’s no way. I mean, that’s just a ter in my opinion, that’s a bad job by Portland because Portland’s not ready to contend. And so, Drew Holiday is that, you know, final touch to a contending team. He’s not going to be the driving offensive force or defensive force at this stage in his career. So, I think that’s a mistake by Portland to get rid of one of their core young offensive talented players in return for someone who’s just going to be to help around the edges. Um, but you know, you also lose I think that that I talked about this earlier, but the culture thing, right? losing Horford, which I think was the biggest, you know, that’s going to be the most damaging I think in terms of the culture cuz his leadership, his durability at center dep was so huge for this team. And now it becomes the weakest link of this uh group because it’s it’s easy to, you know, mix and match guards, uh forwards, all those depending on where you need them, right? Um, but it’s really hard to find a center who can mix and match as well, right? You don’t find many of those guys that can play both the forward position and the center position, right? And Al Horford was one of a kind in that way. Um, you know, I’m going to move on here. We’re going to talk about uh coaching and culture and then we’ll get into the the season outlook um as we continue here. Joe Mazoula has one of the toughest seasons ahead of him. Um, and that is not only the roster he has ahead of him, but just, you know, building relationships and uplifting uh all these guys to a level that they’re not capable of on their own, right? Um, you know, it starts with the relationship of working with Tatum, which I mentioned earlier, and visiting players over the summer, um, trying to earn that respect, that buyin, right? And then it also has to be seen by, you know, he can be seen as, what I’m trying to say is he can be seen uh by some of these new players as, you know, a little quirky maybe, right? He has a a different coaching style than an outsider, you know, coming in expects. Maybe at this point they expect, but at first, you know, he he does have that different style that you have to get used to, right? Um, and he says he told Josh Minet that he’d, you know, he’d run through a wall for him. So that’s I mean that’s a way to, you know, try and build confidence in a a young guy who hadn’t got much playing time on the Wolves, right? And, you know, his first real test is not going to it’s not going to be it’s not going to come it’s going to come when he they suffer multiple losses in a row, right? Can he get this team um you know they go whatever 15 and eight to start the season something like that and then you come that time in December in January where you know this team just they’re going through playing lots of hard games and they cannot get anything to go offensively defensively and they have multiple uh three-game losing streaks maybe even more right can Joe Mazo find a way to you turn this around and get them back on track. Um, you know, I’m going to keep this um relatively short here. Uh, we’re going to talk about season outlook. Um, and then I’m quickly actually at the end I’m going to talk about Red Sox Yankees uh huge wild card game tonight. Um, before we wrap it up cuz obviously we are going to be back at the end of the week uh with a full NBA uh all team preview. Um, and throughout this week I will be um, you know, reacting to more media day um, coverage coming out. Um, but the season outlook here, they the Celtics, you know, historically they overperform in the regular season, right? Um, I don’t think it’s going to happen with this much thinner roster. Um, you know, the playoffs are not going to be one of those big storylines for this team, at least at first, right? Um, right. Coming in previous years, it’s like, can this team go back to back or before, can this team win a championship, get over the hump, or, you know, how does this team uh, you know, rebuild on on their run the year before, right? or build off of their run before. How can they find a way to get over the hump as I just said, right? And it’s not going to be the case this year because there are no expectations on this team, right? You’re not going to get the my guess is you’re not going to get a lot of coverage from the national media this year cuz they’re just a lot better storylines to be focusing on um than the Celtics who are going to I’m not going to say they’re going to be slept on completely. They’re going to be middle of the pack is where, right? They’re not going to be a lottery team way down there. Um they’re going to be a middle of the pack. They’re just going to move along the season and get not much thought on. Um you know, if Jason Tatum comes back, that’ll probably be a big um uh big day. Um obviously, it’s going to be a home game. There’ll probably be coverage of that as well. Um but that’s not till way into December. uh well not December into uh January, February, maybe January at the earliest. I said December because it looks like, you know, he might be able to play actual basketball by then, but we’ll see how long it takes for him to clear uh medical um clear medical uh medically. Um no, it is that gap year feel as I just said. It’s not a tank because they have so much talent on this team still, right? this people forget how not people forget it it goes by people how loaded this team was beforehand. Um the fact that you still have White Brown Pritchard Howser all these guys who are just NBA you know ready players some of them role players but most of them can lead a team. Uh right could this be an all-star year for White Pritchard. Could he be a a huge Could he be the two man? Could it be Brown and Pritchard that are the biggest scorers on this team and then white uh sort of cleans it up and makes the plays for everyone? Could that be how it goes? Could white be scoring 30 a night? Could Brown be scoring 30 a night? all these guys. It could be it could be one night Brown scores 30, another night white scores 30, another night scores 30, which is really how you want to play because it means everyone’s getting involved, which is going to help this team overall. Um, you know, players, they cannot dwell on one loss, two loss, three losses. They have to find a way to get out of slumps because this could it is the team that could get hot and, you know, get going. And it also is the team that, you know, if they’re in a slump, they could continue that slump just because they don’t have as much talent to get out of it. Um, and the East is weak weak, right? You have injuries um in Indiana, Halleurn, same injuries as Tatum, you have Philly, Miami. Um, the Knicks and Cavs are going to be pretty good, I think. Um, but I don’t have another team. There are definitely teams up there. You have the Detroit, you have um Yeah, you have Orlando, you have uh you know, you have maybe the Bucks, maybe trying to think of just other teams that could be in the mix, but there are really only two cut favorites, which I think are the Cavs and the uh Knicks. All right, I think the Knicks are going to win the uh win the conference this year. But um yeah, we’re going to wrap it up here. Uh follow on social media. Uh this video will be available on podcast format later today. Um so make sure to uh listen there on Spotify, Amazon, Apple, wherever you get your podcast. Um and before we wrap it up here, I will quickly just talk about the Red Sox game tonight. Garrick Crochet, Max Freed, game one of a wildcard series. Red Sox in the playoffs for the first time since 2021. And I’m torn. You know, obviously I think obviously I’m rooting for the Red Sox, but I’m not sure actually if I take off my Red Sox fan point of view and put on just a MLB uh point of view. I’m really not sure who wins this game because I do think Garrick Crochet is a slightly better than uh Matt Freed, but Garrick Crochet has that tendency to give up the long ball, the home runs, which the Yankees, you know, are the best team at hitting, right? And it it might come down to whoever hits the most home runs um um wins the series, which you know is probably going to favor New York then, especially with the Red Sox sort of without Roman Anthony. But then you also have the fact that if Gericochet can find a way to stay away from the home run ball and the Red Sox can play clean defense and you know wreak havoc with their base running um you know it could cause the Yankees to sort of sort of fall back and you know fall back on their defense and you know maybe you see a couple errors right they’re sloppy. They can be a little sloppy on the base base pass as well. Both these teams can be, but we’ve seen it, you know, historically when the Red Sox play the Yankees this season that the Yankees find a way to, you know, just, you know, make some sort of error or base running mistake. Not that the Red Sox don’t do that as well, but if Garrick Crochet goes deep and then he passes it on to, you know, a Whitlock, a Chapman, I do like the Red Sox bullpen, those two guys at least, over um the Yankees bullpen, right? I think the Yankees bullpen have more guys in general, but I think the two guys for the Red Sox are stronger than any of the Yankees uh players, right? And historically, whoever wins game one um almost always wins the series. So, it’s going to be huge for uh Garrick Crochet to put up a huge outing um and win this uh game one. So, the Red Sox can go with Beao tomorrow and hopefully not have to worry about a game three start since Golito is going to be out for at least this wild card round and maybe the playoffs, right? And the good thing about, you know, if you can get past this round, Garrickche will have the opportunity to pitch multiple times in a series, so it won’t be too concerning, right? Um the Golto is out um once you get past um this round, but until then um they have to rely on maybe a Connelly early in a game three, which is, you know, a huge pressure, especially because it’s a win or go home moment. Um but um yeah, I’ll be watching that tonight. Looking forward to a big game in the Bronx. And um yeah, we’ll stay um going back to the Celtics here. Um, we will have coverage throughout the week, highlights and whatever as training camp begins. And uh, until next time, if I can find my outro song. Where is it? There it is. Until next time. Go Celtics. Brown left it fly. Bottom a three. From behind, knocking it away. Tatum cashes in. She got it back inside and [Music] Brown lets it fly. Bottom of the three from behind.
Watch or listen to episode #032
The 2025-26 Boston Celtics season tips off with Media Day takeaways, Al Horford’s move to the Golden State Warriors, and big questions about Boston’s depth. Horford leaves for more money and a title shot, boosting the Warriors’ defense and leadership, while the Celtics face one of the weakest center groups in the NBA. Media Day vibes were positive: Jayson Tatum’s work ethic inspired teammates, Jaylen Brown looked confident, and leadership is now by committee with Brown, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard. Joe Mazzulla’s quirky but motivating style has buy-in, but Boston must rely on unproven bigs like Neemias Queta and Luka Garza. Key storylines include Anthony Simons’ elite scoring, his defensive buy-in in a contract year, and X-factors like Jordan Walsh.
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Chapters:
0:00 Al Horford signs with Warriors
3:48 General Thoughts on Media Day
7:13 Changing the Style of Play
12:13 Depth Concerns
16:18 Hard Season for Joe Mazzulla
18:53 Expectations
23:14 Red Sox vs Yankees Wildcard
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