WHAT Are The Celtics Doing?!?

WHAT Are The Celtics Doing?!?

12 months ago, the Boston Celtics were celebrating their record- setting 18th NBA championship. The crowning achievement of years of hard work for guys that have been on the team for nearly a decade. For a franchise, it have been to five of the last seven Eastern Conference Finals, but had fallen short every time. And it was a moment that redeemed a six-game finals loss to the Warriors two years prior. And just one off season later, basically the entire team is gone. If you look at the Celtics top eight rotation in the 2024 NBA playoffs, you of course have Jason Tatum who’s hurt and out for the year, Jaylen Brown, Drew Holidayiday, who’s been traded to Portland, Derek White, Big Al who’s gone in free agency, Sam Hower, Pton Pritchard, and Chris Porzingis who’s been traded to the Hawks. That is half of a championship rotation just disappearing in the span of a year. And I actually don’t think people are processing just how bad the Celtics are about to be this year and exactly why all of this happened. So, let’s go back to 2024. The Celtics are celebrating their title that off seasonason. And among all the reasons for why they won the title, the drafting and developing of Jason Tatum, and Jaylen Brown, smart trades for Derek White, Drew Holiday, and Chris Porzingis. There was one very overlooked aspect of that Celtics team that gave them a significant advantage. Spending. That year, the Celtics ranked as the fourth highest payroll in the entire league. Ironically, the three teams ahead of them in spending were the Warriors, Clippers, and Suns, all of which were middling teams and not close to contenders. But regardless, the Celtic had spent a ton of money on their title team, and at the time, they were totally fine with it. Even the extra spending that comes with having that high of a payroll, aka the luxury tax, didn’t bother them. After all, they did the thing that everyone was trying to do. They won the title. Spending almost $200 million in payroll and tens of millions more on top of that in luxury tax payments didn’t matter to them. The success matched the cost. So much so that they actually went out and spent even more money that off season. A 4-year $135 million extension for Drew Holidayiday, four years and $125 million for Derek White and 5 years and $315 million for Jason Tatum. Which begs the question, why did they abandon that for this after just one year? Although the playoffs looked different from 2024 to 2025, it wasn’t really a lack of playoff success that caused this. I mean, they did lose in the second round to the Knicks, but Chris Porzingis wasn’t healthy the entire postseason, and Jason Tatum tore his Achilles in game four. If you ask me, the Celtics were losing that series regardless. But that’s not really the point. Realistically, the Celtics were just as good in 2025 as they were in 2024, if healthy. But a few things changed between those two years for Boston. First, obviously, the health of the team completely changed. Drew Holidayiday didn’t look quite the same as he did during the title run. And we already talked about Porzingis’ issues, who also wasn’t healthy even when they did win the title. But the biggest issue by far was Jason Tatum’s injury. I actually think it’s gone overlooked just how good Jason Tatum is because the Celtics have done such a good job of putting great teams around him, which was especially true when the Celtics had the best team in the league in 2024. But Tatum really does so many things for the Celtics. He’s a great defender, defends multiple positions, is an excellent rebounder, actually played point guard a good amount of the time on offense for the Celtics, and is a reliable scorer, and maybe most importantly, he’s been incredibly durable. I think a lot of fans would be surprised to hear that Jason Tatum has already made five AllNBA teams in his career and has made first team AllNBA in four consecutive seasons at maybe the most talent loaded position in the entire league. But unfortunately for him and the Celtics, his catastrophic injury against the Knicks changed everything. An Achilles injury is bad enough. It’s pretty much guaranteed to keep most players off the floor from real games for around a year. But for it to happen in the playoffs essentially guarantees that that player will miss the entire next season and simply change the Celtics priorities. Before they were all in on winning titles. They had a formula that worked and the cost didn’t matter. It matched the success. Now with their best player gone, they had to make some decisions. Having said that, the Celtics would not have changed their team as drastically as they did in a normal situation. The other thing that is happening here is the new buzzword around the NBA, the new CBA. Well, it’s either that or the second apron, but they’re both connected, so really it’s fine. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details, which I have done before, spending in the NBA and specifically spending at the level the Celtics had been for the prior few years, just makes absolutely no sense unless you are guaranteed to be a title contender. This new CBA, the collective bargaining agreement, the rules by which the NBA operates, essentially penalizes teams for spending above a certain threshold, and those penalties become even stricter if you are above that threshold for multiple years in a row, which is fine if you’re a title contender, but not so fine if your best player will not see an NBA game again until the 2627 season. When the Celtics were spending big, they knew what the rules were. They might not have known or been as fearful of exactly how punishing the rules could be, but they knew generally what the consequences were and were fine with the spending until they weren’t. So, the Celtics came up with a new plan. They pivoted from everything being about right now, about winning a title, and instead started planning for the next time that Jason Tatum would be healthy, the 2627 season. Everything about their off seasonason was about preparing themselves for that, which meant they needed to get rid of some guys. Specifically, they needed to get rid of enough players and enough salary to get beneath that threshold that I mentioned earlier, aka the second apron. So, they got to work. Chris Porzingis was salary dumped to the Atlanta Hawks for George Niang and a second round pick. And that wasn’t that big of a deal because Porzingis was seemingly always hurt and the Celtics had already proven that they could essentially win a title without him in 2024 and he was going to be a free agent in a year anyway. The return wasn’t ideal, but getting out of the money without giving anything up was a positive. Then Drew Holiday was sent to the Portland Trailblazers for Anthony Simons. This was a weird one for me because I just would have assumed given Holiday’s age and durability issues, the Celtics would have had to attach something to him to get off the money considering they just signed him to this giant new contract extension. But I guess instead of that, the Celtics just got back a player that they didn’t really want. Simons is a solid NBA player and can be an explosive scoreer and shooter, but is also in the bottom 1% of NBA defenders. And basically, the minute the Celtics got him, they were trying to flip him to a new team unsuccessfully. And with just those two moves, the Celtics had accomplished their goals. They didn’t bring back any of their free agents that would get any significant contract on the open market. Most notably losing both of their remaining center options to free agency, which did basically successfully get them under the second apron, but left behind just a Jaylen Brown, Derek White, Payton Pritchard, Sam Hower, and an injured Jason Tatum Core to try and compete with. And I’m not sure people have really fully processed just how bad the Celtics are going to be with this roster. The popular sentiment at the moment seems to be that Boston obviously won’t be contenders, but they will be competent, especially in an Eastern Conference in which the Magic or the Hawks might genuinely be the third best team in the conference right now. But I personally just do not see that at all. Yes, they have Jaylen Brown, who is a borderline all caliber player. Yes, they have Derrick White, who’s one of the best complimentary players in the entire league. And Pton Pritchard is good. Sam Hower is solid. Simons could be a nice score. Actually, let me just do it this way. These are the teams in the Eastern Conference that on paper right now I think are better than the Boston Celtics going into next season. The Cavs, Knicks, Magic Hawks, Pistons, and even the Sixers if healthy, which honestly they should just change their name to the Sixers if healthy. Now, right there, that’s six teams. If you’re not better than any of them, you’re in the playin. And I also think you could make an argument for these teams, the Bucks, the Heat, even the Raptors or the Bulls. That is 10 teams. Can you say with full 100% confidence that the Boston Celtics are better than any of the teams I just listed? I don’t think so. Now, that just leaves Charlotte, Brooklyn, and Washington, and the Celtics, without a major injury, will be better than all three of those teams. That I am confident in. Now, if you think I’m crazy in saying that, look at this roster one more time. Look at the front court rotation and tell me who’s starting in the front court next season for the Celtics. Luca Garza, Xavier Tilman, Kada I guess, was pretty good for them. Are we talking about George Niang as the starting four for the Boston Celtics next season? That might be where we are at. Not to mention, look, the the core of Brown and White is going to be great for them. Well, that was kind of a weird sentence, but their roles are going to be much different. White will be on the ball more. Brown will get the entire defense’s attention every time down the floor. And does that take away some of their energy defensively that they had when Tatum was out there taking a lot of the responsibility? Can Brown control his onball turnovers enough when handling more volume? Not to mention, everything is different without Porzingis’ unique blend of floor spacing on offense and rim protection on defense. Luca Garza can maybe give you some shooting and scoring, but he can’t guard anybody. Kada can protect the rim, but is pretty much a zero on offense. I’m not kidding when I say the Celtics have maybe the worst front court rotation in the entire league for this upcoming season. Well, actually, it’s either them or the Hornets who have basically committed to not having a starting caliber five on their roster for the entire season. No disrespect to Musa Diabate, who I love as an energy big. But if we’re really going to do this, among a group of Diabate, Plumbley, Grant Williams coming off of an injury in Charlotte and all the Celtics guys that I listed, who’s the best front court player of that group? I’m going to be honest, it might be Diabate for me. So, I’m going to go back and I’m going to take that out. The Boston Celtics have, not maybe, have the worst front court rotation in the entire league. So essentially, I I think everyone is really downplaying how much the Celtics are going to suck. They easily could be a bottom four team in the East, even if they’re healthy. And the crazy thing is, not only was it by choice, but it actually could have been even worse. There were a bunch of rumors around the time of the 2025 NBA draft that the Celtics were in trade conversations that would have sent Jaylen Brown to the Utah Jazz where former Celtics GM Danny A is running the team. And given everything else the Celtics did and how bad they look on paper, it begs the question, why didn’t they just go ahead and trade Jaylen Brown, too? Well, for one, we don’t know for sure if they actually had any real discussions or if it was just rumors. But the answer is either they did and they didn’t like the offers that they got back or they would just rather have Brown on the team and keep the duo of him and Tatum together for the 2627 season. That could always change by the trade deadline. But for now, it seems the Celtics didn’t want to go quite that far. And honestly, even though it seems like I’m being negative towards Boston in this video, I mean, I am because I’m lower than consensus on them for this upcoming season, but actually, I really do love what they’ve done this off season. It would have been very easy to convince themselves that maybe Tatum will come back after the trade deadline and they can keep paying all these guys and still contend, but they made the correct albeit difficult choice to basically just take a gap here. Even the most optimistic projection for the Celtics this season does not put them in the conference finals. And given the rules and the spending penalties and just the overall cost of the team in general as soon as Jason Tatum tore his Achilles, it just never made any sense to do anything other than exactly what Boston did this offseason. And even though they’re going to be bad this year, like probably really really bad, their off season could actually be a good thing. The Celtics have full control over their first round pick in 2026. And if they’re one of the worst teams in the conference, it puts them in position to add a top pick in a loaded 2026 draft class, which would not only be an incredible asset, but a costcontrolled one due to the rookie contract scale, which given how expensive just Tatum, Brown, and White are, it’s an unbelievable positive from an overall unfortunate situation. Now, even if this works out perfectly, the Celtics get the first pick in the draft next year, that doesn’t mean this is going to work. We’ve seen plenty of teams try and do a two timeline thing and the young guys just don’t get up to speed in time to help you contend. And that’s before even considering how Tatum will recover from his Achilles injury. But regardless of that, this is always what the Celtics had to do. It was the correct decision. It just might result in some really ugly basketball in Boston this

12 months ago, the Boston Celtics were celebrating their record setting 18th NBA championship – the crowning achievement of YEARS of hard work for guys that had been on the team for nearly a decade, for a franchise that had been to 5 of that last 7 Eastern Conference Finals (but fell short of the title every time) and a moment that redeemed a 6 games Finals loss to the Warriors 2 years prior.

And just 1 offseason later – basically the entire team is gone.

If you look at the Celtics top 8 rotation in the 2024 NBA Playoffs there is
Jayson Tatum – hurt and out for the year
Jaylen Brown
Jrue Holiday – traded to Portland
Derrick White
Al Horford – gone
Sam Hauser
Payton Pritchard
Kristaps Porzingis – traded to Hawks

That is HALF of a championship rotation, just completely disappearing for the Celtics in just 1 year

And I actually don’t think people are processing just how bad the Celtics are going to be this year… and why this all happened.

#celtics #bostonceltics #nba