Boston Might Be Worse Than We Thought This Season | Rachel Nichols & Chris Mannix

Boston Might Be Worse Than We Thought This Season | Rachel Nichols & Chris Mannix

All right, the last thing we’re gonna talk about is Boston, which is kind of what I playing the way I thought they were. I was gonna say you called it preseason. We talked about this. I had this conversation with Bill Simmons at the Laker game the other night, like cuz Bill was more bullish on the Celtics than I was. He was taking like the over on 500. I thought it was going to be under 500. This was kind of the reason why. Like I knew Jaylen Brown was going to have a great individual year because he’s a great individual player, right? and you know having that freedom to be the number one scoring option that’s going to lead to improved statistics. He can make a run at one of the AllNBA teams this year. But you go down that list and you’re asking Derek White to take the Jaylen Brown role and Pton Pritchard to take the J Derek White role and somebody to take the Drew Holiday role. Well, mo most importantly, who are you asking the front taking the Tatum role? Of course, that’s what sort but like you’re asking everybody to take one step up and I just didn’t think that everybody there was capable of doing that and it hasn’t manifest itself. Like I don’t think Derk White’s having a bad season. I don’t think Pton P’s having a bad season. But they’re getting killed in the glass. Like they’re not rebounding. That’s what I meant. Most importantly, I I think look, you can sustain the loss of Tatum with a guy like Jaylen Brown and Derek White and some of the guys who are all moving up a level. You can’t sustain it without having the front court that they, by the way, knew they were getting. Yeah. Right. They knew. They knew. They made trades this summer. They knew what they were sort of getting rid of and shedding. And that spoke to them thinking this was a gap year more than some of their fans clearly did. And I’m curious, you know, we’ll have to see where do you think their You said at one point preseason that you thought maybe they’d be trying to get a little higher draft pick. And it’s possible in the Eastern Conference we have a more competitive race to the bottom than we do to the top. Uh I mean I I guess you know the Wizards are started better than I thought they were going to. I’m thinking about the guys that are in the race to the bottom. Charlotte’s been okay as well. LaMelo Balls. Yeah. But the you if you’re a team that’s looking for a high draft pick and this draft by the way just looks better and better the more we see some of these young guys who are going into the draft next year play. Oh yeah. Get from BYU can play. A little bit of him right. Um, so teams that are interested in being high in the draft, they want their their players to do well a bit at the beginning of the season, getting a few wins early, getting some of that experience, having a culture, creating a culture where guys aren’t afraid to lose, that’s fine. And then, you know, if if the team’s winning too much, we again, we’ve seen it a million times before, start having injuries and pulling guys and changing their strategy. And so, I think the Wizards will be in that race. I think Charlotte will be in that race. I hope Charlotte’s not. I They’ve been in that race for so long and there’s real talent in Charlotte. You can see like LaMelo, even though he’s still taking some mind-numbing shots, is really faking good. Brandon Miller, when he’s healthy, really faking good. Miles Bridges fits in opposite LaMelo Ball. Coniple will eventually be a reliable perimeter shooter. Like I I I like Charlotte. I like Charlotte is one of those teams that should be in the playin mix this year. Okay. Should be. Do they want to be? I mean, at some point you have to want to be, right? Like how many top 10 picks do you have with the last few years? LaMelo third overall pick. Brandon Miller was he two. Uh Khan Canipple four. Like you’ve got the core is there. It’s time to make a run. Time to make a run. LaMelo Balls in what? Year six. Yeah. Time to make a run. Come on Hornets. Time to make a run. Give Charlotte something to cheer about. Make Charlotte great again. That’s what we need to do is make Charlotte a great basketball town. Just give everyone those old school starter jackets so we can talk about it. Well, okay. So, Boston, back to my original question. Sean Grandy had some of the stats on this. I want to read some of them because they’re really bad through games. Uh, offensive rebounding 18th. Defensive rebounding 30th. Total rebounding 29th. So, rebounding is a problem and it’s not something that personnel is going to make them better at. names Kea has been okay as a rebounder, but they don’t have much size in terms of playable guys in that front court. Yes. Yes. Uh assist percentage 30th. Nobody’s passing the ball. Uh true shooting 24th, offense 21st, defense 23rd. They have been gashed in some of these games by big runs. The Pistons put a big run on them on Sunday. Uh was the Knicks who Yeah, I think the Knicks put a run on them during that game. Um, these are not stats that you want to see early in a season. And like I said, some of those stats, I don’t know that there’s a pathway to significantly improve in those categories. Like Al Horford ain’t walking through that door. Even Luke Cornett ain’t walking through that door. They’ve got names Kea, Sam Hower, Chris Boucher. I mean, I saw them play like Josh Mino for stretches against the Pistons. They just don’t have the personnel. That is my problem with the Celtics. They just don’t have the personnel. Like it’s that old uh with the Bill Parcels line like you are what your record says you are. You are what your roster says you are. This is a talent league and even in a in a conference as weak as the East, the Celtics do not have the horses to be, you know, among the more competitive teams in the conference. I don’t think they’re as bad as 0 and3. I think they’ll get better once some of these guys get reps and the chemistry develops. I think Missoula is still going to find a way to coach his ass off for these guys, but they’re not going to be a good rebounding team. They’re they’re they’re going to have trouble if I mean, they’re shooting the ball. Like, they lost I think what the top three or four best three-point shooters. They’re still shooting the same number of threes. They’re still jacking them up at the same kind of rate. You got to have the personnel. Okay. So, a answer my question though is your direction as a franchise both this year and in the coming years when you get Tatum back, right? So after they win the title, Wick Grossbeck is out there saying, “I’m bringing back the entire roster. I don’t care how expensive it is. I’m all in, baby.” He stuck to his word. Easy to say knowing he was going to sell the team, but yes. Well, I’m just saying. Um, you know, he did what we wanted we had wanted Denver to do right in in the cycle before or whatever. Uh they when you talk about them not having the roster and not having the talent, the irony is they had one of the deepest rosters in the league prior to the Tatum injury, right? Tatum is gone for presumably the year. We’ll see what happens when they bring him back, if they bring him back, if they have to protect him from himself, etc., etc. They made the decision this summer clearly that they expected to go to the year without Tatum and they weren’t going to go in to the second apron and they weren’t going to be a huge luxury tax team and all the stuff and all the guys you just mentioned who aren’t walking through that door they let leave the team right so because of that is it good for this team to finish what sixth you say they’re not 0 and they’re not an 0 and3 team truly no is it good for them to finish sixth or seventh in the standings. I think that’s going to be tough. Or do you say, “Okay, maybe it’s better if they finish out of the playin.” Look, I I think for the long-term health of the team, it’s probably better if they finish out of the playin in the lottery. They have control over their draft pick. That’s what I mean. If if they hit the lottery, get some of that lottery luck we’ve seen the last couple of years, maybe you get something really high. Even if not, it’s a cheap rotation player that can be part of the next iteration. Deep draft. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I look, I it it’s hard to even talk about this three games of the season, but like yeah, in the long term health the team is probably better to miss out on the play. I I just think that there it may not even be a choice on their part. Like But I wonder if that choice was already made. Like in some way it was made when you decide to have that shallow Yes. up front. You decide not to go all in for Luke Cornet. You decide to trade Drew Holiday. I mean, they’re always going to kind of lose Al Horford, I think, because I don’t think Horford was looking to spend the maybe the last year of his career on a team that wasn’t going anywhere. Um, yeah, I I think they they have built this roster for the 26 27 season, right? Whatever happens this season, I think, is just gravy for them. But, I mean, what I’ve seen, is it? So, I I just It’s not gravy. grave is the wrong word, but it’s kind of like it it just it’s a gap year. It it it is what it is. I mean, I just look the the the uber example of this is is the Spurs, right? David Robinson goes down for a season. Yeah. The Spurs play terribly. They end up with Tim Duncan as the number one draft pick in the next year and then you end up with a team with Tim Duncan and David Robinson. And it’s sort of the prototype for tanking really in the NBA. And you have a team in Boston where they strip the roster so much that as talented as Jaylen Brown is, as competitive as Joe Moula is, Joe Mazoula will go into no game planning to lose. But to me, the way they set this team up with such glaring holes, I wonder it’s it’s not like we’re the first people to have this conversation. I’m sure they had the conversation of what is the goal for this season. And I don’t think it’s hey however high we finish it’s gravy. I think maybe the smart money in that front office was what if we set up the team so they really to your point can’t help but finish out of the playin and this is the deepest draft we’ve had in years and that was even considering how deep the draft was last year and we get a player who’s going to help set us up for the future and and be part of the learning experience of the Jason Tatum years. I I think that was certainly a scenario that was talked about and has been talked about in Boston. Um I mean I think on there was an outside chance and maybe there still is that this team will figure out defensive deficiencies. You get more out of the likes of Luke Garza and Kea continues to play well and maybe the shots start to fall more for Pritchard and Hugo Gonzalez who had one good game already. um he plays at a higher level as his season progresses, but they are what I thought they were. They they they just kind of are they’re exactly what I thought they were. They’re a competitive team. These couple of these losses have been pretty competitive. Yeah, they’re not going to get blown out of too many games, but they’re just not even in this conference.

Chris Mannix and Rachel Nichols break down the Celtics rough start to the season and if the team should even want to make the playoffs with a loaded 2026 draft coming up

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Do the Celtics Even Want to Win This Year? | Rachel Nichols & Chris Mannix
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