{"id":801017,"date":"2026-08-01T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/801017\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T08:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T08:00:18","slug":"is-the-west-the-weaker-conference-and-how-might-it-impact-the-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/801017\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the West the weaker conference (and how might it impact the Celtics?)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>July 31, 2026, 4:04 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Now that most teams in the NBA have wrapped up their offseason moves, how will the league&#8217;s Western Conference play out in the 2026-27 regular season (and how might it affect the Boston Celtics)? For the most part, what goes on in the West will not impact Boston apart from an unlikely (but not impossible) return to the NBA finals. But a trade between the <a data-autotag=\"05d62218-2c53-4928-8e69-9f1ad296f0b0\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/los-angeles-clippers\/12\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> and <a data-autotag=\"c42c0dfa-381f-4c0e-89cb-1ca38431f316\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/toronto-raptors\/28\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Toronto Raptors<\/a> will have a direct effect on the Celtics season one way or another, as will ball clubs who may decide to blow it up midway through the campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Could Boston pry away a Steph Curry at the trade deadline? Is the West still stronger than the East? And which teams might actually be contenders in the event the Celtics do overachieve and make another run at Banner 19? The hosts of &#8220;Havlicek Stole the Pod&#8221; took a deep dive into the season ahead of the Western Conference with Yahoo Sports analyst and &#8220;NBA&#8221; podcast host Morten Stig Jensen on their most recent episode.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Take a look at the clip embedded below to hear what they had to say about all of the above, as well as the trickle of news still dripping into the NBA media sphere. Check it out!<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"gnt_em_vp_a gnt_em_vp__yt_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=H-JMl58O9Ns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-g-r=\"vp_tg\" aria-label=\"Play YouTube video\" data-v-t=\"Projecting the NBA&#039;s Western Conference for 2026-27 from a Celtics perspective\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"gnt_em_vp_img gnt_em_vp_img__yn\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/H-JMl58O9Ns\/maxresdefault.jpg\" onload=\"if(this.naturalWidth&lt;200){this.setAttribute('onload','this.classList.remove(\\'gnt_em_vp_img__yn\\')');this.src=\" https:=\"\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Listen to &#8220;Havlicek Stole the Pod&#8221; on:<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Blue Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/tiny.ee\/CdKp\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/tiny.ee\/CdKp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">iTunes:<a href=\"https:\/\/tiny.ee\/RK47\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> https:\/\/tiny.ee\/RK47<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">YouTube:<a href=\"https:\/\/tiny.ee\/cOW3\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> https:\/\/tiny.ee\/cOW3<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 31, 2026, 4:04 p.m. ET Now that most teams in the NBA have wrapped up their offseason&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[72400,7,45,75,3798,46,6,90394,72493,72494,72404,72934,73765,72413,72444,72422,72445,72406,72496,72403],"class_list":["post-801017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-celtics","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-boston-celtics","tag-bostonceltics","tag-celtics","tag-nba","tag-sourceceltics-wire","tag-sstssportsnbaceltics","tag-sstsnceltics","tag-tagbasketball","tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","tag-tagcgr-sports","tag-taglos-angeles-clippers","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnba","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtoronto-raptors","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117019202289766632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}