You’ve heard all of the different descriptions of this upcoming Celtics season — reset year, gap year, step back, etc.
You know that Boston, the NBA’s winningest team over the last decade, is expected to be nowhere near championship contention after losing half of its rotation this offseason.
You might have seen that Joe Mazzulla’s squad is a +5000 long shot to win the title (14 teams have better odds), with its over/under wins total pegged at 41.5. That would be the franchise’s fewest victories in a non-COVID-shortened season since 2014-15. It’s the trade-off the Celtics accepted when they nuked their roster this summer to escape the dreaded second apron.
Banner 19 is a pipe dream, at least for this season. But that doesn’t mean this Celtics team is guaranteed to be lottery-bound. They still are capable of being a relevant playoff team in the watered-down Eastern Conference, though their margin for error is far lower than it was in previous years.
Here is a roadmap for Boston to surpass expectations this season:
1. Jaylen Brown looks like a legit No. 1
Brown has waited his entire career for this opportunity. Boston’s longtime 1B has said in the past that he has the talent to be “the best on the floor on offense or defense” on any given night, and he’ll have a chance to prove it while Jayson Tatum works his way back from Achilles surgery.
Boston’s clearest path to competitiveness involves Brown playing at an All-NBA level — a status he’s reached just once in his nine NBA seasons (a second-team nod in 2022-23) — without resorting to hero ball and chucking up 25 shots on a nightly basis. Think something resembling the numbers Brown posted in the 22 games in which he played and Tatum didn’t over the last three seasons: 28.0 points, 7.6 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 51.2% field-goal percentage, 34.8% on 3-pointers.
Brown got off to a promising start against weak competition in Wednesday’s preseason opener, scoring 21 first-half points against Memphis’ backups on a mix of outside shots, elbow jumpers, makes at the rim and drawn fouls. Importantly, he showed no ill effects from his offseason meniscus surgery. Which brings us to…
2. The most important players stay healthy
If rotation holdovers Brown, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser all perform at or above their previous levels, the Celtics will still have a solid nucleus of playoff-tested veterans. What they no longer boast, however, is that depth that was vital to their recent success.
Though last year’s team eventually wilted in the playoffs, it won 61 regular-season games despite having its full starting five avaiable for just 24. Boston went 15-4 without Brown and 8-2 without Tatum. The 2023-24 championship squads went 48-11, postseason included, when at least one starter sat.
Those teams had enough trusted, reliable reinforcements (in players like Pritchard, Hauser, Al Horford and Luke Kornet) to both withstand injuries and allow Mazzulla to dole out more rest days without the on-court product cratering. This current Celtics roster does not have that luxury. Losing a key player like Brown or White for any significant length of time could tank their season.
3. Anfernee Simons becomes a playable defender
Simons can score. Everyone knows that. He can also put up the kind of 3-point volume that’s defined Mazzulla’s offenses. Over his three seasons as a full-time starter in Portland, Simons was one of just 10 NBA players to average at least 20 points and eight 3-point attempts per game (and the only member of that group without an All-Star nod on his resume).
But can he be at least respectable on the defensive end? That’s the big question facing the 26-year-old guard. If the answer is “yes,” he has a chance to be a real weapon for Boston as either a starter or, more likely, a high-impact sixth man. If he’s a turnstile, as he often was with the Trail Blazers, it’s hard to see Mazzulla trusting him enough for Simons to make a meaningful impact.
“Coming into a culture like this, you have to be able to adapt or you’re not going to be in the position that you want to be in, whether it’s playing or not playing,” Simons said before training camp. “To me, it’s really that simple. That’s the honest conversations we’ve had about it.”
4. The frontcourt exceeds its low expectations
The move from Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet to Neemias Queta, Luka Garza, Chris Boucher and Xavier Tillman is an enormous downgrade on paper. The Celtics will need career years from at least one of these big men to field even a league-average frontcourt. Queta, the projected starting center, needs to realize the potential he flashed at times over the last two seasons, smoothing out the inconsistency that often drew Mazzulla’s ire.
Garza, who boasted after signing that he “can shoot it with the best of them,” has to help replace Porzingis’ and Horford’s 3-point production, since most of Queta’s contributions likely will come in the paint. Boucher can chip in there, too; combined, he and Garza averaged 14.0 3-point attempts per 36 minutes last season. Tillman, who says his troublesome knee is finally healed, rediscovering his prior form after a dreadful 2024-25 season would give this group another much-needed boost.
5. Multiple depth wings become reliable rotation players
Jordan Walsh? Baylor Scheierman? Josh Minott? Hugo Gonzalez? With no proven depth on the wing behind Brown and Hauser, the Celtics will need at least half of those inexperienced backups to play real roles this season. If they can — and Minott and Gonzalez, in particular, looked like good fits for Boston’s new up-tempo style in Wednesday’s preseason opener — this roster would become much less top-heavy than it currently appears.
6. The East is as wide-open as expected
Any argument for the Celtics remaining competitive this season should start with the quality of their conference. The reigning East champion Pacers lost their best player (Tyrese Haliburton) for the season. The Knicks changed coaches. The Cavaliers were exposed in the playoffs. The Magic are unproven. Giannis Antetokounmpo might be angling for a midseason trade out of Milwaukee. The 76ers could be the best team in the East or one of the worst, depending on the availability of Joel Embiid. At least three teams already look like lottery locks.
If the Celtics were playing in the much more formidable Western Conference, their odds of being relevant this season would be far lower. But if the East is a crapshoot, the C’s can hang around until…
7. Jayson Tatum returns for the stretch run (and looks like himself)
Tatum has made clear that he wants to return at some point this season, and by all accounts, his rehab is progressing wonderfully. He appears to be well ahead of where most players are five months removed from Achilles surgery, to the point that a spring comeback now seems like a realistic possibility.
It would make little sense for Boston to reactivate Tatum and risk further injury if the Celtics are a non-competitive team at the All-Star break. But if Brown and Co. can scrap their way into the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race, they couldn’t ask for a more helpful midseason addition than a healthy Tatum.
