The 2024-25 NBA season is here We take our annual trip too close to the sun, daring you to endure the swell of these views. This is Hot Takes We Might Actually Believe.
Trivia question: Who came closest to stopping the Boston Celtics last season?
Answer: None.
The sixth-seeded Indiana Pacers, who were without All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton for the second half of the Eastern Conference finals, came closest to giving the Celtics the series. Boston didn’t take the Pacers seriously. And the Celtics still swept Indiana from the playoffs in four games.
No NBA champion has repeated since the Golden State Warriors in 2018. And wouldn’t you know it: The Celtics posted the best regular-season record (64-18), best regular-season net rating (11.6), best playoff-best record (16-3) and – before a blowout loss in Game 4 of the NBA Finals – best Finals net rating (11.2) since Kevin Durant joined a 73-win list and formed the greatest collection of talent we’ve ever seen .
By any metric, the 2023-24 Boston Celtics were among the most dominant teams in history. Do you know what dominant teams do in the NBA? They win multiple championships. As Boston’s Jayson Tatum said at media day, “It was never just about trying to win one.” And if they want to win two, this is the season.
The Celtics are for sale this fall, and a prohibitive luxury tax bill is coming next year, when Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porziņģis and Derrick White — (easily) the league’s best starting five — are owed a combined $200 million. . The odds of us seeing them as a unit again in the 2025-26 season are long.
They are in their Last Dance before a dynasty begins. We can debate the merits of a league designed to destroy continuity, but Boston has common enemies: collective bargaining that doesn’t believe in their right to exist and the basketball world at large that doesn’t believe in them at all.
Sure, the Celtics are favorites to win the championship again, via BetMGMbut they don’t listen to a sports book. They listen to Grant Hill, who did not choose Brown for Team USA; they listen to Steve Kerr, who benched Tatum for two of his six games at the Paris Olympics; and they listen to Kendrick Perkins, who publicly stated,”No one in the NBA is now afraid of the Boston Celtics.“
You might think it’s ridiculous that both Tatum and Brown are upset because they weren’t considered among the few Americans to be reckoned with when the country’s pride is at stake. Again, you don’t have their counterargument. Tatum is the best player on the defending champions of the NBA; Brown is the reigning Finals MVP. Turning perceived worries into motivation is what makes them great.
Tatum and Brown are 26 and 27 years old respectively. They are just entering their prime with All-NBA talent. Did you see the shape they entered camp? Brown looks like it was sculpted by a 26-year-old Michelangelo.
Stephen Curry was 29 years old when the Warriors repeated in 2018. LeBron James was 28 years old when his Miami Heat repeated in 2013. And Kobe Bryant was 31 years old when his Los Angeles Lakers repeated in 2010. I don’t think you understand : This partnership — one that yielded five Eastern Conference finals appearances, two NBA Finals berths and a championship — is just getting started.
They also have the best supporting cast in the league by a long shot. You know who was heavily involved in Team USA’s plans in Paris? Holiday and White, neither of whom seem to care that he’s a fourth or fifth pick. In fact, they seem more interested in being the league’s best fourth and fifth options.
Their backup, Payton Pritchard, played on the Select Team that prepared the United States for the Olympics. He might be the NBA’s best backup point guard. He and Sam Hauser shot a combined 48% on 3-point attempts in the preseason. Even Jordan Walsh flashes some game. His performance pushed Lonnie Walker IV off the roster. It’s hard to make this team, let alone the rotation.
And the thing is: Everyone on this team seems to like and respect each other. This is not lip service. It’s a belief encouraged by 36-year-old trainer, Joe Mazzulla, whose eccentricities seem more maddened with every reference to success. Brown’s Olympic shout, which some perceived as a shot at White’s election, barely made a ripple. Tatum missed being around”special“a collection of coaches and teammates. For Luke Kornet, they”made it hard to want anything else.” Everyone is completely on repeat. This is real.
But Porziņģis could be out until Christmasyou are crying Right, and the Celtics will still be good. 38-year-old Al Horford, supported by Kornet and Xavier Tillman, is a good complement of centers. They won the championship mostly without Porziņģis. They have plenty of time to ease the one-time All-Star into the season and get him in peak condition for the playoffs, when they can unlock a five-man unit that has outscored opponents by 17.3 points per 100 possessions in their limited time together. in the postseason.
But Tatum’s shot is brokenyou think He missed all four of his 3-point attempts at the Olympics, and he shot 28.3% from distance in the playoffs. 142-shot sample size. We have a seven-year career of shots (3,453, to be exact) that tell us he is a very good shooter – 38% from beyond the arc, where he often creates on his own. Tatum is shooting 39% on nine 3-point attempts per game in the preseason.
Isn’t that bad news for Boston’s opponents? Porziņģis could be primed for the playoffs, where Tatum is even more explosive. They could be better. And no one came close to stopping the Celtics last season
We should ask: Who are the Celts afraid of? They finished last regular season 14 games better than anyone in the East and seven games better than the entire league. The Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks added Paul George and Karl-Anthony Towns, respectively, none of which have ever been to Finals. The same goes for the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves, who have combined to win three playoff series since 2016. The Dallas Mavericks? please Boston just beat them in five games.
The only team the Celtics feared last season was the Denver Nuggets. Like Tatum told Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe“People always ask me, when did you guys know you were going to win a championship? When Minnesota beat Denver, I felt like Denver was the only team they matched up with us the best.” And the Nuggets just got worse, losing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in addition to Bruce Brown and Jeff Green.
No one in this NBA is stopping these Celtics on their way to a second straight championship.
