Masai: We have a Young Team and there will be Growing Pains

[everdiso]

People have so much sympathy for us and COVID but not for the Celtics who literally had it the worst in the league and still made the playoffs.

The Celtics beat us just a year ago and that was with Kyle, Marc and Serge.

They should comfortably win 50 barring some crazy injuries.

Celtics have lost Kemba (4.6bpm), Hayward (2.7), Theis (2.4) and replaced them with Horford (2.6bpm 2yrs), Schroder (-0.6), Richardson (-2.0).

[HumbleRen]

I’m taking Schroder over Kemba at this point. Kemba can barely even play 50 games anymore.

Horford is better than Thesis. J Rich’s availability trumps Hayward.

Also with Tatum and Brown getting even better. They’ll be just fine. Probably a 45 win team.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

I’m not either, I’m just saying there’s a STARK difference between GTJ and Tatum and even to an extent, Brown and OG despite being basically the same age.

I just don’t think we can call them a treadmill team when their core is relatively the same age as our young core barring Scottie Barnes.

Oh yeah, one would have went first overall if the Sixers didn't pick a head case.

That being said, both dominated the bubble that year. Boston got us mostly because Stevens exploited the heck out of Gasol.

[Los_29]

No, not really. I’m fully aware of how great Tatum and Brown are.

I know it’s hard for homers to look at other teams and properly assess talent so I’ll cut you some slack.

You were so confident about how great they were that you felt the need to lie about their ages to make them look better than they are

Weird thing for the "objective" guy to do.

If we’re talking about months and not years, then yes I’m going to say the same age.

I don’t need to lie about Tatum and Brown’s age to make them look better against OG and GTJ.

You need to take the L here. You were wrong about their ages. Plain and simple. If you want to be exact then Tatum is 10.5 months older than GTJ and Brown is 9 months older than OG. That's not a "couple" months, that's nearly an entire year of development.

And no one is comparing Brown/Tatum to OG/GTJ. You were the one who made that comparison. All we are saying is that you are clearly wrong about their age differences as OG and GTJ are nearly a year younger than Brown and Tatum respectively.

[Los_29]

I’m taking Schroder over Kemba at this point. Kemba can barely even play 50 games anymore.

Horford is better than Thesis. J Rich’s availability trumps Hayward.

Also with Tatum and Brown getting even better. They’ll be just fine. Probably a 45 win team.

Saying you'd take Schroeder over Kemba isn't really much of a statement. Kemba has zero value around the league and Schroeder was so unwanted that he signed for 5 million dollars.

JRich isn't a great basketball player and he's been on 4 teams in the past 2 years. J Rich isn't moving the needle in Boston. Is he even better than Fournier who signed with the Knicks?

Horford is 35 years old. If you're relying on guys like Schroeder, JRich and Horford then this team is even worse than I thought.

[bon]

All I know is Boston fans didn't have fun last season. Any fan that's miserable here would still be just as, if not more, miserable cheering for them lol.

[Pointgod]

Again, for all the top end talent the Boston Celtics have, it was Marcus Smart & Robert Williams who stole a series from us against them. Not Tatum, not Brown, but Marcus Smart, Robert Williams and us playing Marc Gasol way too much for us to lose to all that top end talent while in a bubble. Big names are all everyone laments over and I kinda get it, but it always gets overblown out of proportion too, and a lot of the "Superstars" that y'all foam at the mouth over, still have their flaws.

NBA is a superstar driven league. Always had been and always will be. To think at one point the Celtics had:
Kyrie
Horford
Gordon Hayward - although he was coming off an injury
Tatum
Smart
Brown
Rozier
Marcus Morris
Robert Williams
Daniel Theis

And they still got bounced in the second round by Milwaukee. Raptors fans of all people should recognize the effect that a superstar has on a team.

But even by your standards, the Celtics had all those superstars and still lost ? So what is it?

Yeah raps fans know about Kawhi getting us over the hump, but we still needed 30 from Pascal opening game of the finals.

We still needed FVV to come alive and bomb 3s for us.

We still needed to execute the Lowry Ibaka 2-man game that GS had no answers for

We still needed Lowry to snapp game 6.

It was boogie cousins who stole game 2 for GSW. Boogie freaking cousins, he was on one leg then and is currently out of the league. .

Again, we all overstate the impact of the stars or undersell the importance of everyone else.

This was before Tatum and Brown grew into allstars, had their development overlapped with Kyrie, Hayward and Horford on the team, we’d be talking about a legit title contender. The point though is that with all that depth, role players and 2 healthy allstars, they still got slapped around by true superstars like Giannis and Lebron.

Yea role players will step up and have big games from time to time but superstars elevate their level of play consistently. That’s the hardest and most important thing to find for a team.

[canada_dry]

Nothing I said was false, only one I’m willing to budge on is Jaylen Brown’s contract, even then he’s easily on the list of best contracts in the NBA.

Why are you even using data from last year to judge a team ? COVID impacted the Celtics the most out of any team and it isn’t even close.

Everything you said was clearly false. The ages, the capspace, the ccontracts, and the evaluation of Tatum and Brown.

And last year was the only time Tatum has ever finished ahead of the Raps, so how is looking at last year unfair to him?

Not really. Marcus Smart, Robert Williams, J Rich, Jaylen Brown, Schroder etc are all on really friendly trade deals.

The ages are all less than a year apart so miss me with that.

My evaluation on Tatum and Brown isn’t a hot take. It’s a common consensus that Tatum is a borderline top 10 player going into 2022 season and Brown is one of the best wings in the NBA.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree with this one.

Listen. The drop from 10 to 11 is steep. Its literally lillard/AD to Butler/Tatum (according to real gm but also according to the top 30 list nba .com came out with recently). Tatum is SOLIDLY outside the top 10. Top 10 is firm and he isnt in it.

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[Danny1616]

What we do know about Boston is that they have a budding superstar in Tatum and a potential all-star in Brown, but other than that the team has regressed over the years.

Don't forget this was the team that without Kyrie took Cleveland to 7 games and nearly advanced to the finals in 2018.

The Kemba trade was a failure and they replaced him with Schroder, who is nice, but isn't going to get a team over the hump. Like our team last year, they lack a dependable big. Pritchard is a nice back up point guard with starter potential, but he isn't going to be a huge game changer night in and night out.

What people are failing to mention is that despite Tatum and Brown being pretty damn good individually, their offensive chemistry is not very good. They are a very iso-oriented team without a good facilitator offensively.

Ainge was one of the best GM's in the league for the past couple decades and Stevens was recognized as a great coach. It's going to be a change to have Stevens, with no GM experience, suddenly take on that role and stop coaching the team.

So yes, Tatum is a fringe top 10 player, but what does that mean if the Celtics fail to build a solid and cohesive roster around him. If they are a middle of the pack team for the next 2-3 years, he may want out. We saw guys like AD leave the Pelicans, CP3 leave the Pelicans/Hornets, George leave Indiana, Harden leave Houston, Butler leave Chicago etc etc.

[Danny1616]

I’m taking Schroder over Kemba at this point. Kemba can barely even play 50 games anymore.

Horford is better than Thesis. J Rich’s availability trumps Hayward.

Also with Tatum and Brown getting even better. They’ll be just fine. Probably a 45 win team.

Horford is 35.

Schroder isn't close to prime Kemba.

Okay, let's say they are a 45 win team...doesn't that simply mean they are a treadmill middle of the pack team with little direction and not much upside. Tatum and Brown have already been together for 4 seasons.

[HumbleRen]

I’m taking Schroder over Kemba at this point. Kemba can barely even play 50 games anymore.

Horford is better than Thesis. J Rich’s availability trumps Hayward.

Also with Tatum and Brown getting even better. They’ll be just fine. Probably a 45 win team.

Horford is 35.

Schroder isn't close to prime Kemba.

Okay, let's say they are a 45 win team...doesn't that simply mean they are a treadmill middle of the pack team with little direction and not much upside. Tatum and Brown have already been together for 4 seasons.

We just have different terms on what we think a treadmill team is.

If they’re fighting for 8th seed after next year then yeah, I’ll be right there calling them one but as of right now ? No.

[God Squad]

Again that's easy for you to say, but Marcus smart ain't going for 20+ a night while hitting 6 trey balls or Robert Williams monster double double as what, a 2nd year player at the time...

We were in all of those games with Tatum going for 24 n 10 while Pascal was 15 n 7 in a 7 game series that was decided by 5pts

A role player or two going off or playing above their heads happens in almost EVERY playoff series. The one constant should be your superstar/ top player.

I just see it from the other side, your "superstar" is going to be game planned for, doubled, trapped, have all the attn on them during the playoffs. To expect them to a superstar night in night out under those conditions is just asking yourself for trouble...

Asking your secondary players who aren't getting all that attention, who aren't getting trapped and doubled, to produce well is exactly what you want and need to get the job done.

Again for every Trey young / Giannis / Tatum ECT ECT ECT I can show you an afterthought like a Gallo n Lou will / Brook Lopez / Marcus smart who stole games for their respected teams...

Yeah your stars got to be stars, that's what's you pay them for, so I get it. But we've seen the stars crash and burn as well...

James harden has more sub 40% FG playoff series than anyone else, and he's a top 5 SUPERSTAR

You still need the "superstar" in order to get the most out of the "secondary players". I'm actually surprised by this thinking. Moral of the story is you need both in order to be a serious contender IMO. But a superstar is arguably the most important because "secondary players" are a dime a dozen.

[God Squad]

People have so much sympathy for us and COVID but not for the Celtics who literally had it the worst in the league and still made the playoffs.

The Celtics beat us just a year ago and that was with Kyle, Marc and Serge.

They should comfortably win 50 barring some crazy injuries.

I'm not going to say their going to win 50 games, But the homers are in full effect in this thread. Never in my life did I expect to see Raps fans saying GTJ stacks up to Tatum, or that Brown and Tatum (particular) aren't all star prospects. Then they bring up "But they missed the playoffs". I personally don't like their roster at all and do think they are overrated per say. But I don't think that's an indictment on Tatum or Brown as I think they are studs.

[God Squad]

People have so much sympathy for us and COVID but not for the Celtics who literally had it the worst in the league and still made the playoffs.

The Celtics beat us just a year ago and that was with Kyle, Marc and Serge.

They should comfortably win 50 barring some crazy injuries.

Celtics have lost Kemba (4.6bpm), Hayward (2.7), Theis (2.4) and replaced them with Horford (2.6bpm 2yrs), Schroder (-0.6), Richardson (-2.0).

I'm in the camp that thinks Kemba was awful, so i'm not sure of the effect it'll have. They also lost Fournier who was...pretty bad for them. TBH I just don't like the Celtics roster outside of Tatum & Brown.

[Clay Davis]

People have so much sympathy for us and COVID but not for the Celtics who literally had it the worst in the league and still made the playoffs.

The Celtics beat us just a year ago and that was with Kyle, Marc and Serge.

They should comfortably win 50 barring some crazy injuries.

I'm not going to say their going to win 50 games, But the homers are in full effect in this thread. Never in my life did I expect to see Raps fans saying GTJ stacks up to Tatum, or that Brown and Tatum (particular) aren't all star prospects. Then they bring up "But they missed the playoffs". I personally don't like their roster at all and do think they are overrated per say. But I don't think that's an indictment on Tatum or Brown as I think they are studs.

Do you think Tatum and Brown are a championship-level duo?

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[HumbleRen]

People have so much sympathy for us and COVID but not for the Celtics who literally had it the worst in the league and still made the playoffs.

The Celtics beat us just a year ago and that was with Kyle, Marc and Serge.

They should comfortably win 50 barring some crazy injuries.

I'm not going to say their going to win 50 games, But the homers are in full effect in this thread. Never in my life did I expect to see Raps fans saying GTJ stacks up to Tatum, or that Brown and Tatum (particular) aren't all star prospects. Then they bring up "But they missed the playoffs". I personally don't like their roster at all and do think they are overrated per say. But I don't think that's an indictment on Tatum or Brown as I think they are studs.

Do you think Tatum and Brown are a championship-level duo?

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Really depends on the roster tbh.

If we replaced FVV and Siakam in the 2019/2020 playoffs with Brown and Tatum, I think we make the finals and most likely win it.

If we just simply replace FVV and Siakam with Brown/Tatum going into 2021/2022, we instantly have the best young core in the NBA and become contenders for the next decade or so.

[Kevin Willis]

Blue Jays.

[Federalies]

The problem with Boston is that they suffer from “Toronto Maple Leafs” syndrome i.e. historic club with loyal fans who always think “this is the year/that top player must want to come here”!

Danny Ainge survived for a decade on the Brooklyn trade alone. He had multiple picks for multiple years and in the end, the Celtics only have Brown and Tatum to show for it. Other than cashing in some assets in the failed Kyrie and Kamba debacles, I can’t honestly name another pick (first or second round) that’s made an impression on the league.

In short, would I like either Brown or Tatum on this team…absolutely. Would I trade the current Raptors “team”, organization, front office, medical staff, G League affiliate and overall culture for Boston’s…absolutely not!

[ruckus]

I swear there must be some undercover Celtics fans on this board.

That being said, I really like the Brown/Tatum pairing. They're close to the perfect 3/4 thats needed for the modern era.

However, while OG and Siakam are at least a tier below, they aren't that far off. And when you add Smart and Fred into the mix, it makes the comparison even closer.

Now when you consider the draft capital spent to acquire each "big 3", Toronto is definitely getting better value for their money.

And although he is on a different timeline, once you add Scottie to the mix, I'd say that puts us ahead of the Celts in terms of potential future success.

[WuTang_OG]

Celtics will be back in the mix but theres no disputing Toronto got an even worse hand last year with entire team getting covid and not playing a single home game. Let's not get it twisted.

Also, losing Brad Stevens at the helm will hurt them. He was arguably the best coach in the league.