Post-Mortem: 2021-22 Boston Celtics

[renegallimard]

probably never pass ginannis again. so no more finals for them in the future.

[BK_2020]

probably never pass ginannis again. so no more finals for them in the future.

Giannis has been passed in all but one playoffs in his career so I don't think he is so invincible as all that.

[sfernald]

haha, celtics fold damp and smelly like a cheap diaper! Celtic fans brokenhearted again cause if they don't get the championship then the season was a complete failure as we all know! This was ur chance for the next 10-20 years. We might not live to see celtics there again!

[jc23]

great defense with some very high caliber star players but in the end their depth and lack of a true point did them in. Maybe Tatum takes that final step and becomes a super star next season. He just was not one in these playoffs imo.

[GoCeltics123]

For those who say this team needs a pure point guard to replace Marcus, that player doesn't exist unless they're Lonzo or CP3 and neither are available.

No, this team wouldn't have won the title with Ricky Rubio or cooked Rondo. I understand the pure PG sentiment, but it's a dying breed of player that doesn't exist anymore for the most part.

[Perseus1966]

Big blow for the Celtics, didnt expect that, they run out of juice.

[Michael Jordan]

Horford played amazing but he'll be 37 next season so perhaps they think about upgrading/replacing him.

[Vampirate]

The Celtics are actually in good position to win a championship, but it'll take about 2-4 years though.

The reason i'm saying that is the current Dubs championship main core will be past their primes, Lebron will be way past his, no idea on AD.

The Nets need some serious work even though they have KD and Kyrie can go off but KD is also getting up there in age.

Giannis will still be in his prime but Middleton will be declining as well, as will Butler, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard.

Embiid who knows. Harden will be way past his prime if he already isn't there.

The only road blocks by that point I think are the Bucks depending on Middleton, Luka depending on his supporting cast and of course Jokic.

Memphis is young but i'm taking Tatum over Morant.

The Dubs will still be a threat but it'll depend on Kuminga's growth to see where they are in 2-4 years time.

[KIRAG]

Feels like the Celtics will be the 2022-2023 Phoenix Suns, huge expectations but fall short when father time catches up to Horford. Upgrading point guard position to a pass first 1 most likely means sacrificing defensive versatility, which was crucial for their switch everything defense. They’d be scary with Rubio and Horford having enough gas in the tank for one more run. Think its more likely they are a 2nd round out next year though

Good comparison. Ideally Grant improves and can be that kind of glue guy, but we will see.

It’s also a question of Tatum’s ceiling. If you want to win it all, you need to have arguably the best guy in the league. The Celtics didn’t even have the best guy in any of their playoff series. It would’ve been quite fluky for us to have won.

Can't win with just one all star showing up in the series against a team with a superstar and their role players contributing solidly

[SweetTouch]

now that teams know they can't dribble, they will probably go back to being irrelevant

[John Murdoch]

Trade Tatum for Ingram

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Celtics are a good team that has a shot to win a championship, but not good enough to get multi swings. I think this was their best chance. They obviously could come back next year and win it, but at best I have them at the same tier as Miami and Milwaukee and could fall behind Philly and Nets if they get their **** together. Not saying they are worse than those teams, but the numbers / odds of repeating with parity is so low.

I was wrong about big al this year, but willing to double or nothing that you won't get the same series (~38mpg) in a 7 game series against the Bucks. Father time usually wins when you are talking about a guy over 35. Guy shot near 50% from 3 in the playoffs. He had a hell of a run but there has has to be a regression next year.

Also, will be interesting if the NBA addresses flopping. I don't think it is a coincidence teams with actors and floppers tend to do better, but if the NBA does something like give Ts for flopping it will greatly hurt Smart's value going forward. He is an effective best when he gets the calls.

[Optimus_Steel]

Excellent defensive team with strong wingmen but who are not good playmakers. Certainly need a PG that can be a game manager and settle them down. Thru the playoffs they also relied on making tons of contested 3s which didn't feel sustainable. Should be able to remain contenders despite that for at least the next few years even with minimal changes.

[Kobe187]

Great Team with a very bright future.

Tatum 24
Brown 25
Timelord 24
Smart 28
White 27
Williams 23
Pritchard 24

Need to replace Horford with a good scoring PF if he decides to hang them up.

[Los_29]

As a Raptor fan, it's natural to hate every team in the Atlantic division. However, I have to give credit to where credit is due. Celtics had a phenomenal season and showed a tremendous amount of resilience in the playoffs. I felt they were more than good enough to beat this Warriors team as well.

Most of their core hasn't even entered their prime yet and White and Smart are currently in their prime. They will be contenders for awhile as long as this group stays together.

[GoCeltics123]

I'm super interested how the Celtics will move forward. To me it feels like they have a big decision to make: either come back with a very similar team or try to use of on their good pieces to make a little bit of a shift in style. As currently constructed, they have great defense and 2 high-level scoring options but they are lacking a reliable offensive hub that can also playmake or even more generally in the playmaking aspect. With that, they have relatively small margin for error due to offensive limitations.
However, they could risk their defensive identity and cohesiveness by moving one of their main pieces.

They have a bunch of really nice pieces on their roster (meaning: good to great players on good to great contracts):
Brown, Tatum, R. Williams, Smart. They all are at worst fairly paid.

If they could consolidate the remaining pieces and get a starting quality guard to add to the group above, they'd be almost unstoppable.

Unfortunately, the salaries they could trade away don't come with much value. Derrick White at 16 million for next season looks really bad and Theis at 9 million doesn't look great either. You probably need to attach draft capital to get something useful back here. This is why they might decide to make a bigger move if they feel like it's unrealistic to make it back to the finals next year with that group.

White no, Theis yes. White had a bad series vs GS, but we absolutely do not make the finals without him. Ask Heat fans about that.

[Doctor MJ]

My main thought:

Timelord is terrifying. There is good reason to think that if Timelord emerges as a star that the Celtics will win titles.

So I wouldn't necessarily change anything over the off-season, I'd just be making sure that everything I did had him in mind as a part of a Big 3 with Tatum & Brown.

[weekend_warrior]

So I wouldn't necessarily change anything over the off-season, I'd just be making sure that everything I did had him in mind as a part of a Big 3 with Tatum & Brown.

That's how I would approach it as well. In order to maximize the potential of these guys, they imho need to...
a) take some of the playmaking burden of Tatum and let him be more of a scorer again and...
b) rely on the biggest quality of Williams more which is to erase mistakes on the defensive end.

I believe they could downgrade their defensive wing/guard rotation a bit without losing too much on that end, while getting more reliable offense.

[Infinite Llamas]

Horford played amazing but he'll be 37 next season so perhaps they think about upgrading/replacing him.

As long as Milwaukee has Giannis, Boston needs Horford. I expect his minutes to be low next year to keep him fresh for the playoffs. But yeah, this Boston team can’t beat Milwaukee without Horford currently.

[Infinite Llamas]

The team doesn’t need a true point guard per se but they need a third scorer as an alternative then. Smart is just too up/down to be a consistent scorer and respected by team defenses. Smart would make for a very valuable bench piece though.