What do these Boston Celtics, this particular group of gamers, need to be remembered as?
The “Most Profitable Celtics Crew Since 2007-2011?” The “Crew that Received the 2024 Championship Amidst 4 Golden State Warriors Rings and 5 Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder Rings?” The “Quick-lived Superteam with an Spectacular Wikipedia Web page?”
I doubt that’s what they need. However losses like Friday evening’s in opposition to the Sacramento Kings — with out De’Aaron Fox, at residence, with a totally wholesome staff, after two days off — definitely make me query what they need. Since December 21, the Celtics are a pedestrian 6-6, inspiring concern in completely no person and displaying zero aggressive intuition past what their innate expertise forces out of them.
Shoddy outdoors taking pictures definitely contributed to the loss, however don’t let that trick you into pondering Boston is simply getting unfortunate. I used to be within the constructing for the primary time all season, they usually have been simply standing round, both watching Malik Monk take embarrassingly wide-open threes or Domantas Sabonis seize one in every of his 28 rebounds. To be tied heading into the fourth quarter and lose by seventeen isn’t about taking pictures; it’s about making an attempt exhausting sufficient.
Maybe this staff is making an attempt to determine what the stakes are of this season, unable to put it between “holy crap, we’re all going to get buried alive beneath the load of historic failure if we don’t win,” which outlined the final three seasons, and easily reaping the rewards of their one-time success — new contracts, endorsements and perhaps even new groups, which is now threatening to outline the subsequent three.
So, permit me to assist clear issues up: this staff goes to be torn aside by the NBA’s extraordinarily-restrictive collective bargaining settlement in roughly two years, at which era the Celtics will probably be unable to re-sign Kristaps Porzingis and perhaps even be pressured to commerce one other starter. None of it’s clear sufficient to prognosticate, however I don’t know who’s going to be on this staff in two years. Neither do you, and truthfully, neither do the Celtics.
That makes the stakes of this season and the subsequent abundantly clear: if these Boston Celtics need to be something greater than a inexperienced flash on the “Checklist of NBA Champions” Wikipedia web page, they’re going to must lock in and odor the existentially-threatening roses. Was this all only a fling? Was the seven-year journey from Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward, Kemba Walker to the Jays taking up, to finishing the Infinity Gauntlet with Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis and eventually Jrue Vacation nearly one superior season? Is that truly it?
Whether it is, it’s definitely not the worst-case state of affairs. One championship is superior. It’s greater than most groups get. And we’ll all get to recollect this Celtics staff fondly both method. However there needs to be extra, proper? This staff — this historically-great staff — certainly needs extra, proper?
Eventually, the Celtics are going to must resolve. The extent of competitors this 12 months is stifling. It makes final 12 months appear to be a leisure stroll by way of Candyland. It might appear unimaginable, impolite and downright imply to ask a staff that gave all the pieces they needed to win all of it final 12 months to stage up even additional, however that’s the deal. That’s what it’s going to take in the event that they need to be greater than they at present are. It’s a horrible, unfair, completely ruthless world, however it’s the one which NBA historical past begrudgingly lives in. Final evening, and these final three weeks, make me marvel if the Celtics nonetheless need to be there.
