Run it back? Blow it up? Or somewhere in between?

     

    The Boston Celtics are coming up on the most paramount off season of the Tatum & Brown era. Brad Stevens has started with addressing the absence of a coaching staff that showed in the 2023 eastern conference playoffs. He started with the hiring of Sam Cassell, followed by the additions of Charles Lee and Phil Pressey. These are more veteran assistant coaches and players, adding NBA experience to a staff that needed help bridging the connection between the young minds and the athletes in the locker room. 
    This is a good start but in a sense of the word complacency is real and complacency is something that I am nervous about when it comes to Brad Stevens as the President of Basketball operations of the Boston Celtics. At the 2023 trade deadline there were obvious flaws showing themselves for the Boston Celtics, front court depth and the lack of a traditional point guard. When big rival teams were adding and arming for the Eastern Conference playoffs the Celtics essentially stood pat and added a rotational big to give them bench minutes not in a playoff scenario. You had teams like the Milwaukee Bucks adding Jae Crowder. Toronto Raptors bringing in Jakob Poeltl, and even the Miami heat bringing in Kevin Love who was huge for that ball club. Mike Muscala logged a total of 1.3 minutes in the Eastern Conference Playoffs, and for good reason! He's a shooting rotational big that gets beat by his man every possession on the defensive end. It showed that they relied on Al Horford too much to defy his age once again which in all reality is unrealistic.

    Looking forward there are moves to make with the Boston Celtics basketball club. It looks like all fingers point to Stevens giving Jaylen Brown the supermax extension to lock him up for $295 million over the next 5 years. I don't hate it I believe Brown was on his contract year he had to make all NBA this year he had a large focus on getting his points. Jaylen Brown gets better every year its time now for him to embrace the role behind Jayson Tatum. They are both special players but they need to flow in the game together. I like reassigning Jaylen but this is it now the Celtics cap flexibility will be tied in to the two Jays and the team will be hard to change in the future.

    Marcus Smart could be a move that fans do not expect, there's a very real possibility he will be on the block. Not saying I am pushing it, the reality is I firmly believe the team cannot run it back. The Boston Celtics are on the verge of turning into the Indianapolis Colts of the early 2010s. A shake up in the core could wonders for the leadership. Marcus Smart is in the way of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown being the leaders of the team. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? There is only one way to find out. What we do know definitely is the Celtics ran 4 scoring guards on the squad and the redundancy took over. Smart, Brown, Brogdon, White, were four guards with a score first mentality and the team struggled due to creation and playmaking. The whole creation and playmaking really came down to Jayson Tatum.

    Moves I am hearing in my circles come to Smart for Dorian Finney Smith and the number 10 pick in Dallas. I am seeing Grant Williams on the block for Isaiah Stewart in Detroit. There's a trade with Atlanta that could include Brogdon or Grant Williams for Sadiq Bey and John Collins. These are all potential moves Stevens could go for or not! At the end of the day what needs to be addressed is you cannot rely on Horford to play significant minutes in the playoffs, the Celtics need to bolster up their front court. The Celtics need a playmaking traditional Rondo/CP3 type point guard to take playmaking responsibilities off Jayson Tatum so can flourish into the MVP and Finals MVP. This is without a doubt the most important off season of Brad Stevens career.