2024 Boston Celtics
And the 2023 NBA Champions
Two years ago the Boston Celtics knew they had to make a change and get tougher. Luckily they had a man in Danny Aingw who was willing to fall on his sword (to the delight of Boston sports talk radio callers and hosts and to the delight of Utah Jazz fans).
Today they face the same problem. They had solved the issue by hiring new coach Ime Udoka but evidently he never learned the lesson of not shitting where you eat. They were forced to elevate Joe Mazzola, who is a nice guy but was just not ready for the job as evidenced by the Eastern Conference Fiinals loss to the Miami Heat.
They hope they have solved this issue by hiring Sam Cassell as the top assistant coach. I'm heartened by this move. I view any team with Sam Cassell as a team that wants to win. I'd be fine with Cassell being paid the same or more than Mazzula.. Think Cassell also helps with the toughness issue.
This leaves the tweaking of the roster for toughness and added playoff versitility. To me its obvious that you give Jaylen Brown a max contract. If he doesn't want to be here (a possibility) you can trade him for an equally priced superstar. I would also advocate for letting Grant Williams walk via free agency ($4.5 million) and trading away Malcomn Brogdon ($22.5 million but owed $45 million over two years) who deserves to be a starter elsewhere.
That leaves roughly $85 million in 2024 salary cap on a max $134 million estimated cap. The playoffs have shown the Celtics need, hopefully, a point guard and a big man to round out the roster. These could come via draft (cheap) or via free agency (potentially expensive). They only have a 2nd round pick in the upcoming draft so that's bound to be inexpensive. The other problem is how do you sign a free agent with not alot of playing time available? Guess we'll see on that. The Celtics do get Danillo Gallinari back from injury and it will be interesting to see how much he has left in the tank.
May have buried the lede here but I'm also starting to wonder why Celtics President and former Head Coach Brad Stevens gets so much leeway from fans and the media. His overall record in his Boston tenure is 354-282 with ZERO NBA Championships. Its probably correct to give him (and Joe Mazzula) more time but its also worth pointing this out.
When it comes to the current NBA Championship series, as a Boston fan, I feel compelled to apologize to the rest of NBA fans for foisting the fraudulent Miami Heat on you. Think the series is a forgone conclusion with the Denver Nuggets eventual champs. Might be the Boston speaking but good - can't stand Pat Riley.
Interesting that Denver has Nicola Jokovic but instead of 7'0" Jokivic with Boston it was 6'9" Dino Radja. They could use another player like that.