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Ramp to Camp: What is Celtics’ biggest obstacle in quest to repeat? initially appeared on NBC Sports Boston
September is right here and a brand new season of Celtics basketball isn’t far behind.
The NBA champion Celtics being their title protection when coaching camp opens later this month, and a preseason trip to Abu Dhabi means Boston will get an early bounce on most of its rivals.
The Celtics labored rapidly to bring back much of their championship roster at the beginning of the offseason, and except for the recent addition of Lonnie Walker IV, it’s been very quiet in CelticsLand these days. But it surely’s time to start out serious about basketball once more.
Welcome to our Ramp To Camp 2024 sequence. We requested members of our NBC Sports activities Boston employees to ponder 15 matters aimed toward setting the desk for Boston’s 2024-25 marketing campaign.
Within the first installment of our late-summer forecast, we requested our employees to determine the largest impediment the Celtics would possibly encounter of their quest to repeat as champions.
When we first pondered the subject last month, we landed on 4 major pitfalls: Well being, complacency, beefed-up competitors, and the overall burden of being a champion.
Not surprisingly, well being was the most typical response from our panel. The Celtics are set to start out the 2024-25 season with large man Kristaps Porzingis, who’s sidelined after offseason leg surgery. And but this can be a workforce that steamrolled by means of the 2024 playoffs even with Porzingis hobbled by his leg ailment.
The Celtics leaned into their depth final season, and even when their greatest energy was the totality of expertise of their prime six, it was a bench stuffed with web ranking darlings that helped Boston keep afloat no matter who was obtainable.
Which is why our vote for greatest impediment lands on the overall burden of defending champions. Don’t misconstrue. This doesn’t look like a workforce that can get content material after reaching the mountaintop. But it surely’s merely tough to remain up there.
Defending champs must struggle any little bit of complacency which may creep in. They must cope with a perpetual goal on their again. They’ll’t skip steps, even when there’s just one acceptable final result to the season which may’t really be achieved till June.
There’s a motive why the NBA hasn’t seen a repeat champion previously half decade. (The Warriors had been the final to go back-to-back in 2017 and 2018). The Celtics have all of the potential to finish that repeat drought however they must manufacture the identical kind of desperation that fueled their blitz to Banner 18.
The excellent news is that Boston’s key items must embrace that problem. Coach Joe Mazzulla has persistently pushed his workforce to be mentally robust all through his two seasons on the helm. The All-Star tandem of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown got a little fuel from Team USA this summer season and appear perpetually motivated to indicate the remainder of the NBA that they should be thought-about among the many elite (they usually have the trophy to show it now).
The Celtics confronted comparable obstacles of their quest to safe Banner 18. They hardly ever tripped on these hurdles. Now they only have to do it once more.
Listed below are another obstacles our NBC Sports activities Boston panel recognized:
Middle is not speculated to matter in at this time’s positionless NBA, however between Porzingis’s well being and Al Horford‘s age, the C’s are so skinny up entrance, it is honest to surprise what toll it is going to take if the Celtics go small all 12 months. Each possession that Tatum or Jrue Holiday has to lean on Joel Embiid comes with a price which may come due in June.
It was a brief offseason already with the Celtics taking part in nicely into June, and an excellent shorter offseason for Tatum, Vacation and Derrick White, who had been a part of Crew USA. Managing the 82-game common season whereas ramping up for one more 16 playoff wins might be key.
Mark Hazlett: Dangerous luck
The NBA is so deep now, even probably the most gifted groups want some breaks. Margins are means thinner than we prefer to admit. That is why we have had six totally different champs during the last six years. Fortunately, the Celtics’ mascot is Fortunate.
The Celtics should not have to fret in regards to the championship complacency curse — they’ve two extra-motivated superstars and a head coach who’s never had a complacent day in his life. The one factor that may derail Banner 19 is a major damage to Tatum, Brown, White or Vacation, as Boston already proved it could win with out Porzingis.
Can the Celtics overcome the lack of Porzingis for an prolonged interval? I am not afraid of anybody within the East, even with the Sixers including Paul George and the Knicks buying Mikal Bridges. Well being is the one potential roadblock on the search for Banner 19.
