The Boston Celtics spent many seasons with Brad Stevens as head coach sitting idle at the trade deadline.
Before last season, the last player the Celtics added via trade during the season came a whopping six years earlier in 2015.Former Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge believed in patience and continuity during many of those seasons, holding onto assets and valuing continuity almost to a fault at times. In 2022, Stevens gets his chance to make his own impression on this group beyond a simple salary dump or two.
Per league sources, the Celtics have been one of the most active teams in the league in investigating the value of their role players the past few weeks amid an underwhelming season. Stevens elaborated about his priorities heading into the deadline with Toucher and Rich last Thursday.
“Every decision we make has to be focused on, does that decision give us the best chance at the next banner,” Stevens said. “That ultimately is the call. It’s not as focused on how your team is necessarily playing in the moment. It’s focused on what is the best thing to be able to be in the mix and then hang the next banner.”Mort sur le Nil Streaming, Jackass 4 Streaming, Cook Up a Storm Streaming
That philosophy and recency bias will be put to the test by Stevens in the coming days. No team in the NBA is playing better basketball in 2022 so far than the Boston Celtics, having won five straight and 12 of their last 16 overall. However, that success has come against one of the easiest schedules in the league over the past month with nine of those 12 wins coming against sub .500 opponents.
Boston is demolishing bad teams, but does that mean they are building to something bigger on the contending front? They look that good, at least from a defensive standpoint.
“This is kind of what we envisioned and it’s coming to fruition now that we have some consistency with our lineups,” Ime Udoka said after limiting the Magic to 83 points.
Jaylen Brown also echoed that mindset, as Boston’s starting five continued its stellar five against opponents, outscoring them by 22 points on the year over 200 minutes.
“I would say before the season I think that, the way our team was structured, we had a defensive group,” Brown said. “We had a lot of guys who’s made names for themselves on the defensive side of the basketball. I think this is what we imagined when we all started. So we just gotta continue to take it one game at a time and keep it up.”Encanto Streaming, The Chef Streaming, Regarder spider man no way home sans avoir vu les autres
Despite the soft schedule, the advanced metrics indicate that Boston is far better than their 30-25 record shows. They have a +4.1 net rating on the year, which is the seventh-best number in the NBA and only 0.4 behind the top team in the East (Cavs).
There’s still quite a sizable gap between the Celtics and true contenders (Suns, Warriors) but a wide-open Eastern Conference may lead Stevens to seize the opportunity to make a run under new head coach Ime Udoka. Boston has clear needs (shooting, big man depth) and Stevens has the means to address those issues with draft picks, young talent and trade exceptions. Achieving those potential objectives while staying under the luxury tax won’t be easy but the recent play makes it at least a consideration. Adding for now and the future is a card Boston could play here.
There’s no obvious choice for the Celtics’ at the trade deadline amid the uneven season. Stevens also looks at things from the big picture so one hot month is unlikely to impact how he feels about this group’s ceiling. However, a fairly wide open Eastern Conference may make him a little bit more optimistic about this group’s chances. Being a buyer at the trade deadline seemed like a foolish idea a few weeks ago. Now, the case gets stronger for this group by the game.
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