What do the Celtics want out of this upcoming season?

The Boston Celtics’ “expectations” was easy: win a championship. So now what the hell can we do?

Till the second the Celtics donned their championship hats, the objective of this group was to win all of it. There was an aura of necessity, of impending doom and an understanding that the Celtics not elevating would really feel like dropping a 45-pound kettlebell straight in your pinkie toe.

However now our pinkie toes are secure, and — not less than for some time — no person appears to be pointing any weapons of mass destruction at any of our extremities. For all of final season, I used to be writing articles mainly saying, “we have now to get pleasure from this group whereas we have now it!,” which was mainly simply me inhaling industrial-grade Copium* in case they didn’t win all of it. However now we’re simply… good, proper?

*Copium (noun); a satirical amalgamation of the phrases “Cope” and “Opium” to indicate that you might smoke it in an effort to cope.

They are saying it’s lonely on the high, however maybe it’s simply boring. Positive, we will all say that we’re simply as hungry for Banner 19 as we had been for Banner 18, however that’s similar to saying a child who had ice cream for lunch is as excited for the ice cream truck as the child whose mother crusades in opposition to J.P. Licks as an arm of the capitalist industrial complicated and sees ice cream because the satan’s dairy. The absence of victory is what makes you hungry for it, and having a lounge chair of success to lean again on makes it inconceivable to simulate that need.

However I’ve written about all this already. I’ve spent loads of phrases on my issues of focus or need, however I need to take a minute to ask a distinct query: what do I — otherwise you, or we — want out of this season?

I’m not asking what we “need,” for the reason that reply to that query is all the time “one other ring.” I’m speaking in regards to the feeling that dominated final season; want, demand, the non-negotiables or the issues that you might really criticize the Celtics for not doing. Positive, you might criticize them for not successful all of it, however you couldn’t name them a complete failure given final season.

So I’m going to posit a couple of concepts about what I would like out of this season. Your mileage could fluctuate, and be happy to posit your personal wants down within the feedback. If something, we have now quite a lot of freedom with what we’d like now, because it isn’t so simple as “a championship.” Let’s get inventive.

Want #1: A robust title protection

This one is about self-respect within the historical past books. Nothing is lamer than a group that simply rolls over and dies after successful a championship. It’s like should you graduated valedictorian out of your highschool, after which received a C- in Introduction to Psychology throughout your freshman fall at Columbia. It’s not like… the top of the world, but it surely’s type of lame and never befitting of your prior accomplishments.

The Celtics are greater than able to placing the league in a head lock to allow them to know who’s in cost round right here. The New York Knicks had a cute summer season rebuilding a school group, however that is the NBA. We don’t play school hoops from 2016 round right here, we have now 7’3” Latvian dudes getting chase down blocks within the NBA Finals. We’ve late-blooming transfers from Colorado turning into probably the greatest defensive guards within the league. We’ve Jaylen Brown dunking on dudes with excessive prejudice.

So, what would this appear like? Properly, not less than a return to the Japanese Convention Finals and actually the NBA Finals would work. Extra so, I simply need it to look convincing. The 2021 Milwaukee Bucks are a very good instance of how to do that with out getting again to the Finals; they gave the 2022 Celtics a second spherical slugfest that left each groups with a swollen lip, crushed collarbone and two black eyes. Even when the Celtics encounter one thing that’s greater than they will deal with — which they actually shouldn’t — they higher be kicking and screaming on their method out the door.

Want #2: A peaceable (and rich) transition of energy

The Boston Celtics are on the market, and the Grousbeck father and son duo ought to, theoretically, have offered the group by the top of this coming season. That’s going to be a distraction, prefer it or not, like should you had been renting an residence and received a brand new landlord midway by means of the 12 months. Theoretically, your sofa and oven and microwave ought to all work wonderful, however it’s going to certainly current new challenges and anxieties.

I’m not going to take a position about who will purchase the Celtics. All I’ll say is that whoever buys the group higher have the net-worth and monetary liberality to pay the half a billion {dollars} in contracts Brad Stevens simply dished out. If the brand new proprietor(s) reveals up, takes one take a look at the funds spreadsheet and says “holy guacamole we have now to commerce Jayson Tatum or I’m going to must mortgage my yacht,” I’m going to lose my thoughts.

Fortunately, I’m about 81 % assured that may occur. Wyc Grousbeck has proven each understanding of the significance of a spending-positive proprietor, and I doubt he would hand the automotive keys to somebody with every other intentions. However you by no means actually know the priorities of the brand new proprietor till they sit within the massive chair, so this one is important.

Want #3: To dunk on the haters

One of many principal options of being in a cult is the full insulation of its adherents from actuality and safety from factual and logical challenges to their worldview. Celtics Nation is a cult I’ve voluntarily joined, and this season shall be about leaning into it.

One other function is in regards to the fixed discovery of “new” and “harmful” enemies, even when these enemies don’t exist or aren’t really harmful. The Celtics and their followers can simply discover bits and items of hate inside the post-championship haze — from individuals saying Tatum lacks “aura” to pundits selecting the Knicks or 76ers as the actual threats within the East — and spin that into an general anti-Celtics agenda. I’m not saying it’s really true, I’m simply saying that it is a cult and round right here, that’s completely true.

So this season, I’m calling on the Celtics to make that type of rhetoric logically inconceivable. Beat each group that purports to problem them. Make Tatum and Brown into probably the most aura-oozing badass duo within the historical past of the league. Do it with out Porzingis for the primary half of the season, after which degree up once more round Christmas as a pleasant vacation current for the remainder of the league.

Deliver the ache. Don’t simply be good, look good. Present the NBA that the league runs by means of Boston for the foreseeable future, even when the Celtics don’t repeat. Make it simple, after which — lastly — we’ll change into immortal. Wow, cults are nice!