I can’t consider that I’m about to cite Pat Riley, however he did coin a killer phrase in his 1988 guide Showtime to explain why it’s so arduous for groups to repeat as champions: the “illness of extra.”
Google these three phrases, and also you’re nearly actually going to come across this quote: “success is usually step one towards catastrophe.” That is what we within the bizz name an emotionally potent oversimplification, but it surely does maintain a kernel of reality. Successful groups are normally constructed on teamwork, selflessness and an almost-uncanny dedication to sacrifice in quest of a typical objective.
The 2023-24 Boston Celtics epitomized this dedication. Jayson Tatum didn’t care about Finals MVP awards, and Jaylen Brown didn’t care if he needed to decide up Luka Doncic 94 ft for a complete playoff collection. Payton Pritchard even accepted he could be enjoying a particular groups function and taking half court docket pictures, and all of it blended collectively and produced a championship.
However what comes subsequent?
Choice one is the illness. Folks begin chasing awards and legacies, and all of the buy-in from the function gamers, star participant and gear managers turns into everybody looking for new alternatives and chasing shiny issues. This isn’t distinctive to the Celtics, since Pat Riley was writing about it within the late 80s, and the gamers themselves will certainly attempt to keep away from it.
However right this moment’s gamers should cope with one thing prior generations couldn’t even have imagined: championship stress and reduction. Did everybody catch the look on Tatum’s face after the Celtics gained? Was it happiness? Euphoria? A way of accomplishment or camaraderie? There was a few of that stuff, however what I noticed most was reduction.
Reduction adjustments how folks act. The dead-set motivation required to win a championship is usually spurned on by the creeping information that oh-my-god-if-we-don’t-win-everyone-is-going-to-hate-us-and-call-us-frauds-and-we’ll-have-to-be-on-internet-lists-about-the-best-teams-never-to-win-a-championship-oh-my-god-oh-my-god.
The Celtics saved their total core collectively, which implies this stress and reduction might be mainly uniform. That sense of doom is now gone, so the Celtics should stay dedicated the old style method: cultural demand. Not less than no one might be motivated by a brand new contract, which is perhaps a very good factor however may simply as simply be a foul factor. I’m undecided but.
It gained’t be sufficient for that dedication to remain the identical, both. The league goes to adapt, and even with the Celtics’ half-a-billion-dollar expertise benefit, the NBA is not only going to sit down again and watch whereas Boston walks by means of them once more. The Jap Convention is already significantly better, and the Celtics may run into all types of issues on their subsequent playoff run that they conveniently dodged final time. They’ll should give you new solutions, new curveballs and new fashions of battering rams in the event that they wish to win once more.
Need to win all of it — actual want, not simply the floor stage variety that Chris Paul groups have been placing on the market for half my life — can come from wherever and in every single place, but it surely’s now not going to be from the infinite fountain of existential motivation which have dominated the final two years.
Everyone knows the expertise is there, so query one is fairly easy: are we going to see a Celtics crew bothered by ulterior motives? Or will we see one with advanced focus able to ship the league into its subsequent dynasty? It may simply be one thing within the center, after which we’ll should see simply how within the center Boston can dwell with.
