The Boston Celtics’ odds of securing a 19th championship in June 2026 appear slim, to say the least.
Not only did Boston lose several key pieces this offseason in Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Luke Kornet, and potentially Al Horford, but they also will likely be without Jayson Tatum for the majority (if not all) of the 2025-26 campaign while he rehabs back from a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Even if a reworked roster headlined by Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Anfernee Simons, and Payton Pritchard could feasibly hold their own in a weak Eastern Conference this fall, a Celtics squad sans Tatum likely doesn’t have the firepower in place to reasonably contend for a title.
But, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens is not lowering his expectations for 2025-26, even with Tatum now on the mend.
“I’d never put a ceiling on any team,” Stevens said Tuesday at the Auerbach Center. “We were fortunate to have a number of teams there as we led up to this kind of window that were really fun and I thought never really cared about ceilings and had a chip on their shoulder. And I expect that this team will, too.
“I mean, the last time that Jaylen Brown was on a team that was doubted was a long time ago, right? And the last time that Peyton Pritchard has been on a team that was doubted — he probably hasn’t been yet. And you go down the list, Derrick White and all these guys. So I’m excited to see what this team has in store.”
Initially brought in as a head coach for a rebuilding franchise after the end of “Big Three” era of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen, expectations were low for Boston once Stevens arrived.
But after trudging through a 25-win season in 2013-14, the Celtics have made the playoffs every season since then, routinely exceeding expectations under Stevens’ watch during those years before the arrival of Tatum and Brown.
“My expectations are always the same — compete like hell to win the next game,” Stevens said. “Like that’s always going to be it. That will always be it. And that’s the way that we’re going to try to put our foot forward. … That’ll be it. I’ve said many times that the North Star for me is winning championships.
“And this is, without question — when you trade guys like Jrue and KP, there’s some retooling going on. But the one thing that when I was coaching — when the term ‘rebuild’ came up, I thought it was a crazy term. None of us were here before, so it should be ‘build’, right? You’re always building and growing towards something. And for this group, we’ve got so many guys back that are really good players that that’s not going to be part of the lexicon in our building, and that’s the way we’re going to focus moving forward.”
