The Future of the Celtics

By RISHI DHIR ‘19

As the 2018-2019 basketball season nears the opening tip-off, the Celtics look ready to get the season started. After 10 years since their last championship, this Celtics team presents the best odds in years to contend for the championship title.

After a devastating loss in the first round of the 2013 NBA playoffs, general manager Danny Ainge saw it as the perfect opportunity to begin the rebuilding process. Trading away aging superstars Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to the Brooklyn Nets for draft picks and appointing former Butler coach Brad Stevens as the new head coach, the rebuilding process was underway. The 2013 season was the first time the Celtics missed the playoffs since the formation of the “Big Three” in 2007. Still, the Celtics bounced back the next year, sneaking into the seventh seed of the 2014 NBA playoffs.

Now in 2018, after making strong use of draft picks they received from Brooklyn and a number of blockbuster moves from Ainge, the Celtics are the favorites to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA finals. Before the previous season, after a major summer signing of former all-star Gordon Hayward and a major trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers for 5 time all-star point guard Kyrie Irving, the Celtics looked ready to conquer the east. Unfortunately, in the first game of the season, Hayward suffered a gruesome ankle injury that sidelined him for the whole year and Irving suffered a knee injury mid-way through the season that took him out for the playoffs. Despite the injuries to two of the stars, the Celtics still made a deep playoff run. With a collective effort from young stars like Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum and all-star veteran Al Horford, the Celtics made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, falling one game short of reaching the NBA finals to the Lebron-lead Cavaliers.

Now that Irving and Hayward have returned to the team, the Celtics are now at full strength. With this team, experts predict that the Celtics have the second best odds of winning the championship(first being the Golden State Warriors). Now that Lebron is no longer in the Eastern conference, the eastern has opened up a new vacancy for a new king of the east. Given the fact that the Celtics made it to 7 games in the Eastern Conference without the help of two of their biggest stars, now with all their stars back, the Celtics are ready to finally challenge the Warriors and add banner number 18 to the rafts of TD Garden.