The 2024-25 NBA season is here. We take our annual trip too close to the sun, daring you to stand the swelter of these views. This is Hot Takes We Might Actually Believe.
Trivia question: Who came close to stopping the Boston Celtics last season?
Answer: Nobody.
The sixth-seeded Indiana Pacers, who were without All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton for the second half of the Eastern Conference finals, came closest to giving the Celtics a series. Boston did not take the Pacers seriously. And the Celtics still swept Indiana from the playoffs in four games.
No NBA champion has repeated since the Golden State Warriors in 2018. And wouldn’t you know it: The Celtics posted the best regular-season record (64-18), best regular-season net rating (11.6), best playoff record (16-3) and — prior to a blowout loss in Game 4 of the NBA Finals — best playoff net rating (11.2) since Kevin Durant joined a 73-win roster and formed the greatest collection of talent we have ever seen.
By any metric, the 2023-24 Boston Celtics were among the most dominant teams in history. You know what dominant teams do in the NBA? They win multiple championships. As Boston’s Jayson Tatum said on media day, “It was never about just trying to win one.” And if they are to win two, this is the season.
The Celtics are for sale this fall, and a prohibitive luxury tax bill will come due next year, when Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porziņģis and Derrick White — (easily) the league’s best starting five — are owed a combined $200 million. Odds we see them again as a unit in the 2025-26 season are long.
They are in their Last Dance before a dynasty got off the ground. We can debate the merits of a league designed to destroy continuity, but Boston has common enemies: a collective bargaining agreement that does not believe in their right to exist and a basketball world at large that does not believe in them at all.
Sure, the Celtics are favorites to win the championship again, per BetMGM, but they are not listening to a sportsbook. They are listening to Grant Hill, who did not select Brown to Team USA; they are listening to Steve Kerr, who benched Tatum for two of their six games at the Paris Olympics; and they are listening to Kendrick Perkins, who publicly declared, “No one in the NBA is scared right now of the Boston Celtics.”
You may think it ridiculous that both Tatum and Brown are upset because they were not considered among the few Americans who should be counted upon when the country’s pride is at stake. Then again, you do not have their counterargument. Tatum is the best player on the NBA’s defending champions; Brown is the reigning Finals MVP. Turning perceived slights into motivation is what makes them great.
Tatum and Brown are 26 and 27 years old, respectively. They are just entering their primes with All-NBA talent. Did you see the shape they entered camp? Brown looks as if he were sculpted by a 26-year-old Michelangelo.
Stephen Curry was 29 years old when the Warriors repeated in 2018. LeBron James was 28 years old when his Miami Heat repeated in 2013. And Kobe Bryant was 31 years old when his Los Angeles Lakers repeated in 2010. I do not think you understand: This partnership — one that has yielded five Eastern Conference finals appearances, two NBA Finals berths and a championship — is just getting started.
They also have the league’s best supporting cast by a long shot. You know who was heavily involved in Team USA’s plans in Paris? Holiday and White, neither of whom seems to care that he is a fourth or fifth option. In fact, they seem more interested in being the league’s very best fourth and fifth options.
Their backup, Payton Pritchard, played on the Select Team that prepped the U.S. for the Olympics. He might be the NBA’s best reserve point guard. He and Sam Hauser shot a combined 48% on 3-point attempts in the preseason. Even Jordan Walsh is flashing some game. His performance squeezed Lonnie Walker IV from the roster. It is tough to make this team, let alone the rotation.
And the thing is: Everyone on this team appears to like and respect each other. This is not lip service. It is a belief instilled by a 36-year-old coach, Joe Mazzulla, whose eccentricities seem more mad genius with each benchmark of success. Brown’s Olympic gripe, which some perceived as a shot at White’s selection, barely made a ripple. Tatum missed being around a “special” collection of coaches and teammates. For Luke Kornet, they “have made it difficult to want anything else.” Everyone is all in on a repeat. This is real.
But Porziņģis could be out until Christmas, you cry. That is right, and the Celtics will still be good. A 38-year-old Al Horford, backed up by Kornet and Xavier Tillman, is a fine complement of centers. They won the championship largely without Porziņģis. They have plenty of time to ease the one-time All-Star into the season and get him in peak condition for the playoffs, when they can unlock a five-man unit that outscored opponents by 17.3 points per 100 possessions in their limited time together in the postseason.
But Tatum’s shot is broken, you think. He missed all four of his 3-point attempts at the Olympics, and he shot 28.3% from distance in the playoffs. A 142-shot sample size. We have a seven-year career’s worth of shots (3,453, to be exact) that tell us he is a very good shooter — 38% from beyond the arc, where he is often creating on his own. Tatum is shooting 39% on nine 3-point attempts per game in the preseason.
Isn’t this bad news for Boston’s opponents? Porziņģis could be primed for the playoffs, where Tatum is even more explosive. They could be better. And nobody came close to stopping the Celtics last season.
We should be asking: Of whom are the Celtics scared? They finished last regular season 14 games better than anyone in the East and seven games better than the entire league. The Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks added Paul George and Karl-Anthony Towns, respectively, neither of whom has ever been to a Finals. Same goes for the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves, who have combined to win three playoff series since 2016. The Dallas Mavericks? Please. Boston just beat them in five games.
The only team the Celtics feared last season was the Denver Nuggets. As Tatum told The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn, “People always ask me, when did you guys know you were going to win a championship? When Minnesota beat Denver, I felt like Denver was the only team that they matched up best with us.” And the Nuggets just got worse, losing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on top of Bruce Brown and Jeff Green.
Nobody in this NBA is stopping these Celtics on their way to a second straight championship.