There is no city outside of New York and Los Angeles in the four American major leagues with more sporting pedigree than Boston.
The New England Patriots won it all with Tom Brady. The Boston Red Sox won a World Series at the start of the century with Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz, and at the end of last decade with Mookie Betts and Chris Sale, with two in between them. The Boston Bruins hoisted the Stanley Cup with true servants to the organization like Zdeno Chára, David Krejči and Patrice Bergeron.
The Boston Celtics felt like the odd one out. They won a championship in 2008, but the impact of Boston's 'Big Three' of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen was short-lived and perhaps should have brought more accomplishments to the Celtics.
Sure, the team had won as many cups as the Bruins, but hockey's beating heart is in Canada and somewhat of an afterthought the other side of the border. The children and teenagers of the Bay State hadn't seen their favorite basketball team win a chip, at least not in living memory. When was it their turn?
2024 saw the NBA Finals Winners' trophy finally wind up in New England again. There is a view that Bostonian sports fanatics are unappreciative—greedy, in fact, for the will of sports leagues to bend in their favour and for a Boston team to reign victorious. But the feeling was different for Celtics fans. It was relief. Their team had suffered heart breaking losses in recent years in the Eastern Conference Finals to the Miami Heat in 2021 and 2023, and sandwiched in between that was a trip to the finals that saw a 4-2 loss in a six-game series versus the Golden State Warriors. Even an optimist would start to doubt.
But thanks to the perseverance of the 'Two Jays' - Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown—the two players that had carried Boston so far but not yet to the summit, a championship was finally in their hands. Those two players are now entering their primes with a complimentary host of stars like Kristaps Porziņġis, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, and it looks like the Celtics are primed to win it all again.
So let's take a deeper look. Here's VAVEL USA's analysis and prediction of how the reigning champions will fare.
A new rafter raised in TD Garden
The 2023-24 season was a huge one for the C's. It saw the team win its second championship of this century, and finally allowed success to come to a franchise that had come so close in years prior.
It probably wasn't a surprise, either. Boston were essentially the league's super-team, and had a starting five that, if a debate is to be had, might be one of the best ever assembled.
Tatum and Brown are the clear-cut stars, but Holiday, acquired in the summer of 2023 from the Blazers, is an elite defender, while Porziņġis, also brought in at the start of last season, is a formidable center with impressive shooting range for such a big guy.
The last member of the five, Derrick White, transformed himself from a good-if-not-great role player into a borderline All-Star somewhere along the way. Add in some good depth pieces, and that was the recipe for the 2024 Celtics' NBA Championship.
The team were an impressive 15-5 through their first 20 games played, and it became clear fairly early on that this team meant business. Victories over other championship contenders like the Milwaukee Bucks, the Philadelphia 76ers and the New York Knicks were a real indicator of where the team might be headed, and the hot run of form never really stopped. Boston finished the year 64-18, top of the Eastern Conference and primed to go all the way.
Almost 27 points per game from Tatum and 23 from second-in-command Brown were huge contributors. Porziņġis and Holiday performed as well as expected on the defensive end, with both combining for almost three blocks and two steals a game, and a solid 15ppg from Derrick White helped round off impressive stat lines for the starters.
But that wasn't the whole story, as the veteran leadership and ability from deep provided by Al Horford, tenacity of sixth man Payton Pritchard and more defensive reinforcement from the cunning Luke Kornet also played a huge part in why the Celtics won it all. 2023-24 was everything a Boston fan could have ever wanted and more. But with an ever-changing league, where new stars come out the woodworks every other month, will they go again for a second try?
The fate of the championship, again, lies in the hands of Celtics' dynamic duo
The old adage goes that good things come in twos. Case in point: Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Both drafted with the third overall picks of the draft in 2016 and 2017, respectively, they have both transformed the recent history of the Celtics in ways many could not have foreseen.
Both are entering their athletic peak, with Tatum only 26 and Brown a year older at 27. Seeing as NBA greats such as LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry are now on the wrong side of thirty and their teams less competitive, this gives the Boston duo a prime opportunity to keep their Celtics fighting for championships.
"You haven't seen the best version of Jayson Tatum. And you shouldn't have, right? I'm only 26, I should continue to get better."
Celtics star Tatum on being regarded as an MVP-ability player while still only being just over halfway through his 20s.
Nothing, however, is certain. Both players have shown that they're not perfect when it comes to the big occasion in the playoffs, with Tatum's poor shooting from beyond the arc being a contributor as to why the team lost their Conference Finals matchup to Miami in 2023.
Ever since then, Tatum has been somewhat underwhelming from deep in the playoffs despite the Finals MVP he picked up this year, and it is a point he might want to focus on if he wants to make Boston's playoff journey each year more comfortable. Brown was a liability also in those Conference Finals, especially in a must-win game seven where he shot 8-for-23 from the field.
But these are very, very trivial blemishes on two otherwise fantastic players who have displayed remarkable competitiveness and given almost unparalleled success—three Conference Finals and two Finals appearances are nothing to scoff at - to a team that desperately needed them at the time of both being drafted.
The upcoming season is a huge one for the Jays. Can they yet again show their best sides and take their teams all the way again? How will they fare against the young and hungry Oklahoma City Thunder or a Philadelphia team with the addition of Paul George.
Any players that get the luxury of winning back-to-back championships are almost always sure-fire Hall of Famers, and this duo has a good chance of cementing their spot in Springfield if they are the stars yet again on a championship-winning roster.
Peyton Pritchard is the Celtics' question mark
Peyton Pritchard is the same age as Jayson Tatum, yet it still feels like Boston's backup point guard has real upside that Tatum found in himself years ago.
He showcased evolution in his game last year, with his FG% going up by almost ten percent to 59.3%. He was also almost a double digit scorer per game with 9.6ppg, and while this was helped by increased minutes, the rise in efficiency shows that Pritchard has taken a step up in what he can offer this roster.
When Pritchard was drafted out of Oregon after his senior year, he was labelled as a big-game competitor, credited for his ability as a shooter, complimented for his solid passing ability and compared to Jalen Brunson. Brunson's career has seen him evolve from a talented role player for the Dallas Mavericks into a cornerstone of the New York Knicks, and he is now one of the best players in the NBA.
Can Pritchard, now entering his fifth season in the league, take a step up in his game that sees him become an elite role player, if not a borderline All-Star? It's a stretch, but the Oregon native will be sure to back himself.
Baylor Scheierman adds more shooting threat to a roster known for its' elite prowess from downtown
With the last pick of the first round of the NBA Draft that happened over the summer, the Celtics took Baylor Schierman, a shooting guard with five years of college experience for both Creighton and South Dakota State.
Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla, the joint-youngest HC in the entire NBA, is known for his ability to get everyone on top form. In theory, Schierman is a perfect fit for this team. He's another pair of hands who is lethal from three and, despite a long career in college, still has parts of his game that Mazzulla will hope to eke out more production from.
"He stays consistent. He just makes the right calls, and we just trust him completely."
Celtics guard Derrick White on how the team feel about head coach Joe Mazzulla.
The Creighton guard shot decently well from deep in his two years for the team and fantastically in his final seasons with South Dakota, and a consistent jump shot as well as his willingness to play the role of a spot-up shooter, he has been compared to established NBA shot-makers like Luke Kennard and Sam Hauser.
As with any rookie's career, things might go south - especially with the volatility of the shooting guard role in the modern NBA landscape, but Boston's new rookie could easily become a great complimentary piece to the roster.
VAVEL USA's Prediction for the Celtics in 2024/2025: NBA Finals winners
It's somewhat of a curse to predict a team to win two championships in a row. The Nikola Jokić-led Denver Nuggets fell to the beating-the-Nuggets-constructed Minnesota Timberwolves after winning it all in 2023. The Golden State Warriors won a chip in 2022 in what felt like a perfect send-off to the eliteness of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, as they fell to the Lakers in the ECF semis a season later and didn't even make the postseason last year.
The NBA has had six different winners in as many years - what makes the Celtics different?
The simple fact that their team is the best team in the league by some margin, with a good mix of depth and top-end talent. If Jayson Tatum isn't having a great shooting night, Jaylen Brown probably will. If Brown also isn't performing, it'll be Kristaps Porziņġis and Derrick White. And so on and so forth. It feels like somewhat of a cop-out to predict what seems to be the status quo as for the NBA champions this year, but everyone knows the best team in the league is the Celtics.
