FELINE QUICKNESS: The Boston Celtics Might Win 70 Games
Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics have much to prove again. Will they demolish opponents this season?
The basketball podcast Cookies Hoops is almost always saying something slightly unpopular. It’s a basketball and sometimes culture podcast that is based in New York, hosted by two downtown figures — Ben Detrick and Andrew Kuo — and tends to view basketball esoterically, as opposed to traditionally. It was Kuo who thinks that Jalen Brunson is a politician for taking a team-friendly contract when he was set to make much more, an accurate statement about Brunson’s catholic school earnestness; it is Detrick who claims that there is a “Boston Media Mafia” that tends to disproportionately discuss Boston sports; it is Kuo and Detrick who both think that injuries, and the media’s relentless criticism, ruined Ben Simmons’s once blooming career. (It’s surprising how much their arguments have grown on me, despite the fact that they can be slightly dogmatic at times). They are good podcasters; they are also good friends of mine, mostly sincere men who drink pints and frankly discuss the details of the hardwood.
Listen to the podcast and you’ll hear some of the takes that these big-brained men both have. Kuo, and possibly Detrick, for example, think that the best player on the Boston Celtics is actually Kristaps Porzingis. I know the audible groan that you are making is drowning out their voices on the podcast, but hear them out, I promise: Porzingis is the more efficient and weirder talent — at seven foot three, he has an innate ability to move like a gazelle, shoot, and put the ball on the floor in a way that isn’t unnatural — his three-point percentage is better (although Tatum shoots more of them), and he’s an accomplished rim protector. To translate anecdotally: The Celtics needed a boost in the first game of the NBA Finals against a hot Dallas team, with two guards that were sure to give Boston all the trouble they could possibly imagine. Did they go to Tatum? Sure, he’s who the offense flows through. The first set of the game often goes to him in the way the Knicks would do with Carmelo Anthony, or the Lakers would do with Kobe Bryant. Tatum is on the wing, and they allow him to beat whomever is guarding, a relatively chipper thing to do for an offensive wizard like Tatum. However, Porzingis came off the bench and scored a quick twenty points, emotionally dominating the game through his athleticism and three point stroke. The game turned right when Porzingis flashed his demonic face through the blistering television screen, a tall white player in an all-white – with a splash of green — uniform. He was on fire and he knew so, giving all the doubters, this writer included, a shameful face. We never saw it coming even after the team claimed he was healthy.
I’ve been wondering if Detrick and Kuo are correct about the take; a take that is surprisingly complicated, once you begin to understand the dynamics of offensive basketball in the NBA right now. It is the Tatum’s that are now shooting a bundle of shots from beyond the arc, and depending on the person you ask, it is either ruining the game, or just a disappointing answer to roster construction. I think saying that Porzingis is better than him is moderately unfair to Tatum, who has put together a butter-like offensive game that doesn’t have many holes besides his distribution, which could always be better. Tatum seems to be able to get you a fifty point game when the Celtics are on the road, and down three games to two, or when they are in the seventh game, and are ready to be sent home. The offense runs through him, he’s always available to play — unless you are Joel Embiid and miles better than your team’s second best player, I do think this matters — and he’s not an empty statistics scorer; he’s a real one, and when he is shooting well, a near impossible cover. Detrick and Kuo would say that I am biased against big men because they can’t get their own shot. Still, I wonder. In what world is Porzingis someone’s best player? Because if he isn’t here, in Boston, then he might not be someone’s best player on a team not named the Wizards, the Bulls, the Blazers, or the Nets.
In total, The Boston Celtics are never quite striking. They’re a top, elite, victorious team in a mediocre league, with traditional hoopers, swiss army knife-like players who are in the midst of being overdiscussed, a weirdly funny coach who is on the nerve of being annoying, and a fanbase that is highly represented in the liberal media. The slow rise of their team derived from the niche and nerdy Brad Stevens — who used to gently roam the sidelines before taking an executive position — who made the moves possible to add to the soil that began to bloom. There’s a feeling of pulverization involved with this team; it isn’t that they immediately look better than everyone else, especially not with Jaylen Brown’s dribbling skills still needing a slight refinement, it’s just that they contain the most multitudes out of any team. The roster has every style you could imagine, and it’s ready to morph into one machine to crush you into crumbs. Do you need natural scorers? The kind of scorers who should have the NBA on NBC theme blasted over their highlights? They have that. Would you like shooters that scrapped their way to popularity? They have that. What about lengthy big men who bounced around the league, but are outside threats? They have that, too. Facing them is not a feeling of impending doom, so much as it is a stunning look at roster resources. They have the horses; other teams end up in flames like Pie-O-My.
On Friday night, the Celtics defeated the upstart Charlotte Hornets by eleven points. On Saturday night, it was a ten point victory; it was a back to back, in the same building, and the Celtics won a seemingly boring NBA game. LaMelo Ball worked hard to keep the Hornets crowd from getting bored and trying to cause trouble at DaBaby’s house during the game, but it was an obvious Celtics win all the way. Last night, it was the Hawks who got stomped out. It was a thirty point deficit for the Hawks in the third quarter after Tatum passed it to Sam Hauser for a three point shot. Now, obviously, if the Hawks were a report card, they would be given D plus’s every single semester in every four years of high school, but it’s a dominating win, early in the season. For every time that the Celtics seem to win, it makes me wonder whether they’ll go on a historic run this season, despite my ambivalence towards the team itself. They actually remind me of the Golden State Warriors from the 2015-2016 season, when they were playing angry after Doc Rivers and other coaches wondered if they got lucky the year prior. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green wanted to hammer opponents, so much so that they were worn down by the end of the season. It famously came back to bite them.
Tatum, because of the events of the Olympics, where Steve Kerr seemingly forgot to play him at times, might also be motivated to dethrone the league of its competitiveness, despite his title run last season. Tatum is a maligned and semi-controversial figure — admirable for its game, and widely criticized for his aloof personality. Fans have had issues with him for his appropriation; first, over Kobe Bryant’s legacy, and secondly, his appropriation of Kevin Garnett’s euphoria, and his inability to show any veracious charm after he won the championship. Moreover, there’s been backlash over his alleged relationship with Jaylen Brown. (Every rumor you hear about Tatum and Brown suggests that they dislike one another, and certainly Brown is an outside the box person, and Tatum is a normal basketball athlete, but something tells me that it is overstated. Not every teammate has to be friends with one another; it could be a co-worker situation). Is this slightly unfair to Tatum, since the NBA has an indisputable cool problem? Possibly, since all of these guys are struggling to have engaging personalities in the era of teenage stardom and clinical media training.
My bearishness aside, the Celtics might win 70 games this season. They are easily the best team in the conference, they play in a market that will always encourage the kind of huge contempt a team has to have to demolish their opponents in the regular season, and Tatum is motivated. Maybe Steve Kerr should have thrown everyone a gauntlet and started Tatum during the Olympics.