New-look Celtics won’t work right away, but their eyes are now on the top prize

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/celtics/2017/08/bulpett_new_look_celtics_won_t_work_right_away_but_their_eyes_are_now_on_the



Bulpett: New-look Celtics won’t work right away, but their eyes are now on the top prize




Steve Bulpett



Sunday, August 27, 2017





Credit: Associated Press
HOW DO YOU DO? Assuming superstar Kyrie Irving is still waving hello — and not goodbye — to Boston, the Celtics have another major addition to Gordon Hayward, inset, in the chemistry experiment that is the team’s offseason roster overhaul.



We will watch intently from the first dribbles of training camp. We will over-analyze preseason games in the same manner as the fate of the republic is hanging in the balance every time Jimmy Garoppolo drops back to pass in August.

We will try to read hints of next May into each possession on Oct. 17 . . .

The Celtics failed to box out and get that defensive rebound? The Cavaliers will kill them on the glass in the conference finals.

Cleveland collapsed on a driving Kyrie Irving and left Gordon Hayward open for a 3-pointer? The Celts are no doubt going to the NBA Finals.

But as much as you want to see the Celtics be right away on the floor what they are on paper, such is not possible. And you should be quite comforted by that fact. Whatever you see in the first few months from this team needs to be taken in perspective.

(This all presumes that the Celts and Cavs will work out any issues with Isaiah Thomas’ health and complete the major trade — a matter about which we were still awaiting word late yesterday.)

We wrote after the season that, despite the Celts winning 53 games and making the East finals, significant changes were coming. But even in that warning there was no expectation that just four players would be left from the roster, and that but one starter would remain.

Brad Stevens joked on Friday that he was learning his players’ names last week. At least we think it was a joke.

That Danny Ainge and the rest of those in upper management would be so willing to reshuffle the deck after such a numerically successful season is rather conclusive evidence that the suits do not believe in fairy tales. The 2016-17 Celtics were gritty, talented and entertaining as hell, but they were not a serious match for the Cavs in the East, which renders any other comparisons moot.

The C’s simply weren’t good enough, and that’s all that matters. And with Al Horford at 31, waiting for the Cavaliers to get old and wither away wasn’t a real option. To its credit, the club did not take the safe route.

With adding Hayward — though it did mean subtracting Avery Bradley — the Celtics address the critical need for a scorer it could count upon every night. But while that made them a more formidable opponent for Cleveland, it didn’t put them on the same rung. More was needed.

As great as Isaiah Thomas has been and as much as he’s meant to the franchise, Irving is an upgrade in the lead guard role. And while this is about the coming season, it’s important to keep handy the fact that the Celtics were not going to give Isaiah a max contract if he’d still been in their uniform when he becomes a free agent next summer.

Whether he would have settled for less to stay is something even he may not have been able to answer until the time came, but at the very least it was going to be a difficult situation.

Losing him now is hard, as well. The same is the case with Jae Crowder, but from the moment the Celts drafted Jayson Tatum, they were expecting the No. 3 overall pick would eventually command his minutes. For the Celts to get where they need to be, Tatum’s orientation must be accelerated — not exactly a given with a 19-year-old.

And though Jaylen Brown, who won’t become of legal drinking age until a week after the opener in Cleveland, has an NBA season under his belt, he too is very much in the developmental stage.

Others even more unproven may find themselves in the rotation, too. If Irving, Hayward, Horford, Brown, Marcus Smart, Marcus Morris, Terry Rozier, Tatum and Aron Baynes are slated for playing time, then Guerschon Yabusele and Semi Ojeleye and others might have roles, or at least get reasonable regular season looks to earn them.

That uncertainty will likely be problematic for maybe more than half the regular season. It was relatively easy for the Warriors to integrate rookie Patrick McCaw into their rotation and play him the ninth-most minutes per game last season because everything around him — even the addition of Kevin Durant — was so stable.

But even among the Celtics veterans, there will be a getting-to-know-you period. While the Warriors and Durant were familiar with each other from regular season and playoff battles, Irving’s Cavaliers played Hayward’s Jazz just twice a season. That duo and Horford have to achieve a comfort level with one another that will allow people like Brown and Tatum — who have to be good for the Celtics to be great — to grow up in a nurturing environment.

To expect it all to work right away is foolish. Even those involved in the great 2007 marriage of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen agreed that things wouldn’t have gone so smoothly had they not all been at the same career juncture with multiple personal commendations but nothing of team-wide substance to show for their glory. They were all ready to bend for the greater good.


That has to be the case with the Celts’ new lead trio, the least-paid of whom (Irving) has a salary more than three times greater than the teammate next in line. If that group can play well together, it will speed the process.

They may not look as good concurrently as the foliage or winter’s snow in the Berkshires, but as is custom in these parts, there will be hope for spring.

And in contrast to the Celtics prospects as they began this offseason, the larger goal will be next April and May rather than 2018-19.



bob



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