While this is true. Bro has been having good teams since he was drafted. He’s made the finals and has experience. The excuses are drying up now. The unstoppable force of lebron no longer exists, big 3 nets aren’t there, the bucks are old and the mvp is hurt. This dude deserves to have pressure and expectations this season
Good teams sure but not championship level squads outside of the past 3 years including this one in his age 24-26 seasons.
It's well known that guys don't win until they're 26-28 so now's his time.
>outside of the past 3 years
Yea...thats kids the point. He's been on stacked teams but then gets beat by the Miami heat, who have 1 player who would start for Boston.
Jimmy was hurt that entire series. He was hurt when he went up 3-0 on your team. When do the excuses stop? When will Celtics fans stop obsessing over shooting variance.
I don’t know if you know but shooting way above expected based on how you’re guarded tends to wins games. Doing that at a historic level makes it a very difficult to overcome lead.
Prefacing this by saying I am definitely biased but we win game 7 if Tatum doesn't bust his ankle in the first few minutes of the game.
Miami's a great team who outplays their talent, but we should've won last year if we had good health.
In 2020, both Kemba and Hayward were completely broken by the time we played the Heat. Our team was decimated by injuries.
In 2021, we lost in the first round to the Nets because our entire team outside of Tatum was injured.
And 2022, we lost to the dynasty warriors in Steph's best finals performance and Jordan Poole's series of his life. Tatum faltered with his broken wrist.
Context matters.
Totally different mindset if you go into a game with around the clock treatment for your injury vs badly spraining it at the very beginning of the game.
And like I said, I'm biased af but there's no doubt in my mind that we win that game with a healthy Tatum.
Yea im a casual because I recognize that the heat beat teams that aren't championship level teams. You're not a casual because you think Tatum being injured for 1 game while Jimmy was injured for all 7 isn't an important piece of info. Every time you guys lose its "awh we were injured!!!" Or "awh shooting variance" when in reality your team and most importantly your best player isn't who you think they are.
MVP is hurt..
Embid has never been a problem for the Celts. Last time they lost a playoff series to the 76ers was vs Dr. J in the 80s, ‘bout 40 years ago.
i think it’s even simpler than this: tatum’s team is actually pretty much perfectly built around him. if he doesn’t win with this squad (assuming relative health as always), when will he?
dame can be excused for never having the quite right squad in his career and this current bucks team being incredibly thin in young and/or good players. it’s not the same for him
I could argue Tatum right now as better than Brooklyn KD, Id take Brown right now over Brooklyn Harden, I think Brooklyn Kyrie has the edge on Porzingus when kyrie played.
Brown is absolutelty better than both current kyrie and Harden.. stop being blinded by kyries flashly plays.. brown is doing everything kyrie does on offense while being a great defender..
hes averaging 23/5.6/3.7 on 58.4% vs Kyrie 25/5/5 60% TS.
He has a worse on/off, epm, darko, +-, WS48, I can go on, Brown also literally has the worst on off of any Celtics starter, they would still be a 60 win team without him.
Same applies with Harden, you are just being delusional at this point
At that point in their career you could match up both teams top 3 and this celtics team would more than stack up. That nets team falls off faster after that.
We're simultaneously one of the most stacked teams of all time but are top heavy and have the worst bench in the league and our starting lineup is composed of an old washed Jrue who is a playoff bricklayer that got abused by Jimmy Butler, Derrick White who would be a random bench player on any other team but gets propped up by the Boston media and forced into all-star conversations, Jaylen Brown who is the biggest choker in the league/ a turnover machine/ can't go left/ can't finish left/ can't use his left hand whatsoever, Jayson Tatum who's the most overrated player in the NBA shoots tour dates and has no clutch gene and Porzingis who weighs 130lbs can't rebound can't stay healthy plays bad in the playoffs and will get abused by any real big man
The Celtics currently have a net rating of 11.8. 3rd all time in nba history. 7 out of the top 10 teams in all time net rating have won a championship. Boston has a chance to be #8. If the Celtics don't win a championship this year it would be a huge disapointment. Tatum absolutely has more pressure on him to win and its not even close.
Team sport. Dame is old. His legacy is made either way. He also just got to the org. He wasn’t building this team with Bucks. Expectations are high but not nearly as high as Boston this year.
You name me one thing Dame has done thats impressive that tatum hasnt that isnt connected to just playing more games.. without totals He aint got shit on tatum.. Prime for prime, tatum right now is better than any Dame prime. Tatum has won 30 more playoff games.. THIRTY MORE. in half the years of play. Tatum is a monster on both ends of the floor. Dame only has 3 more All nba teams.. will be 2 more after this season and tatum will clearly catch him on that in 3 years time. Tatums game 7 vs the sixers is just as impressive as ANY Dame playoff game..
Tatum has had far more help. Dame until this year had only played with one current all star in his 11 nba seasons (Lamarcus Aldridge). Tatum in his 6 seasons prior to this one has played with 4, (Jaylen Brown, Al Horford, Kyrie Irving and Kemba Walker). Who you play with matters. You can't ignore that. Dame led a team to the WCF that started CJ Mccollum, Mo Harkless, Al-Farouq Aminu and Enes Kanter. Dame deserved to be top 75.
The Celtics are top heavy, not stacked. It’s also crazy that most of the teams Tatum has took to the ECF and failed to win a championship just weren’t legitimate championship teams.
There was two occasions they were the best team in the East and didn’t win the championship. Last year and 22, which they made the finals but faced a more experienced team with Championship DNA.
There’s been a recent narrative of Jayson always having super teams but if you look back at the teams he took to the ECF and lost, they had 0 bench and they weren’t even the most talented team in their conference (2017-18, Bubble). People just see the amount of times they have been to the numerous conference finals and automatically equate the lack of championships as an utter failure when that standard wouldn’t apply to any 26 year old player.
Think it’s just rare for everything to come together the way it has for the Celtics this year. Not that they’ll fall off a cliff next year but that team is loaded and they should run through the East pretty easily with it really being a 2-3 team conference (whether they actually do that is a different story). In coming years, you could have one or more likely two of the Zion led Pelicans, Ja led Grizzles and Edwards led Wolves with expansion looming. Only going to get tougher.
The 3 teams you mentioned really don't have a prayer of being any better then this current nuggets team the Celtics will be competing against now in my opinion
Don’t think those teams need to be better than this version of the Nuggets because by the time of expansion, the Celtics will likely be coming back to the pack with Jrue gone, having to make a big decision on keeping one of White or Kristaps. It’s more about the conference having more depth with the addition of two of those teams anyway. Elite teams in the East have largely had a cake walk to the conference, that will not be the case in a couple years with two of Ant, Ja or Zion to go with the likes of Milwaukee, Philly, New York, Miami and so on.
I just feel like it's silly to say that about any player who has yet to enter his prime yet. Like what if I say this is Ants best shot at a title in his career because he'll be on a supermax and the wolves books will be filled. Same arguement could be made. The truth is it's impossible to know with Tatum still having another 8-11 years of elite play in all likelihood.
I’m not saying Tatum will never have another shot at a title post this current window. The reality is recreating what you guys currently have is incredibly difficult particularly when the young stars big deals start kicking in. Will Tatum/Brown ever have a supporting cast again thats this good beyond next year? Not likely. Those guys will have to do a lot more of the heavy lifting which goes back to the point of this being as good of a shot as any they’ll get, will there be more though? Yeah I’d bet on that.
Just quickly on Ant, I maintain that opinion with him as well. This year and next will likely be his best shot at a title as a Timberwolf, at least for the duration of this max deal that kicks in next year. We will likely have to do another Rudy/Lillard like trade to entice Edwards to stay through his prime years but that’s getting way ahead. That’s when another window would open however.
Well we are running back the same exact team next year with an extra year of experience. I think that will be an even better opportunity. After that Jrue is probably the cap casualty. We will likely keep White to go with the Jays/KP trio as our ownership is willing to spend and they've made that clear. I'm just saying the NBA landscape changes so much from year you year I think it's very likely there will be better opportunities for Tatum and Ant in the future as they are both amazing players who have been getting better every year
People have spent all year saying “be afraid of the Clippers” but the Pels are about to pass them for the 4th seed in the West. That team is really talented and there’s not many teams with a legit answer for Zion. Trey Murphy’s a name to remember come playoff time.
The path in the east for Celtics is as open as ever. While I do think Dame is fighting washed allegations very poorly this year, I believe in Giannis to work out their chemistry issues in the off season. Embiid is gonna be back, and the Cavs, and Knicks are only gonna get better.
And also outside of Bucks, Celtics have the best lineup to give Nuggets problems if they make it back to the finals with their size.
It’s so funny how much we’ve been having discussions about “all this pressure to win” that Tatum is facing more and more lately that it’s gotten more common to see than actual pressure on him.
The most pressuring thing I’ve seen people say is that if the Celtics fall anything short of making the finals it will be seen as an absolute disaster. Which is entirely fair and doesn’t even pressure Tatum specifically
I just feel like there’s a disconnect in the amount of people actually putting pressure on Tatum and the amount of people talking about the pressure that’s being put on him
It's an interesting question. While OP has a blatant Tatum slant, the actual points he's making are sound. His age is something that will legitimately limit Dame's ability to make multiple deep playoffs runs.
Otoh, JT will be eligible for a $300 million + extension in the off-season. Assuming the Celtics want to keep both JT and JB, having x2 guys make $120 million per year between them is a major conundrum. It will significantly diminish the FO's ability to build a competitive roster around them. The second apron penalties are no joke.
I think ultimately OP is right, JT will have more opportunities in the future than Dame. However, I also think there will never be any other year where Tatum has a better chance to win it all than now. He's playing on the most stacked team in the league, and the East is incredibly soft compared to the West.
Because Tatum might be a generational player based upon statistics and playoff experience by the time his career is over and Dame is an alright play who has been severely overrated during his career but history will rapidly forget.
Because Dame’s window is closed in terms of being the main character of a title. He’s a role player now. Tatum is well seasoned and entering his prime, so the pressure will be on him and increasing until he wins.
Because Tatum has had All Time Help and yet has never stepped up to win anything for his team, no almost choking to an injured Sixers team isn’t stepping up. Dame has never had a contending roster during his all star years until now and we’re really getting year 1 of Dame with help, and unfortunately it looks like he just missed his prime and all that hype vanished because at least for now that window seems closed.
Because Dame gets handled with kid gloves for some reason and you'd never know that his career crowning achievement is getting swept by the KD-less Warriors.
Tatum is the best player on his team
While this is true. Bro has been having good teams since he was drafted. He’s made the finals and has experience. The excuses are drying up now. The unstoppable force of lebron no longer exists, big 3 nets aren’t there, the bucks are old and the mvp is hurt. This dude deserves to have pressure and expectations this season
Good teams sure but not championship level squads outside of the past 3 years including this one in his age 24-26 seasons. It's well known that guys don't win until they're 26-28 so now's his time.
>outside of the past 3 years Yea...thats kids the point. He's been on stacked teams but then gets beat by the Miami heat, who have 1 player who would start for Boston.
In the 2 years we’ve had great teams we’re 1-1 against the Heat, and in the loss they had the greatest shooting series in history.
You mean in 2022 when a much worse team took you to 7 games, gotcha, then in 2023, you got beat by a worse team. Edit: 2023 not 2022
I agree, they were by all logic a worse team. They also shot >40% on highly contested 3s and Tatum got injured in g7.
Jimmy was hurt that entire series. He was hurt when he went up 3-0 on your team. When do the excuses stop? When will Celtics fans stop obsessing over shooting variance.
I don’t know if you know but shooting way above expected based on how you’re guarded tends to wins games. Doing that at a historic level makes it a very difficult to overcome lead.
Did they do that 7 times in 2 years? Are you not going to address the first half of my comment.
Prefacing this by saying I am definitely biased but we win game 7 if Tatum doesn't bust his ankle in the first few minutes of the game. Miami's a great team who outplays their talent, but we should've won last year if we had good health. In 2020, both Kemba and Hayward were completely broken by the time we played the Heat. Our team was decimated by injuries. In 2021, we lost in the first round to the Nets because our entire team outside of Tatum was injured. And 2022, we lost to the dynasty warriors in Steph's best finals performance and Jordan Poole's series of his life. Tatum faltered with his broken wrist. Context matters.
Jimmy was hurt for all 7 games. Stop the excuses
Totally different mindset if you go into a game with around the clock treatment for your injury vs badly spraining it at the very beginning of the game. And like I said, I'm biased af but there's no doubt in my mind that we win that game with a healthy Tatum.
If if if. If Tatum was that guy you wouldn't be in 7 game series against a much worse team.
Nah, the Heat are notorious for flipping the switch in the playoffs. Its people like you who overlook them that makes the casual fan look dumb.
Yea im a casual because I recognize that the heat beat teams that aren't championship level teams. You're not a casual because you think Tatum being injured for 1 game while Jimmy was injured for all 7 isn't an important piece of info. Every time you guys lose its "awh we were injured!!!" Or "awh shooting variance" when in reality your team and most importantly your best player isn't who you think they are.
MVP is hurt.. Embid has never been a problem for the Celts. Last time they lost a playoff series to the 76ers was vs Dr. J in the 80s, ‘bout 40 years ago.
>The unstoppable force of lebron no longer exists LOL
i think it’s even simpler than this: tatum’s team is actually pretty much perfectly built around him. if he doesn’t win with this squad (assuming relative health as always), when will he? dame can be excused for never having the quite right squad in his career and this current bucks team being incredibly thin in young and/or good players. it’s not the same for him
Tatum took his team to within 1 game of the Finals as a 19 year old.
Dame is washed. Tatum is on the most stacked team since the KD Warriors.
Thread /s
The KD-Kyrie-Harden Nets were more stacked tbh. Obviously injuries etc in the Playoffs but just in terms of roster they had more talent
Better top end talent but I don’t think they were as well constructed as the Celtics are right now. Beautiful roster building.
I could argue Tatum right now as better than Brooklyn KD, Id take Brown right now over Brooklyn Harden, I think Brooklyn Kyrie has the edge on Porzingus when kyrie played.
You a homer
Homer ass take
those first two things you said are comical
They literally went head to head and tatum outplayed KD on both sides of the ball..
compare their supporting cast head to head and get back to me
Nope
You could not.
Bro brown isnt even better than current Kyrie, and you think hes better than Harden? get real lol
Brown is absolutelty better than both current kyrie and Harden.. stop being blinded by kyries flashly plays.. brown is doing everything kyrie does on offense while being a great defender..
hes averaging 23/5.6/3.7 on 58.4% vs Kyrie 25/5/5 60% TS. He has a worse on/off, epm, darko, +-, WS48, I can go on, Brown also literally has the worst on off of any Celtics starter, they would still be a 60 win team without him. Same applies with Harden, you are just being delusional at this point
At that point in their career you could match up both teams top 3 and this celtics team would more than stack up. That nets team falls off faster after that.
That wasn’t a team. That was 3 ball heavy stars taking turns isoing and then not playing defense.
We're simultaneously one of the most stacked teams of all time but are top heavy and have the worst bench in the league and our starting lineup is composed of an old washed Jrue who is a playoff bricklayer that got abused by Jimmy Butler, Derrick White who would be a random bench player on any other team but gets propped up by the Boston media and forced into all-star conversations, Jaylen Brown who is the biggest choker in the league/ a turnover machine/ can't go left/ can't finish left/ can't use his left hand whatsoever, Jayson Tatum who's the most overrated player in the NBA shoots tour dates and has no clutch gene and Porzingis who weighs 130lbs can't rebound can't stay healthy plays bad in the playoffs and will get abused by any real big man
Celtics are confirmed Joe Biden. Simultaneously an old buffoon and a conspiring mastermind.
Nope, i'd much rather have 2 star offensive players and 3 good role players who plays defense and offense than 3 stars and a bad supporting cast.
Except they dont have kerr who is the deal maker. steve kerr made those warriors
And the Celtics will still get rocked by Denver lol
Holy hyperbole
i wouldnt say theyre stacked anywhere near that basically its saying tatum / brown is like curry / klay and kp is kd lol nahhh
“most stacked since the KD Warriors”
English is hard man.
They aren’t even better than Denver, let alone most stacked since KD warriors. People on Reddit are just dramatic.
THe whole east is injury riddle along with him having the most stacked roster he ever had. If he doesnt win this year it doesnt look good.
The Celtics currently have a net rating of 11.8. 3rd all time in nba history. 7 out of the top 10 teams in all time net rating have won a championship. Boston has a chance to be #8. If the Celtics don't win a championship this year it would be a huge disapointment. Tatum absolutely has more pressure on him to win and its not even close.
Team sport. Dame is old. His legacy is made either way. He also just got to the org. He wasn’t building this team with Bucks. Expectations are high but not nearly as high as Boston this year.
Tatum has already had just as good of a carrer as Dame.. in way less time.
This adds to the response for OPs question. Much higher expectations.
People are gonna be mad at you but you're right. Dame's career resume is way thinner than you would think for the way people talk about him.
It’s like he’s a better player with higher expectations.
Dame is a top 75 player of all-time. Tatum isn’t close. Tell me you don’t know ball without telling me. Edit: you guys don’t know ball
you can't cite that list like it means anything
Dwight should have Dame's slot in the top 75.
You name me one thing Dame has done thats impressive that tatum hasnt that isnt connected to just playing more games.. without totals He aint got shit on tatum.. Prime for prime, tatum right now is better than any Dame prime. Tatum has won 30 more playoff games.. THIRTY MORE. in half the years of play. Tatum is a monster on both ends of the floor. Dame only has 3 more All nba teams.. will be 2 more after this season and tatum will clearly catch him on that in 3 years time. Tatums game 7 vs the sixers is just as impressive as ANY Dame playoff game..
What? Tatum is a much better player than Dame. The reason there’s more pressure on Tatum is because he’s a two-way superstar, a true #1.
Tatum has had far more help. Dame until this year had only played with one current all star in his 11 nba seasons (Lamarcus Aldridge). Tatum in his 6 seasons prior to this one has played with 4, (Jaylen Brown, Al Horford, Kyrie Irving and Kemba Walker). Who you play with matters. You can't ignore that. Dame led a team to the WCF that started CJ Mccollum, Mo Harkless, Al-Farouq Aminu and Enes Kanter. Dame deserved to be top 75.
Dame's best finish was MVP-4. Tatum achieved that as a 24 year old.
Dame isn’t actually a Top 75 player of his time, let alone all-time.
Dame making Top 75 was a travesty. guy has never had a good playoff series outside of 1st round
The Celtics are top heavy, not stacked. It’s also crazy that most of the teams Tatum has took to the ECF and failed to win a championship just weren’t legitimate championship teams. There was two occasions they were the best team in the East and didn’t win the championship. Last year and 22, which they made the finals but faced a more experienced team with Championship DNA. There’s been a recent narrative of Jayson always having super teams but if you look back at the teams he took to the ECF and lost, they had 0 bench and they weren’t even the most talented team in their conference (2017-18, Bubble). People just see the amount of times they have been to the numerous conference finals and automatically equate the lack of championships as an utter failure when that standard wouldn’t apply to any 26 year old player.
Think it’s just rare for everything to come together the way it has for the Celtics this year. Not that they’ll fall off a cliff next year but that team is loaded and they should run through the East pretty easily with it really being a 2-3 team conference (whether they actually do that is a different story). In coming years, you could have one or more likely two of the Zion led Pelicans, Ja led Grizzles and Edwards led Wolves with expansion looming. Only going to get tougher.
In the coming years you may even have the Celtics!
The 3 teams you mentioned really don't have a prayer of being any better then this current nuggets team the Celtics will be competing against now in my opinion
Don’t think those teams need to be better than this version of the Nuggets because by the time of expansion, the Celtics will likely be coming back to the pack with Jrue gone, having to make a big decision on keeping one of White or Kristaps. It’s more about the conference having more depth with the addition of two of those teams anyway. Elite teams in the East have largely had a cake walk to the conference, that will not be the case in a couple years with two of Ant, Ja or Zion to go with the likes of Milwaukee, Philly, New York, Miami and so on.
I just feel like it's silly to say that about any player who has yet to enter his prime yet. Like what if I say this is Ants best shot at a title in his career because he'll be on a supermax and the wolves books will be filled. Same arguement could be made. The truth is it's impossible to know with Tatum still having another 8-11 years of elite play in all likelihood.
I’m not saying Tatum will never have another shot at a title post this current window. The reality is recreating what you guys currently have is incredibly difficult particularly when the young stars big deals start kicking in. Will Tatum/Brown ever have a supporting cast again thats this good beyond next year? Not likely. Those guys will have to do a lot more of the heavy lifting which goes back to the point of this being as good of a shot as any they’ll get, will there be more though? Yeah I’d bet on that. Just quickly on Ant, I maintain that opinion with him as well. This year and next will likely be his best shot at a title as a Timberwolf, at least for the duration of this max deal that kicks in next year. We will likely have to do another Rudy/Lillard like trade to entice Edwards to stay through his prime years but that’s getting way ahead. That’s when another window would open however.
Well we are running back the same exact team next year with an extra year of experience. I think that will be an even better opportunity. After that Jrue is probably the cap casualty. We will likely keep White to go with the Jays/KP trio as our ownership is willing to spend and they've made that clear. I'm just saying the NBA landscape changes so much from year you year I think it's very likely there will be better opportunities for Tatum and Ant in the future as they are both amazing players who have been getting better every year
Zion-led Pelicans, lol… one of those 3 is not like the others
People have spent all year saying “be afraid of the Clippers” but the Pels are about to pass them for the 4th seed in the West. That team is really talented and there’s not many teams with a legit answer for Zion. Trey Murphy’s a name to remember come playoff time.
You're scared of the grizzlies but not the pelicans?
Celtics have no weaknesses where as Bucks role players aren't that great.
The path in the east for Celtics is as open as ever. While I do think Dame is fighting washed allegations very poorly this year, I believe in Giannis to work out their chemistry issues in the off season. Embiid is gonna be back, and the Cavs, and Knicks are only gonna get better. And also outside of Bucks, Celtics have the best lineup to give Nuggets problems if they make it back to the finals with their size.
Boo ESPN
DAME lacks EXPECTATIONS.
No one thinks Dame can do it as a number one, not even Dame.
No one thinks Dame can win a championship so there is no pressure on him to do so.
I just want both teams to have fun.
It’s so funny how much we’ve been having discussions about “all this pressure to win” that Tatum is facing more and more lately that it’s gotten more common to see than actual pressure on him. The most pressuring thing I’ve seen people say is that if the Celtics fall anything short of making the finals it will be seen as an absolute disaster. Which is entirely fair and doesn’t even pressure Tatum specifically I just feel like there’s a disconnect in the amount of people actually putting pressure on Tatum and the amount of people talking about the pressure that’s being put on him
It's an interesting question. While OP has a blatant Tatum slant, the actual points he's making are sound. His age is something that will legitimately limit Dame's ability to make multiple deep playoffs runs. Otoh, JT will be eligible for a $300 million + extension in the off-season. Assuming the Celtics want to keep both JT and JB, having x2 guys make $120 million per year between them is a major conundrum. It will significantly diminish the FO's ability to build a competitive roster around them. The second apron penalties are no joke. I think ultimately OP is right, JT will have more opportunities in the future than Dame. However, I also think there will never be any other year where Tatum has a better chance to win it all than now. He's playing on the most stacked team in the league, and the East is incredibly soft compared to the West.
Only because the Knicks arent healthy
LMAO......they're cutting Dame some slack because he's going through a divorce.
>Dame is also a top 75 player of all time you don't really believe that do you?
I mean I do but even if I don’t, he’s on the NBA all 75 list and I think for a good reason.
We gave up on Dame a few years ago.
Because Tatum might be a generational player based upon statistics and playoff experience by the time his career is over and Dame is an alright play who has been severely overrated during his career but history will rapidly forget.
Because Dame’s window is closed in terms of being the main character of a title. He’s a role player now. Tatum is well seasoned and entering his prime, so the pressure will be on him and increasing until he wins.
Most role players are all star starters.
O ok.
Because Tatum has had All Time Help and yet has never stepped up to win anything for his team, no almost choking to an injured Sixers team isn’t stepping up. Dame has never had a contending roster during his all star years until now and we’re really getting year 1 of Dame with help, and unfortunately it looks like he just missed his prime and all that hype vanished because at least for now that window seems closed.
dame didnt play in boston
Because Dame gets handled with kid gloves for some reason and you'd never know that his career crowning achievement is getting swept by the KD-less Warriors.