How the Celtics’ Championship Roster is Now Their Biggest Challenge
The Celtics are suffering from the decision to bring an entire championship roster back with no significant changes.
Much has been made about the Celtics roster and ballooning luxury tax expenses that are staring theCeltics down, but not many people mentioned the side effects of bringing all those players back on the floor.
On paper, it makes sense. The Celtics ran over the league last year with little to no competition all the way to their 18th banner. If given the opportunity, every championship team would want to run it back with the same roster. It's a proven concept. The results are in. Generally, contracts getting in the way of that. Success breeds more money for individuals. In the Celtics case they uniquely were in a position where pappa Wyc came out from behind the curtain like Oz has his franchise hit an all time high in value and said “boo bitch! I'm selling the team”. Then his boy Lil Wyc spent as much money as possible while he still could to keep everyone in house.
Come time for his players to hit the floor it looked like they did not miss a beat for the first month of the season. Including a buzzsaw effort against the Knicks on opening night. However, now that we've hit the midway part of the season complacency sets in. This is normal for all teams. Especially championship teams. You could even say, especially for this Celtics team that has played more minutes than any other basketball team in the world over the past five or six seasons because of their playoff success.
Last year, the Celtics missed this mid season low because of coming up short in the previous years. They were so determined to win the championship. This year, the natural low hit. Normally there would be inner objectives to conquer. Such as developing new rotations for new players. Understanding new skill sets and where they fit in. Identifying new sets, etc.. There is a learning process with new identities on the team. This learning curve can take away from the monotony of the season. It can add excitement when a new door is unlocked.
The Celtics lack any newness. When they look inward towards themselves at time of struggle the ask what the problem is? Without the outlet of some new guys and perfecting chemistry maybe it increases or creates some self-doubt? From the players and the coaches? Guys start forcing it. They get outside of natural rhythms, they get away from what works.
I'm confident the Celtics will find their footing. They are too good not to. But what if they don’t? No. Their talent should win this battle. But what if coaching gets in the way? Can Joe Mazzulla stop riding the wave and embracing the suck and actually makes some significant adjustments to at least make his team think or adapt or change, like at all? Or is it all on the players to figure it out?