Jayson Tatum’s torn right Achilles tendon from Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals signals an unforeseen page turn for the Boston Celtics, and it could start as soon as this upcoming offseason.
The team is staring down an improbable 3-1 series deficit commanded by the New York Knicks, so Wednesday night’s Game 5 contest could mark the end of the 2024-25 Celtics. That means, not only the end of Boston’s title repeat hopes, or the last we’ll see from Tatum this season. It could also trigger a wave of change throughout the organization, which the team’s potential second-round elimination by the Knicks would only make easier for the front office and ownership to commission in the coming months.
Word on the street is organizations across the league are already anticipating the Celtics will host a yard sale outside TD Garden.
“Even before Tatum’s injury in the first round, there was an NBA executive from another team that told me that he expected major change with the Celtics, no matter what happened this season,” ESPN’s Marc Spears reported. “And I certainly expect such to be the case when you have a payroll where you have five players making at least $28 million or more, two superstars that are making $50 million or more. And I’ll tell you what two teams I’m keeping an eye on for a couple of these guys is perhaps one, is the Houston Rockets. Why? Ime Udoka is there. They’ve been certainly rumored to wanting to upgrade their roster. … And then another team in the San Antonio Spurs, as well. They got the No. 2 pick, and I’m told that the Spurs are quite happy with the talent that’s available at No. 2, but they’re gonna explore trades as well.”
It took a lot of financial commitment and trust from the ownership group to allow Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens to reconstruct the roster two years ago. Stevens acquired Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, and then followed that top-notch 2023-24 offseason job by retaining all but two members of the team’s championship roster — an effort that included making Tatum the highest-paid player in league history after signing the 27-year-old to a five-year, $315 million deal.
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Currently, as the roster stands, the Celtics are committed to $228 million in roster salary, which would trigger $238 million in luxury tax penalties. That’s with Bill Chisholm’s ownership group preparing to take over once the franchise’s $6.1 billion sale seeks league approval this summer, so there’s an immediate challenge looming.
Tatum’s heroic performance at Madison Square Garden, that went overshadowed by the first major injury of his career, exposed a bigger issue with the 2024-25 Celtics: they’re unprepared. Porzingis is still hampered by illness, and it’s turned him into a 7-foot car wash tube man on the court. Jaylen Brown hasn’t been able to follow Tatum’s lead as a co-star instead of an underperforming sidekick, and the rest of the group has been mismanaged worse than any team Tatum and Brown have played alongside, thanks to head coach Joe Mazzulla. Self-sabotage at its purest form.
The Celtics had their chance to build their case. When the organization was in the process of considering suitors to replace Grousbeck, the locker room’s worry centered around the commitment to winning. Well, there are two parties to that commitment and those on the court haven’t held up their end of the bargain.
Boston should’ve put New York away already, but instead, the Mazzulla-led crew of confusion demonstrated its worst characteristic trait: arrogance. Instead of committing to an offensive scheme that makes head coach Tom Thibodeau’s Knicks break a sweat, the Celtics elected to run a stubborn 3-point hysteria. Tatum isn’t allowed to find the openings for teammates he did last postseason because Mazzulla has treated the offense like an arcade shootout that disregards the shot clock, the opponent at hand and the situational awareness it takes to be a champion.
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You have to take the good and the bad when it comes to Mazzulla-ball, and the Celtics have decided to ride the ugly into the ground.
“Get ready for the next one,” Brown said after Game 4, per CLNS Media. “Get ready to fight. Get ready to come out on our home floor and do what we need to do. That’s the goal. That’s still the goal. We got enough in this locker room, so I believe in my guys.”
It’s hard to imagine the Celtics reaching the conference finals, but it’s harder to imagine that ownership doesn’t respond aggressively to the team’s latest fumble.