Losing key pieces from a championship team hurts, but the Celtics still have a chance to contend long term.
Losing Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, and Luke Kornet with Al Horford’s departure likely coming next hurts. It hurts a lot.
Those players helped us win a championship and are legends in Boston forever. They’ll return to tribute videos the make us emotional and we’ll give them a standing ovation.
It stinks and is no fun — none of this offseason has been fun.
Losing Jayson Tatum for most of, if not all, of the 2025-26 season kills any chance to compete makes this even more difficult.
Next season won’t be as fun as the last four have – although three of the endings haven’t been fun. The Celtics aren’t going to go into the season as a contender.
That doesn’t mean it is time to panic. A Big 3 of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White with support pieces of Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard is a good place to start.
That is a five-man unit that has a ton of shooting and guys who can create for themselves and others. Sure, Hauser and Pritchard might get picked on a bit on defense but their shooting on the other end makes up for it.
Do the Celtics need a long term center? Yes they do. However, solid centers are not very expensive on the free agent market and Boston has a chance to have their full Mid-Level exception next summer. If they do have it, hopefully they don’t sign Tristan Thompson again.
However, acting like the C’s are starting from scratch is something I find to be very bizarre. They aren’t. They are starting from a pretty good position I would argue.
Joe Mazzulla is an elite head coach and Brad Stevens is an elite lead executive. I have all the faith in the world that those two guys are going to make the right decision to build this roster out around their three best players.
This season also gives the Celtics to see what they have in the wings they have drafted in the past three drafts with Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman and Hugo Gonzalez.
I really enjoyed some of the things Scheierman did in his first season as a Celtic and a lot of people like Gonzalez as a prospect.
The Celtics also have Anfernee Simons’ $27 million expiring contract on their books that they can trade, let him walk as a free agent or extend him if they so choose. Though an extension would be very surprising and likely a bad move so they shouldn’t do that.
A lot of this depends on Jayson Tatum coming back and being a great player but I have every confidence in the world that Tatum will do just that. He has never given Celtic fans any reason to doubt him in any way.
Building around Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White has already led to one Celtic championship and Hauser and Pritchard were big pieces of that. Having those five guys on your roster is a very good place to start this retooling that the Celtics are going to under go over the next year.