The Boston Celtics have had by most accounts one of the best offseasons in the league, adding to the starting five that carried them to within two wins of an NBA title in the 2022 playoffs. And there’s been a fair amount of justified think pieces and podcasts trying to sort out just where the Celtics’ roster sits next to the other top teams in the league.
But where do they project in terms of the players who will play the team’s most important (and most frequent) minutes? While Boston certainly has a claim to one of the deepest rosters in the league, where do their starters stack up against the league’s elite franchises?
Bleacher Report’s Grant Hughes recently took a stab at such an exercise, and put Boston second overall in the league, just ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers and just behind the Golden State Warriors.
Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Al Horford, and Robert Williams III were of course the players in question, trailing the Dubs’ Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and Kevon Looney.
The Celtics were deemed a bit better than the 76ers’ James Harden, Tyrese Maxey, Tobias Harris, PJ Tucker, and Joel Embiid.
“This group does most of its damage on defense, holding opponents to 94.8 points per 100 possessions last season, good enough to rank in the 96th percentile among all lineups,” writes Hughes.
“With DPOY Smart at the point of attack, switchable wings in Tatum and Brown, and mobile bigs in Horford and Williams, Boston has all its bases covered. It doesn’t matter that the Celtics’ starting five only scored at a rate that ranked in the 71st percentile during 2021-22; it had enough stopping power on the other end to produce blowouts on a nightly basis.”
“Projecting ahead, Brown and Tatum are still young enough to make incremental improvements on both ends that should offset slippage from Horford as he enters his age-36 season,” adds the B/R analyst.
Should Horford decline, the Celtics can turn to Grant Williams instead, according to Hughes.
“Lineups including Williams in Horford’s spot last season were shockingly even better, hammering opponents by 33.3 points per 100 possessions,” he suggests.
In Hughes’ eyes, Boston is the title favorite going into the 2022-23 season, particularly because of the “depth-boosting additions of…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Celtics Wire…