Will Celtics bring home Banner 18? Simulating the 2022-23 season originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
All eyes will be on the Boston Celtics during the 2022-23 NBA season. They established themselves as the class of the Eastern Conference by taking the Golden State Warriors to Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
This time, C’s stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown will have help in the form of newcomers Malcolm Brogdon and Danilo Gallinari as they look to bring Banner 18 to Boston. After last season’s exciting run, it’s fair to say anything less than an NBA championship for this group would be a disappointment.
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With the 2022-23 NBA schedule out and rosters (mostly) set, our partners at Strat-O-Matic simulated the full regular season and playoffs. Will these Celtics finally get over the hump? Here’s what the projections say.
The Jays
Perhaps the most surprising takeaways from Strat-O-Matic’s simulation are the regular-season statistics for Tatum and Brown.
Tatum’s scoring takes a nosedive in Year 6 of his NBA career. He finishes the campaign with a respectable 21.5 points per game, but that’s a significant drop from 2020-21 and 2021-22 when he averaged 26.4 and 26.9, respectively.
As Tatum struggled, it was Brown picking up the slack. He led the team with 22.4 points per game in his age 26 season. Still, that’s a drop from his scoring averages in 2020-21 (24.7 ppg) and 2021-22 (23.6).
With those numbers, the Celtics definitely will need the supporting cast to step up.
The new guys
The Celtics bolstered their bench by trading for point guard Malcolm Brogdon and signing veteran forward Danilo Gallinari during the offseason. The hope is that Brogdon will perfectly complement defensive-minded guard Marcus Smart and Gallinari will add a scoring punch for the second unit.
Brogdon averages 15.6 ppg in the simulated Celtics season. He hasn’t finished with a mark that low since 2018-19 with the Milwaukee Bucks. However, the scoring dropoff is likely due to him coming off the bench with Smart as the team’s starting point guard.
As for Gallinari, the Italian sharpshooter notches 10.8 ppg in his first season as a Celtic. That would be the lowest mark of any full season in his 15-year NBA career.
Notable games
The Celtics have no shortage of intriguing matchups on the schedule for the 2022-23 season. It all starts on Oct. 18 when they host the Philadelphia 76ers on…