I’d like to take a minute if that’s OK with everyone and give my dearest “thank you” to the Worldwide Leader In Sports. I’ve been watching NBA basketball for a long time, and honestly, I cannot remember the last time a defending NBA champion entered the season with perhaps even more motivation than the year they ran through the entire league without breaking a sweat on their way to securing a championship. The amount of disrespect the Celts have been receiving since the final buzzer on June 17th is truly remarkable, and knowing how hard it is to repeat as champs and resist complacency, it truly is a gift from the Basketball Gods.
And to their credit, nobody has done it better than ESPN. Earlier in my life this stuff would upset me, but now? I crave it. I need more of it. Let’s get nuts and keep Derrick White off the Top ESPN 100 again (remember that?!?). We got the Perk bullshit about nobody being scared of the Celtics despite mentioning the Celtics were why everyone was loading up in the East. Then Richard Jefferson went on TV and said you could swap Jayson Tatum with Donovan Mitchell and the Celtics would still win a title (wildly disrespectful and very wrong), and if you thought ESPN was done, boy oh boy.
Hell yes. This is what I’m talking about, baby. The Celts are minding their own business playing duck duck goose at training camp and suddenly they’ve been turned into the #UnderdogCeltics in a blink of an eye. Do you know what a blessing that is? You heard Bobby Marks. The Knicks have the best starting 5 in the NBA. Yes, this is the same Bobby Marks whose boneheaded trade while on the Nets ultimately created these Champion Boston Celtics, which is probably why he’s still a little salty, but hey, there’s no going back now.
I suppose this is what ESPN wanted instead of Zach Lowe, so again, I thank them for it. This, of course, isn’t new, as it reminded me of Jay Williams last year after the first game of the season
They really just can’t help themselves. It’s incredible.
So let’s dive into ol’ Bobby Marks’ declaration. First, it’s wrong. But let’s not pretend like that has ever gotten the way at ESPN/Clicks > Facts, ya know? Now I don’t want to sound too extreme, but I am of the belief that a starting five that put up one of the most dominant seasons in all of NBA history and who returned every single one of their starters would probably be considered the best in the NBA… seeing as how they are the best in the NBA, but again, that’s just me
but hey, that includes all of the players on the roster so let’s just focus on the starting five.
The 5 man lineup of Holiday/White/Brown/Tatum/Porzingis played in 37 games and 623 minutes together last year, good for the 6th most minutes of any 5 man combo in the league. How did they do?
Ortg: 120.3
Drtg: 109.4
Net Rating: +11.0
Of teams that played at least that many minutes together, there is not a single starting 5 that will enter this upcoming season with a better net rating. The only team that had a better net rating than that group last year while playing as many minutes (DEN), lost KCP. The Celts are quite literally, the best-rated starting five in the NBA.
What makes them so tough is, of course, that there is no real weakness to attack defensively. The Celts don’t have to hide a single defender in that starting unit, and everyone 1-5 is a two-way player. Offensively, what makes them so tough isn’t just the fact that they can all shoot; it’s the fact that they can all create. Pick a player and you can run your offense through them while giving them the responsibility of creating for others. That combination on both ends of the floor is extremely hard to build, and it’s why you don’t see seasons like the 2023-24 Celts had all that often.
In the Knicks, they’ve basically tried to become the off-brand Celtics, and as we know, the off-brand is never quite as good as the real thing. Yes, KAT is an elite stretch 5, something that will help create space and make them better. But… that’s only a part of the equation. Defensively, they now have not one, but two players you can target. Offensively, Brunson is really the only creator in that starting 5. You don’t want to give the ball to guys like Josh Hart, OG, or Mikal Bridges and say go create offense. They are more C&S/off ball-type players.
I also think people going to the extreme and saying the Knicks will be awful or worse after this trade are taking things too far. Just think about it logically. Adding an elite offensive 7-footer who provides a skillet that lineup needed will make them better in certain areas. But it’s still a flawed roster to some degree, especially in a playoff series when things slow down and weaknesses are repeatedly attacked. That’s the thing, once we get to that time of year, everything is about matchups. What made the Celts so dominant is the fact that they were scheme-proof, and that was even without Porzingis in the lineup! You add that unicorn and they frankly become untouchable, as we just saw.
Unless, of course, you’re Bobby Marks and ESPN. They know what they saw, they know what a historic season the champs just had, but why let that get in the way of pushing an agenda? To this day I have no idea why it’s so hard for anyone at ESPN to not be weird when it comes to the Boston Celtics, but as we inch closer and closer to Opening Night (against NYK), I am very happy this kind of shit keeps happening.
It’s easy to talk like this when the games aren’t being played. Once it’s time to prove it on the court, well, things suddenly look a whole lot different, don’t they?
