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What will this Boston Celtics team look like next season?
WEEI-FM / WEEI
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5/21/2025
What will this Boston Celtics team look like next season? #Celtics insider Meghan_Ottolini joins!
"It's going to be different"
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Sports
Transcript
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00:00
wrap up the celtics season unfortunately our celtics insider mego has stopped by this morning
00:07
hello and good morning and how are you good morning i'm doing well how are you guys doing
00:10
great are you uh in the camp that lebron james is that the celtics uh particularly jason tatum
00:19
jaylen brown just got bored with being so good no okay that's such a silly idea to me like bored
00:28
of going back to back for the first time for this franchise since 1969 i don't think that there was
00:34
a lack of focus with this group overall now every team in the regular season has ebbs and flows when
00:40
it's as long as the nba season is but the biggest issue for this team was health and i think when
00:47
we look back decades from now and we say what happened with that title defense for that team
00:54
that ran back the roster with so many good players and didn't get back to the finals
00:58
we'll say well there was of course the tatum injury but even before that jaylen brown with
01:03
the meniscus tear drew holiday dealing with something that kept him out at the end of the
01:07
first round porzingis porzingis's uh what was it post viral yeah lingering viral uh long viral
01:15
whatever it is yeah so there i think that's what we'll look at but is it hard to say that when
01:21
kristops did have games where he he looked great jaylen brown had games despite the meniscus where
01:26
he looked great they they lose those first two games with jason tatum like drew holiday i'm with
01:32
you a completely different player than what we saw last season but to me it's hard to blame injury when
01:37
those guys did perform really well on some nights i agree i think game two of the next series is going
01:43
to be one that people look back on and go what happened there from a basketball sense because dropping
01:48
one at home is one thing but then losing in a similar fashion at the end of the game a second
01:53
game is it's pretty inexcusable but i just think the porzingis thing is the strangest because to your
02:00
point courtney he had seven games after he came back from the illness in the late winter where he was
02:06
averaging 22 points per game and he kept telling us like how bad he felt and everybody was thinking
02:12
well you look pretty good on the court so i don't know what's going on with you and then it just
02:16
seems like it got re-aggravated through these last two series you might go to think go ahead no the
02:22
thing i was going to say i i i understood what lebron was saying but i think he used the wrong word i
02:28
wouldn't say board i i for me it was complacency because when you're up 20 or or complacency or you
02:36
think you can just roll the ball out or turn the switch off whenever you want because that's what
02:41
games one and two looked like to me and that's what i would say that i think hit them this series
02:47
where they kind of got complacent took their foot off the gas a little bit and it bit them in the
02:53
ass because in the third and fourth quarter of those first two games you went ice cold and they
02:58
got hot i think that there's definitely something to that like games one and two brad steven said at
03:03
the press conference that i went to a couple days ago that's where the series was lost in games one
03:08
into in reality that they blew those two games in the series but even then it goes back to
03:14
christoph's porzingis is somebody who i said for the last six months you're going to need him for
03:22
this title defense like you need him healthy and he wasn't able to be instrumental in any way in this
03:28
series but you brought up brad stevens what is your guess at what these guys what does this team
03:34
look like next season it's going to be different like no doubt the way that you're sitting here
03:39
today the latest that i saw was even before the tax penalty you're 230 million in your payroll so
03:47
you're probably looking at having to shed somewhere between 20 and 25 million dollars to get under the
03:53
second apron and i just you heard with what grossbeck say like no team in this league is going to stay
03:59
in that second second apron for more than two years i think what's difficult here is that a lot
04:04
of people are looking at the situation and saying well you could move on from christoph's porzingis or
04:09
drew holiday and both of those guys have around 30 million dollar contracts unfortunately because of
04:14
how short your playoff duration was compared to what you expected you're now showing everybody kind
04:22
of your cards at the poker table everybody knows that you had to get under that luxury tax
04:26
and christoph's porzingis was sick for the playoffs and drew holiday didn't look like himself and
04:32
christoph's porzingis is on an expiring contract so maybe that's someone if you want to move on from
04:37
him you wait until even the next regular season and move him ahead of the trade deadline drew holiday
04:43
has three years left on his and so you get in this situation where it's like are you just looking to
04:49
shed salary are you looking to move other pieces sam hauser maybe like a core guy on the roster
04:55
i don't think that personally i don't think they should move on from core guys at this point even
05:01
with tatum's injury but everybody knew that there was going to be serious changes to the rotation well
05:06
you and curtis would agree on that curtis do you want them to run it back as is right and just pay
05:10
the penalty yeah i don't i don't know that the path back to championship contention is done with an
05:17
entirely rebuilt supporting cast i just think that is incredibly difficult to do brad stevens is excellent
05:23
i think if anybody could do it it would be him but i just it is where the celtics found themselves
05:29
and that injury to tatum you know despite what you thought it might do to the series is just such
05:34
a devastating blow because it's so hard to get where the celtics are the nba the parody you see it
05:40
across the sport and they were by far and away the best team in the nba when healthy and right
05:45
and and see mego i disagree with curtis on this point because the reason why i do is you're still
05:50
going to have the two superstars so you might be down a year but when tatum comes back you still
05:58
if you don't move on from jalen brown you still have the two superstars and you're able to build
06:04
that new dynasty or that new potential dynasty or championship team i should say around those two
06:11
it's not like you're gonna now have to try to find like when okc got rid of their core they're like
06:19
all right who's the next guy and they had to wait for sga with this team if even if you get rid of
06:24
the core the and the core is drew holiday derrick white poor zingas al horford you still got those
06:32
two superstars in two years that you can build those around you don't think they'll ever move off of
06:38
uh jalen brown i i i wouldn't because that's where the value is though well i understand that like
06:44
but what are you getting back for it right and my thing is if you keep the two when you say all right
06:50
jalen next year and then we move on from under these pieces to get lower and maybe a team's not as good
06:57
the following year you got jalen and jason and you could probably add another third max contract and
07:02
you're right back to being a contender my opinion is that obviously jason and jalen are still the plan
07:08
for whatever your core is and derrick white is on an extremely team-friendly contract and i think a
07:14
fringe all-star contender every year so but you can get something him but what are you getting so here's
07:22
where i start to get a little queasy when you talk about the future because if you're saying oh you get
07:27
this pick back and that pick back i'm saying okay so are you flipping those picks to another team for a
07:32
player yeah because where tatum is in his window assuming that he and fingers crossed is able to
07:39
come back and be the all nba player he is and where jalen brown is these are guys in their late 20s
07:44
like they're supposed to be in their prime and you're telling me you're interested in going back
07:48
in the lottery no no no you get developing somebody for you but some people are saying that i wouldn't
07:54
agree with that i was even on the point of have jalen brown and a bunch of scrub beans and maybe you're in
07:58
the lottery you take that lottery pick and you flip that for a player and now that following year you
08:04
have tatum brown and whoever here's the other thing i will say that i think that the celtics do
08:09
and the warriors for the most part have done that a lot of other teams don't really operate this way
08:14
is that there is this tendency to almost like i don't know trade machine playing madden style of
08:21
football like okay i'm gonna flip this pick and go get this guy or i'm gonna open up room and sign
08:27
this free agent and boom new super team let's go we've seen that like the sixers try to do that
08:34
the nets try to do that the suns try to do that even with a lot of money involved all these teams
08:40
try to plug and play guys into their core and it doesn't work it doesn't even get them far as far
08:45
in the playoffs as they would think let alone back to the finals you look at teams like the celtics you
08:50
look at teams like the warriors aside from this jimmy butler move which didn't work for them
08:54
these are teams that build and develop and what's frustrating to me about the new cba
08:58
is that building and developing then is forcing them to potentially move on from guys when they're
09:05
doing it what you would think is the right way and look how long it took for jalen and jason to figure
09:10
out playing together like that to me is the main reason why i want to keep the jays together
09:14
because why are we going to risk i know wiggies brought up yannis like would you rather have yannis
09:18
come in and send jalen brown out i i don't know if yannis and jason will play off each other
09:23
the way that jay that's what i'm saying like there's look there there are times obviously
09:27
when it's worked us worked with the last era the big three with the celtics where you're able to
09:32
get a free agent you're able to trade some for somebody and boom you got your big three then you
09:37
draft rondo i just think that in this modern era of the nba the way that the celtics have done it
09:42
is the right way and i would rather keep rolling with your drafted players who you know play well off
09:49
each other and can win a championship well it's going to get interesting we loved having you on
09:53
all season long oh thanks i've loved being here guys it ended early um do you golf i don't i know
09:59
would you like to take time on not to tread into these waters like i don't like doing things that
10:05
i'm bad at yeah so you can't get good at golf until you're bad first and i'm just not interested in
10:11
that as an adult shine we're going to be hosting on monday together so hopefully this blows over by
10:16
then because i don't want to deal with it probably won't yeah no it's this is a tattoo at least a year
10:21
are you guys doing this show monday morning i believe we are yes 6 a.m to 10 a.m all right
10:26
it'll be an easy dub for you against shine mega so don't even sweat playing golf i like going to
10:31
the driving range but i just i don't be aware he doesn't show up until about an hour and a half
10:35
into things all right you're the best he's got like a sad smile back there you're okay shine
10:44
have a great memorial day yeah you too guys any big plans you traveling or hanging around uh i'm
10:49
working i'm working but it's i that's the thing it's like i don't even feel bad because it looks
10:54
like it's gonna be upper 50s already i might check out the ncaa finals for lacrosse championships down
11:01
at gillette on saturday if anybody's got a hookup call your girl because i'm trying to get tickets
11:06
to syracuse maryland let's go all right mego thank you
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