Celtics enter title defense with a lot of questions…and a lot of fluff to throw away

BRIGHTON, Mass. — The good news for the Boston Celtics is that they will enter the 2024-25 season as reigning NBA champions.

The bad The latest news for the Celtics is that they will enter the 2024-25 season as reigning NBA champions.

Those contradictions were on display Tuesday morning when the Celtics held their annual preseason media day at the Auerbach Center. Part of the event was to celebrate the Celtics’ five-game NBA Finals upset of the Dallas Mavericks, but more importantly, it was to remind everyone that June 17, 2024 — Celtics 106 Mavericks 88 — was a long, long time ago in a season far, far away.

Celtics president Brad Stevens knows this all too well. After all, he formed a bromance with former Patriots coach Bill Belichick during their time together in the Boston sports market, and Belichick was known to get all icy (or icier) if anyone dared ask a question about last year’s big Super Bowl victory over (insert NFC team name here). Stevens isn’t one for the icy/icier, but he got right to it:

“Everybody’s looking forward to a new season, right now, today,” he said. “The reigning champions, and everybody else. And then reality hits, and the third practice you’re a little bit more irritated, and then you have your first game and you see how it goes. Some guys play, some don’t play. The (players in the) locker room start to not be as happy as they once were, and people start to isolate themselves and teams start to isolate themselves. But you have to do it again.”

With that one-worded swipe, Stevens put the Celtics in the company of every other team in the NBA, from the short list of genuine championship contenders to, oh, let’s say, the Brooklyn Nets. The message was well-worded, but also blunt. These Celtics haven’t won anything.

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Make no mistake, Stevens was having a laugh at this gathering, too. As he left the room, he turned to a club official and said, “Now I gotta go yell for the Jumbotron.” The joke’s easy to explain: While Stevens was giving his introductory press conference, his players were standing on the court below, participating in a conveyor belt of promos, PSAs and, yes, those little sound bites where they yell at the fans to get on their feet, cheer and so forth. (To be on the safe side, a cursory phone call was later placed to Celtics senior vice president of communications Christian Megliola to ask if Brad Stevens would be yelling, “Let’s get ready to rumble!!!” from the giant flat-screen TVs in center court this season. Sadly, that won’t happen.)

If all goes well this season (spoiler alert: it doesn’t), the Celtics should be back in the NBA Finals next spring. And yet, even though the Celtics return largely intact from last season, there’s some intrigue to this team that’s worth keeping an eye on. Granted, some of that intrigue is soap operatic and subjective and probably won’t resonate with Celtics fans. But down the road, it may be a recurring theme. It’s up to the Celtics to brush it away like lint.

Tuesday was all about getting in shape for that.

For example, Jaylen Brown was not selected to play on the U.S. Olympic basketball team. It was the first question Brown was asked when he held his media session, and sure enough, he brushed it off like lint. “Question No. 1!” Brown said, laughing in a way that showed all his teeth. “Can I warm up for a second?”

Jayson Tatum did playing in the Olympics, but not much. Asked what he had “learned” from his “experience” on the team, Tatum responded with a question: “That’s a broad question,” he said. “Do you want to be more specific?”

Tatum then looked at his right shoulder, as if he were literally trying to brush away lint.

The question was transformed into something about motivation.

“You mean I didn’t play in two of those games, is that what you mean?” Tatum asked. “Uh, motivation. I guess you could say that, if you want to keep it simple. In real time, it was tough.” He quickly turned to Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla and said, “I talk to Joe a lot, and Joe was probably the happiest person in the world that I didn’t win the Finals MVP award and then I didn’t play in two of the games at the Olympics.

“It was strange,” Tatum continued, “but if you know Joe, it makes sense. Did I need extra motivation going into the season? No, I’m not going to give credit to anyone in particular for motivating me going into the season. It was a unique circumstance. Something I’ve never experienced before in my playing career, but I believe everything happens for a reason.”

He continued: “Whatever the reason, I haven’t understood it yet… but it was a good experience. We won a gold medal, my second.”

The Judge’s Ruling: For anyone claiming that Tatum is still whining about the Olympics, he was asked the question. And it was on media day, a day when even seasoned veterans tend to pull out the good china when it comes to how they answer questions. To borrow a phrase believed to have been coined by the late NBA referee Sid Borgia: No foul, no foul.

Furthermore, no one could put this into perspective better than Derrick White, who was on the Olympic team and competed. When asked if there were elephants in the room, White said, “No, there are no elephants.”

What do you think of the news that Wyc Grousbeck and his family plan to sell their majority stake in the team?

“I think the money side and his selling, that’s kind of his situation,” Jrue Holiday said, brushing away lint. There may come a day when the new owner cuts back on spending, but the Celtics aren’t there yet. Either way, Holiday isn’t there yet.

If there’s one real basketball question that needs to be addressed, it’s the health of big man Kristaps Porziņģis, who is recovering from midseason surgery to repair a tendon in his left ankle. “I’m feeling pretty good,” he said. “I’m looking forward to continuing to progress at this pace and hopefully being back with the guys as soon as possible.” Porziņģis later told ESPN that he believes he could be back by December.

Summary: The 2024-25 Celtics have some chips on their shoulders, but also a lot of fluff. It was all good news from the Celtics on media day … except for the announcement that Brad Stevens won’t be screaming from the Garden’s flatscreens.

(Photo by Jaylen Brown: Maddie Malhotra/Getty Images)