Where do the Celtics rank in a post-LeBron East?

With the start of the NBA season several months away and many teams still in the process of building out their rosters, there is not much that can be definitively known about what will happen next year. Just about the only things that seem certain are that the Golden State Warriors will once again enter the year as overwhelming favorites to repeat as NBA champions; and that for the first time since 2010, the Eastern Conference will not be represented by a LeBron James-led team in the NBA Finals.

The power vacuum LeBron leaves behind in the East is a large one.  In trudging to the Finals eight consecutive times, LeBron’s Heat and Cavaliers teams amassed a ridiculous 24-0 record in Eastern Conference playoff series from 2011 through 2018 — winning 96 of 123 games along the way and yielding a 0.780 winning percentage that is essentially the equivalent of putting together a season and a half’s worth of 64-win basketball, but during the playoffs. (The Cleveland years were even more dominant, with the Cavs winning 48 of their 59 Eastern Conference playoff games during LeBron’s second stint in town.)

It’s fitting that with the King abdicating his Eastern Conference throne, there is no one team that looks like the obvious bet to ascend in his place. Instead, there’s a trio of teams from the only Eastern Conference division in which LeBron himself has never played (the Atlantic) that stand ready to battle it out for conference supremacy. Because of several dynamics at play, the upcoming season seems at least somewhat likely to be the only one in which the Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics, and Philadelphia 76ers duke it out (mostly) alone for the right to represent the East in the Finals.

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Where do the Raptors rank in a post-LeBron Eastern Conference?

With that in mind, now is as good a time as any to dig into what each of these three teams has going for them, and what they have working against them in the race to the top of the East. We began last week by covering the Raptors, and we’ll continue today with the Celtics.

What the Celtics have going for them

Last season’s version of the Celtics was a downright revelation.

Boston went 55-27 despite playing without Gordon Hayward for 81 games, without Kyrie Irving for 22, Marcus Smart and Marcus Morris for 28 apiece, Daniel Theis for 19, Jaylen Brown for 12 and Al Horford for 10. Not only that, but the Celtics were wildly successful for a team that relied as much as they did on youth.

As we noted at the beginning of the postseason, the Celtics finished the 2017-18 season with the 16th-best Wins Above Age-Derived Expectation (WAADE) since the ABA-NBA merger, winning 22.1 more games that you’d expect a team with a similar minutes-weighted age to win. (The Celtics were the NBA’s fourth-youngest team last season, with a minutes-weighted age of 24.7 years old.) That’s 16th-best out of 1,140 team seasons, by the way.

The Celtics finished the season with the NBA’s best defense, as Horford, Smart, Brown, Jayson Tatum, Aron Baynes, Terry Rozier, Semi Ojeleye, and Shane Larkin all played at an above-average level or better on the less glamorous side of the floor. That suffocating defense — one which switched and trapped and generally wreaked havoc over all 94 feet of hardwood — made up for a middling offense that checked in just 18th in the NBA in points per 100 possessions. And again, this was a team playing without one of its three best players for nearly the entire season, and that had six other regular rotation players miss at least 10 games due to injury.

The Celtics were able to weather all those injuries thanks to their copious depth. They almost never had a negative-value player on the floor, as even their one-way contributors were put in the best position possible to succeed by Brad Stevens. Baynes mostly only started against teams that played two traditional big men. Larkin was mostly used as a low-minute spark plug who could harass backup ball-handlers into turnovers. Brown and Tatum began the year as complementary offensive players and took on larger and larger burdens as the year went along. Horford was used as a two-way fulcrum who kept things moving on both ends, and was not asked to be the primary scoring option when he was on the floor unless he had an obvious mismatch.

With Hayward, Irving, and Theis returning from their injuries, Smart re-signed, Brad Wanamaker entering the fold, and Robert Williams III available as an additional athletic big man off the bench, the Celtics should maintain their depth during the 2018-19 season. Their game-night rotation should include at least 10 players (Irving, Rozier, Brown, Smart, Hayward, Ojeleye, Tatum, Morris, Horford, Theis) on most nights, and could even push to 12 or 13 in certain matchups. Such depth is incredibly valuable during the regular season when opponents are often forced to put negative-value players on the floor. The Celtics will rarely, if ever, be put in that situation. They’ll be able to withstand injuries at nearly any position, for any length of time. When it comes time to trim the rotation in the playoffs, the Celtics will be excising real players from the rotation, and will have the freedom of switching out back-end rotation players based on the matchup.

All year long, they will be able to easily swing between big and small lineups by playing any combination of Smart, Brown, Tatum, Hayward, Morris, and Ojeleye at the 2-3-4 spots; and occasionally using Horford and Baynes next to each other in the frontcourt as well. They can mix-and-match with their opponent or force the opponent to match up with them. They can play two point guards with Irving and Rozier next to each other. They can play without a traditional point guard and trust Hayward and Horford to keep the offense moving, while surrounding them with defenders like Smart, Brown, Ojeleye, and Baynes. They can probably even just play five wings together on occasion.

They likely have more lineup options than any team in the league, just by virtue of having so many starter-quality players on the roster. (There are probably two players among their top 10 rotation guys who would be considered strictly subs.) And that’s before we touch on them having three in-their-prime stars and two more players with rather obvious star potential that they’ve already begun tapping into.

Because they have so many options, the Celtics should be able to cobble together one of the league’s best defenses once again. They have more than enough length, athleticism, and defensive intensity at every position to cover for the shortcomings of the few below-average defenders on the roster (see: Irving), and because they have so many like-size, switchable defenders, they are perfectly positioned to defend modern NBA offenses.

Irving playing a full season could lower the team’s defensive ceiling, but Hayward should mitigate some of the drop-off and the two of them should significantly alter the team’s offensive dynamic for the better. The Celtics run an egalitarian-style offense where everyone touches the ball and moves all over the floor, and adding not one but two elite scorers back into the mix should vault them near or into the top 10 in scoring efficiency during the regular season.

Bringing it all together is that their coach may be the best in-game tactician in the league. Brad Stevens has become near-legendary already for his after-timeout play-calling; but the most impressive attribute he has shown throughout his time in the league is that he knows exactly how to maximize the talent of every player on his roster. Much like their New England brethren, the Patriots, the Celtics tend to focus only on what guys do well and then put them in the best position possible to do only those things, where other teams might focus on the same players’ shortcomings and be reluctant to put them on the court at all.

Stevens has been wringing better-than-expected seasons out of his charges for a while now, and next season he will likely be coaching the deepest, most versatile, and outright best team in the East. The sky is the limit.

What the Celtics have working against them

Remember that list of missed games in the above section? Yeah, that’s a problem. Hayward’s injury should not necessarily be something that recurs, but the Celtics do seem at least somewhat likely to give him all the leeway he needs to work himself back into regular shape. Irving has missed an average of 16.7 games per year during his career, and is coming off knee surgery. Theis is coming off a knee operation of his own. Morris was banged up for almost the entire 2017-18 season. Smart is seemingly always dealing with bumps and bruises, and has played more than 67 games just once in four years. Horford has generally shaken his injury-prone label but he has also had several seasons where he missed 15 games or more due to injury. The Celtics are fortunate to have depth available to withstand injuries, but there’s no doubt that injuries have to remain a concern — none more so than Irving’s knee.

Kyrie going down toward the end of last season significantly lowered Boston’s playoff ceiling, and his missing extended time this year would similarly alter the team’s trajectory. He is the Celtics’ most dynamic scorer, a whirling dervish capable of devastating defenses from all three levels of the floor with an uncommon bounce and dexterity. When the offense breaks down, he is capable of cooking any defender in the league off the dribble, and when he operates within Stevens’ system, he’s even more dangerous because he gets to attack on-the-move defenders in space. Rozier showed starting-caliber talent during his extended run in Irving’s stead last season, but he doesn’t have the same upside or nearly the same consistency as Irving. There’s a reason Kyrie is a multiple-time All-Star and max player and Rozier is a backup and fill-in starter, and it’s because there’s a sizable talent disparity there.

Irving’s health is also not the only concern the team should have about him. There’s already been a ton of noise that he’d like to sign with his “hometown” New York Knicks next offseason, perhaps bringing another star sidekick to Gotham with him. The Celtics shouldn’t necessarily be worried about the Knicks in particular, but even the whiff of Irving wanting to be elsewhere has to be on their radar. They presumably feel good about their ability to retain the star point guard given their obvious status as an inner-circle contender for the foreseeable future, but that doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee that he stays. If the Celtics falter, would the noise get loud enough for them to trade him during the season? In that case, would anyone even want to surrender an appropriate package for what would almost surely be a half-season rental? If not, how would the Celtics respond to him walking for nothing in free agency? (Surely, having the Kings’ first-round pick except if it lands at No. 1 overall would help.)

There is also, of course, the possibility that the progression for players like Tatum and Brown is not linear, and that they take smaller-than-expected steps forward or even steps backward next season. That seems somewhat unlikely given their prodigious talent and the situation they’re in, but it is a possibility worth noting. Even in that worst-case scenario, however, the Celtics have more than enough talent and depth on hand to ensure that they remain among the top two or three teams in the East.