The Boston Celtics will begin the defense of their NBA championship as big favorites to repeat, and for good reason. The Celtics finished with an 80-21 record last year, including going 16-3 in the postseason, for a 79.7% winning percentage, ranking in the top 10 all-time.
The Celtics, who return the NBA’s best-starting unit, topped the league in offensive efficiency and were second in defensive rating. The C’s also assured themselves of keeping the NBA’s frontcourt unit intact by re-signing Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman this offseason, meaning that 13 players of the 14 players on standard contracts were on the squad last season.
“Any time” you get a group that fits together, that accentuates each other, that kind of know who they are and what they bring to the table; I think you want to try to keep that, Celtics president of basketball Operations Brad Stevens told Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe.
Keeping Kornet and Tillman was extremely important, especially with Kristaps Porzingis going to miss time early this upcoming season and Al Horford being 38.
2024 first-round pick Baylor Scheierman is the lone newcomer to the roster.
Celtics Brad Stevens Discusses Offseason Decisions and Future Roster Moves
Kornet is coming off his best season as a pro. The 29-year-old 7-foot-2 center is excellent around the rim on both ends of the floor and can space the floor with his shooting. He is also a quality offensive rebounder.
Meanwhile, Tillman is a blue-collar worker. He plays hard and is very good defensively. While the 6-8 big is limited offensively, he excels around the rim and is a good back-to-the-basket scorer.
Stevens also talked about giving extensions to Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, and Sam Hauser.
“What we want to do is try to get our guys locked in on fair and good extensions that they feel really good about and hopefully continue this thing as long as we can continue this thing.
With 14 players under contract, the Celtics have an open roster spot. The Celtics are well over the second apron for the foreseeable future. While Stevens indicated that the Celtics plan on filling the roster spot, he is in no hurry.
“We’re just going to monitor the health of our team and see how everybody’s doing, and if there’s any issues that arise between now and September that we need to really address, then we might use it. But right now I’d say it’s unlikely.
Despite being satisfied with the roster selection and continuity, Stevens added that he is open to making moves if things don’t go well.
That doesn’t mean we’re going to be blind to improving. We have to keep our eyes on — especially early in the year, because even the same group can be a totally new thing in a new season — so we have to keep an eye on, where are we, really? And do we need to improve? Do we need to make subtle changes? Do we need to make big changes? We’ll just always keep our eye on that.
Training Camp Roster
The Celtics have filled all three two-way spots, keeping 2022 second-round draft pick JD Davison and Drew Peterson — who signed a two-way deal with the Cs on Dec. 14. 2024 second-round selection Anton Watson is the other player on a two-way contract.
Boston also has signed Ron Harper Jr. and rookie Tristan Enurama to exhibit 10 contracts. Therefore, the Celtics have two training camp spots available. As Stevens mentioned, he may add a veteran before training camp if someone suffers an injury. However, that is not the direction he is looking to go at this moment.
We’re still looking to sign a couple of Exhibit 10s that their most likely path will be to play in Maine. But we’ll see.”
