NBA: Biggest x-factors heading into the final month of the season
By Kyle Crabbe
What’s Brewing In Boston
When many basketball fans and pundits saw the Celtics making huge advancements in the Eastern Conference Playoffs last season, many mistook those results for meaning the Celtics would return in 2019 to only improve. The issue the Celtics are currently having is something that many teams have to face, which is troubles with team chemistry. The Celtics pieces don’t perfectly fit together.
The Celtics issues can be rounded up into three highlighted issues:
1) Kyrie Irving wanted out of Cleveland to be the main franchise cornerstone of this own basketball team. When he gave a list to the teams he would be open to landing with, the Celtics were not one of the teams on that list. The Celtics has given the public image that this team is a collection of talented players developing around Kyrie, which doesn’t quite match what Kyrie most likely wanted when he left Cleveland.
2) The Celtics never made the roles of the young stars known to them and to the public at large. A) Jaylen Brown is a top 5 pick that most likely believes his ceiling is an NBA All-Star, B) Jayson Tatum is also a top 5 pick that also believes he’s destined for NBA stardom, C) Marcus Smart was a top 10 pick that believes he deserves considerable minutes and time on the court, D) Terry Rozier is a 1st round pick from the late lottery that after excelling in the 2018 NBA Post-season also believes he is a NBA starter and deserves starter minutes in the league.
When you look at these players, how they might be upset with their current situations and how they can factor in to the team’s overall chemistry, that leads us to the third glaring issue in Boston.
3) What many of us haven’t looked at and what might be a major factor to the Celtics 2019 struggles is at head coach. Brad Stevens is undoubtedly one of the best basketball minds in the NBA today. Stevens is one of the finest coaches the league has coming of age currently. However, when we look at Stevens track record and look at those chemistry issues we just outlined, there’s reason for concern.
Stevens comes from a small College program at Butler university. Stevens at Butler didn’t receive the big star high school recruits and never dealt with that aspect of coaching up huge ego’s and Superstar personalities. Stevens will have to adjust and recreate a system that can allow the largely talented roster the Celtics have to flourish together.
I do believe that Stevens is a great basketball coach and there is a great opportunity for the Celtics under the brightest lights to find their chemistry in the biggest games. The Celtics team might be dragging the feet till the games really count. I believe the entire Celtics team is a X-Factor, the 2019 Celtics can bow out in the first round or could figure things out and be crowned the 2019 NBA Champions.