Boston- The Boston Celtics, current NBA champions, face the season that is about to begin with confidence and as aspiring for everything, despite the fact that some of their players were able to enjoy the 18th title and the process of selling their titles little or poorly. the franchise.
After becoming the most successful team in history (the Los Angeles Lakers have 17 rings), the Celtics are seeking to retain the title this year, something that no one in the NBA has achieved since 2018.
Celtics unstoppable in NBA preseason
The players led by Joe Mazzulla have shown themselves to be a solid team in the preseason with four victories (two in Abu Dhabi against the Denver Nuggets and another two already back in Boston against the Philadelphia 76ers and the Toronto Raptors) and one defeat ( this same Tuesday against the aforementioned Raptors by a single point).
The team led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown won the last title by beating Luka Doncic’s Dallas Mavericks 4-1 in the NBA Finals that ended on June 17.
They were still enjoying the honeys of success when two weeks later it was announced that the franchise was for sale, an operation that is still underway and is estimated to reach $6 billion.
Celtics president of operations Brad Stevens worked around the clock this summer to secure Tatum ($315 million for five years) and Derrick White ($126 million for four years) after re-signing Brown ($304 million for four years). years), Jrue Holiday (135 million for four years) and Kristaps Porzingis (60 million for two years).
From glory to uncertainty
The Latvian center was key to last year’s title, but his physical condition is worrying and he will not be available for the Celtics at least until December due to an injury to the tibial tendon in his left leg that he underwent surgery on just after the Finals.
Shortly after winning the ring for Boston, Stevens was preparing to gather the team to talk to them about the new contracts when he received a call from the main owner, Wyc Grousbeck, who informed him that he would soon announce the sale of the franchise.
Grousbeck confirmed that he would sell the team in two parts, one half immediately and the rest in 2028, but that he would remain at the helm of the franchise until the end of the transaction.
Another circumstance that has prevented Celtics players and fans from enjoying the victorious summer to the fullest was the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in which Tatum barely had playing minutes in the United States team and Brown was not called up or neither first nor second to replace Kawhi Leonard when the Los Angeles Clippers star left training camp.
The Celtics, favorites for the 2024 NBA title
Instead of Brown, who wrote a series of cryptic tweets about it, they summoned his teammate White.
After all this noise in recent months, Mazzulla is confident that none of these circumstances unrelated to the game will derail its players, who are capable of repeating the title this year.
In a preseason poll held among the league’s 30 general managers, 83% of participants voted the Celtics as winners of the new season. It would be the first consecutive champion after the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018.
The Celtics’ main rivals in the East are, on the one hand, the New York Knicks, who have been reinforced with the Dominican Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges.
On the other hand, the Sixers have the stellar addition of forward Paul George to support Joel Embiid, although both players have a disturbing history of injuries and have already suffered physical problems during the preseason.
