Moments after Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals ended final month, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown embraced one another.
“They said we couldn’t play together,” Tatum mentioned with a large smile.
That had been essentially the most urgent problem going through the Boston Celtics since Tatum, 24, and Brown, 25, had been handed the reins to the workforce earlier than the 2019-20 season. That yr — Tatum’s third and Brown’s fourth within the N.B.A. — they led the workforce to inside two wins of reaching the finals. Since then, they’ve confronted questions on whether or not Boston might be a championship-caliber workforce constructed round them.
Those questions had been at their loudest earlier this yr — dominating TV panels and podcasts — when the Celtics had been 18-21 and on tempo to overlook the playoffs. Instead, a outstanding turnaround propelled the Celtics into the finals, in opposition to Golden State, for the primary time since 2010.
“We definitely thought about and had conversations about trading for a number of the great players that were sort of thought to be available over the past 10 years,” Wyc Grousbeck, the proprietor of the Celtics, mentioned in an interview. “It’d be wrong to say we never engaged in trade talks with player X, Y or Z.”
But, he added, “we valued our guys more than, apparently, the market did.”
The pattern within the N.B.A. over the past 15 years — although it didn’t originate then — has been to chase the creation of so-called superteams on the expense of creating continuity and nurturing younger gamers. The 2007-8 Celtics, who introduced in Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to enhance Paul Pierce by blockbuster trades and gained a championship, had been a distinguished instance of this.
Since then, a number of groups have emptied their cabinets of draft picks and younger gamers to accumulate big-name stars — because the Celtics did — in a leaguewide arms race to compete for mercenary championships. This has coincided with the participant empowerment motion, the place high gamers have tried, typically efficiently, to be traded to groups with different stars.
This has left the gamers’ new groups on edge, questioning if giving up all of the picks and younger gamers can be value it.
The Celtics tried to get in on the pattern — they traded for Kyrie Irving and signed Gordon Hayward to a giant free-agent deal simply after drafting Tatum in 2017 — however right now’s workforce is the results of yearslong funding in younger gamers. The Celtics are on the doorstep of a championship with a basis that goes in opposition to what has turn out to be typical knowledge about team-building within the N.B.A. Whether because of luck or shrewd entrance workplace work, or each, the Celtics’ method is paying off.
In current years, the All-Stars Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, Ben Simmons, James Harden, Anthony Davis and Paul George have been amongst these to engineer trades. Irving pressured a commerce out of Cleveland to land in Boston.
Almost each time a star was rumored to need out of their state of affairs, the Celtics can be linked to the commerce talks. Few groups might provide younger gamers as proficient as Boston’s or as many draft picks, a few of which Boston acquired in a heist of a take care of the Nets as they created their very own superteam in 2013.
Grousbeck declined to touch upon what offers Boston got here shut to creating. In at the least one case, the star seemingly made the choice for the Celtics. Davis’s father, Anthony Davis Sr., publicly mentioned that he didn’t need his son playing in Boston — a sign that even when Davis had been traded to Boston, he wouldn’t re-sign as soon as his contract expired, making it much less worthwhile for the Celtics to half with their high gamers in a deal.
“I think that what happens is you want to trade draft capital if you get the right deals and if you feel like you’re close enough to winning,” Danny Ainge, who was Boston’s president of basketball operations from 2003-21, advised Sports Illustrated recently. “None of us know what would have happened in different circumstances.”
In some instances, superteam gambles labored — at the least within the brief time period. The Toronto Raptors gained the championship in 2019, led by Leonard; the Lakers gained a title in 2020 with Davis. But the Nets gained only one playoff collection with Harden earlier than he pressured a commerce to the Philadelphia 76ers in February. To get Harden from Houston, the Nets had given up the 24-year-old middle Jarrett Allen, who made his first All-Star workforce this yr with Cleveland.
The Nets’ one collection win with Harden got here in opposition to Boston within the first spherical of the 2021 playoffs, with Brown out injured. The Celtics, left behind within the superteam arms race, appeared adrift. Some of their current first-round draft picks, like Romeo Langford (2019) and Aaron Nesmith (2020), regarded like misses. Irving and Hayward had been gone. Kemba Walker, a former All-Star whom the Celtics had signed to a most contract to switch Irving, had been injured and taking part in poorly. Suddenly, Boston regarded like a workforce that had, not like the Raptors and Lakers title groups, held on to its younger gamers for too lengthy.
The day after the Celtics had been eradicated from final yr’s playoffs, Boston concurrently introduced that Ainge was stepping down as workforce president and that Brad Stevens would exchange him. Stevens had been the workforce’s head coach for eight seasons, however he had no entrance workplace expertise.
Grousbeck mentioned he pitched Stevens on changing Ainge, citing Stevens’s tenure with the workforce and a “personal bond” that he had with possession. At the information convention asserting the transfer final June, Stevens mentioned he had mentioned the potential for taking up the place with each Ainge and Grousbeck, and that he advised Grousbeck: “I love the Celtics. I want to do what’s best for the Celtics.”
One of Stevens’s first strikes was to rent Ime Udoka as coach, Udoka’s first main function after 9 years as an assistant. Grousbeck mentioned he wasn’t fearful concerning the inexperience of Stevens and Udoka of their new jobs.
“I went to Ime and Brad before the season started and specifically said in person, ‘I’m not stressed about how this season starts,’” Grousbeck mentioned.
There are numerous examples {of professional} sports activities homeowners preaching endurance however not training it. As the season progressed, the Celtics largely stored the religion that they might win with Tatum and Brown as their centerpieces.
“Now, did I start worrying in the first half? Yes, I did. But I kept it to myself,” Grousbeck mentioned.
After their 18-21 begin, the Celtics went 33-10 and earned the No. 2 seed within the Eastern Conference playoffs. Most of the gamers of their finals rotation had been drafted by the Celtics and are 25 and youthful, together with Tatum (24), Brown (25), Robert Williams III (24), Grant Williams (23) and Payton Pritchard (24). Marcus Smart, 28, was drafted by the Celtics in 2014 and named the defensive participant of the yr this season.
This would seem to depart the Celtics in sturdy form for years to come back. They’re within the finals and lots of of their gamers haven’t hit their primes. But championship home windows will be slim. After this yr, the N.B.A. can have topped at the least 5 totally different groups as champion in seven years. The Celtics would possibly find yourself regretting not buying and selling for Davis or one other huge identify in the event that they don’t win a title this yr. After all, only one yr in the past, when the Celtics appeared to be locked into mediocrity, the Phoenix Suns got here inside two wins of a championship, solely to slink out within the second spherical of this postseason regardless of being the West’s No. 1 seed.
But if Boston wins, maybe the subsequent workforce will assume twice earlier than hanging a deal when the subsequent Harden or Simmons tries to power a commerce. The Celtics aren’t fairly the mannequin of endurance — a stroke of luck, it appears, felled their celebrity commerce negotiations — however what they’ve seems to be working simply high quality.
Not that Grousbeck is interested by taking a victory lap.
“I don’t think anybody needs any advice from us about building a team,” Grousbeck mentioned.
