Boston Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge can't help but shake his head whenever he remembers a conversation he had with one of the team's younger players, Jaylen Brown.
Ainge was recently a guest at The Michael Holley Podcast, where he shared an exchange he had with Brown last season.
“He came and sat behind me, and he said, ‘Do you think we're as good as the 1986 Celtics team?' And I went, ‘Oh my gosh. He's so young.'”
Any die-hard Celtics fan would know that the 1986 Celtics team was one of the best in the NBA at that time. It had Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, two guys that would lead Boston to the championship that year and would soon be recognized as Hall of Famers. The 1986 Cs squad also had a young Ainge, who was one of the team's key players off the bench.
The 2018-19 Celtics team undoubtedly had talent with All-Star guard Kyrie Irving leading the way. They also had young, promising players in Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Marcus Smart. Unfortunately for them, they were unable to meet the expectations of people who saw them as a championship-caliber team. The Celtics were annihilated by the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the playoffs, and that was the end of it. Irving left Boston to head to the Brooklyn Nets, and the rest is history.
The Celtics' current young core could develop into All-Stars in the future, but they haven't proven anything yet, and for Brown to even think about last season's team being as good as the 1986 squad is just hilarious.
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