Despite looking like big winners this offseason, the Boston Celtics may experience trouble in the early goings of the upcoming season. That’s according to Celtics guard Terry Rozier, who said that much during an appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub, as noted by Jay King of Masslive.com.
“I'm pretty sure we're going to probably have some rough patches at the beginning,” Rozier recently told 98.5 The Sports Hub's Adam Kaufman. “It's common for a team that just got together. But I think we're going to be pretty good. And that's the goal. So I'm not really so much worried about comparing this year to last year. We were a heck of a team last year, but I think we'll be pretty good this year.”
Boston general manager Danny Ainge did a magnificent job of acquiring Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving over the summer, but the latter transaction came at the cost of the Celtics losing two of their best players in previous seasons in Jae Crowder and Isaiah Thomas. Moreover, they also traded Avery Bradley to the Detroit Pistons along with a second-round pick to the Detroit Pistons for Marcus Morris.
It took Boston around two seasons to gel well upon the arrival of Thomas from Phoenix in 2015, so the Celtics are basically back to square one in terms of building chemistry from within.
Losing Thomas meant that the Celtics have also parted ways with their top scorer from last season and one that led them in win shares. The next guy to Thomas in terms of win shares is also gone with Crowder also sent to Cleveland. Bradley was arguably Boston’s best on-ball defender last season, better than either Hayward or Irving, who’ll do well in filling in the void left by Thomas but arguably not in mitigating the impact of Bradley’s loss on the other side of the ball.
Boston head coach Brad Stevens got what he wanted this offseason, but as what Rozier suggests, it’s not going to be easy handling a team injected with key pieces.
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