Boston Celtics Tank Report: Lifting the Curtain On The Illusion
You’ve got to hand it to the Boston Celtics – at least their tanking is subtle, as opposed to the Philadelphia 76ers, who are not even trying to look like they want to win games.
What’s that, you say? The Boston Celtics would never tank? Please. Once Danny Ainge realized his spare parts were not going to help him make any major moves in the NBA Draft or the free agent market during the offseason, you just know the organization committed to tanking for the second straight year.
They just fooled us into thinking they might actually be better than advertised this season.
Pushing the offense to the tune of 104.5 PPG, good for the sixth-best offense in the NBA, was an absolute stroke of genius, and thoroughly covered the Celtics’ tracks. See, losing teams tend to be unable to put the ball in the basket – just check out the top ten worst offenses in the NBA, along with their records:
[table id=12 /]
For those of you keeping score, all but one of the seven worst teams in the Eastern Conference are found in this chart, with the missing team being the Boston Celtics, who actually have the fifth-worst record in the East. The only reason Houston and Milwaukee can enjoy winning records with their terrible offense is because they also happen to sport elite defense, with Houston owning the league’s best, and Milwaukee holding steady in the 10 spot.
So give Boston credit: they cranked up their pace and now score a lot more points than last season, which is a nice way to trick fans into thinking your team may actually win some games, because high-scoring teams are usually winning teams, as my next table will illustrate:
[table id=13 /]
See what a neat little trick the Celtics have pulled here? They have a top-ten offense, and yet are the only team in that table to be under .500. That’s astounding, and once again masks the organization’s true intent: to lose a ton of games this season.
Now, you could argue that I am being a little bit harsh. Clearly, pushing the pace on offense is a drastic change from last season’s approach, and the Celtics are suffering on defense because of it, giving up 107.3 PPG to their opponents, the third-worst defense in the NBA. It is conceivable that the Boston Celtics will tighten up as the year goes on, as they figure out how to get back into their defensive scheme will still maintaining such a fast pace. Time will tell on this one, although the reality seems to be that this team isn’t built to defend, as pretty much every player is a defensive liability except for Avery Bradley (and Marcus Smart, who we unfortunately cannot include in this discussion).
Still, the most damning evidence I have against these Celtics is their infatuation with shooting three-pointers. This, to me, is a sign of a team that wants to LOOK competitive, but is actually trying to lose. Consider: the Celtics are averaging 23.5 attempts from beyond the arc this year, an 11.3% increase in volume compared to last year’s squad. Yet, the team is only connecting on 7 per game, to the tune of a 29.8% success rate – neither of which are significantly different from last year’s numbers (the Celtics averaged seven made threes and a 33.3% success rate in 2013-2014).
There is not one player on this year’s roster who shoots over 40% from deep – Avery Bradley is the closest at .395 – so why, again, are the Celtics attempting so many three-pointers? It is clearly a weakness, not a strength, of the team, so to deliberately embrace it as a strategy seems counter-intuitive to a team that wants to win, right?
I could give you some more examples of what is in my mind proof that the Boston Celtics are committed to losing – starting Kelly Olynyk over Tyler Zeller being my next argument – but I don’t feel that it is necessary. The Celtics are a more interesting team to watch this season, don’t get me wrong – but don’t be fooled by the charade. I’ll be enjoying Rajon Rondo‘s magical passes, the occasional Jeff Green highlight, and a lot of close game losses for the rest of the season, which is exactly what Danny Ainge and company want from this team.
(All statistics courtesy of NBA.com and basketball-reference.com)