The Boston Celtics come into the 2020-21 season with lofty expectations. The Houdini has a few predictions of our own to share in regard to the campaign that’s coming.
Fans are just one day away from seeing their beloved Boston Celtics take to the hardwood once again and compete for a chance to raise banner No. 18 into the rafters at the TD Garden.
Despite some roster shakeups this past offseason, the Cs still find themselves coming in with a bevy of top-tier talent in tow and have media outlets such as ESPN believing they are in line for yet another top-5 finish in the standings come season’s end.
With all the good and bad things that can happen throughout any given campaign, we at HH have compiled a listing of 3 bold predictions for 2020-21:
Boston Celtics bold prediction No. 1) Cs will have a losing record through first 10 games
Recently, our very own Ian Riaf did an in-depth breakdown of the C’s first-half schedule for 2020-21 and, in reference to the team’s 10 outings that will kick off the new season, he wound up labeling the difficulty level as reletively “Hard.”
Through these games, the Boston Celtics will be squaring off against seven teams that participated in the Lake Buena Vista bubble, while four of said teams are seen as legitimate title contenders in the Milwaukee Bucks, Brooklyn Nets, Miami Heat, and Toronto Raptors.
We all knew that coming into the season without their All-Star point guard in Kemba Walker would be tough, but seeing that Boston’s first two games come against arguably the best two teams heading into this year’s campaign in the Bucks and Brooklyn, things might look ugly right out of the gate.
Seeing how the preseason went for the Celtics, fears of inefficient offense bleeding into the regular season are understandable and, on a team who’s success last season was heavily influenced by their excellent scoring prowess, this could severely impact their success rate to start the season.
Walker’s scoring touch will be sorely missed to start the season and, in turn, we believe that throughout their first 10 games — which could be the time frame in which the point guard could be out for — Boston will find themselves in unfamiliar territory: boasting a losing record.
Boston Celtics bold prediction No. 2) Aaron Nesmith will make All-Rookie team
Last week, Bleacher Report came out with an article discussing players on each team that people should get excited about seeing heading into the season.
In every section, writer Andy Bailey would go on to list both the “obvious choices” and an “under-the-radar choice.” While you might have expected he went on to chose Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in the first category, for the second Bailey went on to list the C’s lottery selection, Aaron Nesmith, in the second.
His reasoning read as follows:
"First-year players are rarely ready to contribute right away, but on a team with Tatum and Brown, Nesmith may not be asked to do much more than catch-and-shoot. And his abbreviated sophomore season at Vanderbilt suggests that’s well within his capabilities. Nesmith only played in 14 games in 2019-20, but that was enough time to get 115 three-point attempts up. He hit a whopping 60 of those (52.2 percent). As we just saw with Cameron Johnson on the Phoenix Suns, high-end shooting and a little size can be enough to help, even as a rookie. And at 6’6″, Nesmith should be able to switch all over the floor with Tatum, Brown and Smart."
We certainly don’t expect Nesmith to post anything close to what he did during his final season at Vanderbilt, where he averaged 23 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.4 steals, and just under a block per game on 51 percent shooting from the floor and 52 percent shooting from deep.
That said, if he were to post, say, a fraction of these kinds of stats, he would easily have a chance at being considered one of the best first-year players from the 2020 draft.
The Celtics will likely look to give the collegiate scoring machine ample opportunities this season, as he was brought on as a potential answer to their second-unit offensive woes. Last year, Boston’s bench seemed incapable of scoring, as they finished the season ranked 29th in points per game (28.5), 28th in 3-point percentage (31.8), and 20th in offensive rating (53.6).
We believe his skillset compliments this team quite well and, being that he’ll be on a team boasting quite a few capable scorers already, clean looks at a basket could come his way rather easily, thus allowing points to rack up for the 21-year-old.
In a class deemed reletively weak, should Nesmith be a consistent rotation guy on this title-contending team while putting up around a meaningful 10 points a contest at an efficient rate, it could wind up being enough to nab him a spot on one of the NBA’s All-Rookie teams.
That’s exactly what we predict is in store for the 14th overall pick.
Boston Celtics bold prediction No. 3) Cs finish year outside of top-5 in East
Over the past several seasons, the Boston Celtics have consistently been one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference, finishing within the top-5 in the standings for five straight seasons.
In 2020-21, we believe this streak will come to its end.
Our prediction is based on two very specific reasons.
First, it’s linked to our initial slide in this article, as we envision the shamrocks will get off to an undesirable start without Kemba Walker in tow.
Like we stated, nine of their first 10 opponents were in the NBA Bubble last season — five of which were playoff teams — and nine of these outings will be against conference foes.
Perhaps the biggest reason as to why we predict a finish outside the top-5 for Boston is based on the fact that, while they come into the year hobbled and undermanned in comparison to 2019-20, many of their East enemies seemingly managed to get even better.
Sure, we expect the Milwaukee Bucks to be in a similar position in the standings to where they were last year, but with Brooklyn getting a healthy Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Washington Wizards bringing on Russell Westbrook to join forces with Bradley Beal, and the Atlanta Hawks having added several talented pieces to help better surround Trae Young and John Collins, there are three teams just off the top of our heads that will be competing for such highly-coveted placements.
What’s crazier is, this is all without even bringing up the defending Eastern Conference champions in the Miami Heat and the now healthy Philadelphia 76ers who Ben Simmons back and, frankly, got even better this offseason as they managed to acquire stellar floor spacers in Seth Curry and Danny Green, all while riding themselves of Al Horford’s contract.
All this said, however, it also must be stated that we still view the Boston Celtics as a title contender in 2020-21 and, in turn, envision them as being a very good team come season’s end.
This prediction is heavily based on the belief that the East has gotten a lot better this offseason and, with a slow start to the year — which we believe they will have — those losses could be all that is needed to separate the conference’s third seed from the sixth seed.
We believe the standings will be tightly contested throughout the season. A mere two-loss difference could wind up keeping the Celtics outside of the top-5 out East.