Boston Celtics: WEEI’s Gary Tanguay wants Jayson Tatum off Cs

The year is 2021, and the Boston Celtics are mired in a sub-.500 season after three trips in four years to the Eastern Conference Finals.

It’s a rough time to be a Cs fan, and frustrations are understandably at a fever pitch following the team’s 106-96 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers last night. To their credit, that game was far tougher to watch than the final score indicated.

Missing recent addition Evan Fournier due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols, Boston laid an egg in front of the few thousand fans at the TD Garden in a divisional matchup that was rarely ever competitive. 35 points from Joel Embiid is borderline forgivable without Tristan Thompson in the lineup. Allowing Danny Green to go 5/6 from the 3-point line without making an adjustment is not.

Despite the trying loss in a season full of them, there is no need to panic about the health of the future of the franchise…unless your name is Gary Tanguay:

Tanguay makes the mistake of assuming the Boston Celtics will continue this losing. Danny Ainge hasn’t built a championship team in 13 years, but he should be given the benefit of the doubt regarding a turnaround. Since the “Big 3” era began, Boston has been a mainstay in the championship conversation minus a stretch from 2013-2016 where the team was recovering from the Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce deal.

Despite all of the struggles this season, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were named to the All-Star team. While All-Star weekend is notorious for being the breeding ground for future superteams, the pair’s bond is strong, and they had already gotten a taste of what it’s like to compete in a high-stakes postseason matchup in Brown’s sophomore season and Tatum’s rookie year.

Thinking things will continue to be this bad in the coming years is a fool’s errand. Then again, so is thinking that Tatum will force his way out of town after a bad night against the top team in the Eastern Conference.

As for actively wanting him out of town, perhaps Tanguay bet the ranch on the over for Tatum’s individual scoring and/or was having a rough night…because no sane Boston Celtics fan should want to see their best player bolt Beantown.