Boston Celtics: Cs listed as 6th best Big 3 in 2020-21

The Boston Celtics were once seen as a legitimate threat to take on the moniker of “Superteam” just a few years ago, back when they were boasting a roster consisting of Kyrie Irving, Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Gordon Hayward, and Al Horford all at once.

Now, two years removed, more than half of these players find themselves donning the threads of another franchise.

However, along this journey, many positive progressions have managed to take place for the Cs: their two young wings became NBA All-Stars; Smart has been selected to two NBA All-Defensive First-Teams; All-Star Kemba Walker went on to join the team back in the summer of 2019.

Though Boston may no longer have the overall name recognition it once did, the roster still finds itself in possession of a Big 3 consisting of Tatum, Brown, and Walker.

While 2020-21 has been quite a disappointment even with these aforementioned ballers in tow, Bleacher Report still believes their trio should be considered to be one of the best in the association.

In fact, writer Dan Favale would go as far as to say their Big 3 is the sixth-best in the NBA.

B/R ranks Big 3 on the Boston Celtics as sixth-best in the NBA

Though Favale found it hard to point out too many positives in regard to Walker this year, the praise in which Tatum and Brown received is good enough to thrust this tribe into the upper echelon of the league’s Big 3s:

"There isn’t much to dislike beyond Walker’s iffiness. Brown has re-explored solid ground after a molten-hot start, but he has still found a new offensive zenith. Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, Nikola Jokic and Zach LaVine are the only other players averaging more than 24 points and three assists while shooting better than 53 percent on twos and 39 percent on threes. Brown seems to have more of a feel for playmaking and has shown he can manufacture his own jumpers.Tatum has made a table-setting leap himself—a bigger one. He’s not just finding unattended teammates; he’s making more complicated reads. He can toss one-handed dimes on the move and is, for the most part, delivering difficult passes in the right, less-obvious spots."

The beautiful thing about all this is that this trio for the Boston Celtics has yet to tap into their true form, which was seen during the early stages of the 2019-20 campaign prior to Walker’s injury. Favale went on to suggest that they still have a chance to rise up the ranks by year’s end should health be on their side and, in turn, things begin to fall back into place.

Though being ranked sixth on such a list isn’t the “worst” thing in the world, based on expectations and how the Big 3 looks on paper, it’s quite an underwhelming position to be in.