Boston Celtics: A win over Blazers could show Lillard what he’s missing
By Mark Nilon
The Boston Celtics come into Sunday’s outing as winners of two straight, including their most recent comeback victory over the San Antonio Spurs, where Jayson Tatum lead the charge with a 60-point outing.
Certainly viewed by as an underwhelming season, for they came into 2020-21 fresh off their third Eastern Conference Finals appearance in four years and had two reigning All-Stars and a budding star returning for the new campaign, though they may have struggled throughout the majority of the year, they still seem to be on track to attain their seventh-straight playoff berth.
In fact, despite the negative coverage (which, of course, has been well deserved) coupled with their own lowly production, the Cs could still be considered a dangerous team heading into the postseason, especially if they can remain healthy, and the reason is because of their star power.
Unfortunately, the same cannot really be said for the team’s upcoming opponent, the Portland Trail Blazers, for their star power is not as widespread as the shamrocks’.
Now, obviously, the team has Damian Lillard, a top-10 player in the entire association and one who’s constantly in the running for the moniker of best point guard, but outside of him, there is a bit of a drop off in terms of a supporting cast.
In fact, so much so, that recently rumblings have surfaced suggesting that the team’s front office should strongly consider taking a more aggressive approach this offseason in an effort to acquire a second star to pair with their franchise cornerstone, with Yahoo Sportswriter, Chris Hayes, seemingly suggesting that a failure to do so could persuade Lillard’s eyes to wander.
In this league, the more stars a team has at their disposal, the greater their odds of winning a title become, and, with all due respect to a guy like CJ McCollum, the All-NBA guard’s supporting cast in said category is a tad bit shallow.
Now, while Lillard has gone on to denounce such a suggestion, claiming Hayes’ piece to be just “his thoughts”, one cannot put aside the truth that, should Damian Lillard wish to have a better chance of winning an NBA title before his career is over (he’s 30-years-old and has only made it out of the second-round once) more firepower is certainly needed.
Of course, at the end of the day this is all speculation, for the point guard has proven to be nothing but loyal to his ball club, but seeing other teams cultivating their own top-tier rosters could show Lillard a bit of what he’s missing out on.
Even the Boston Celtics, who have struggled mightily throughout this campaign, have themselves more overall star power than the majority of other teams across the league’s landscape which, of course, includes Portland.
To us, a point guard replacement seems to an inevitable need for the Cs if they, too, wish to thrust themselves back atop the league’s championship contender standings, for their current option, Kemba Walker is seemingly a shell of his old All-Star self and is too oft found riding the pine due to injury (he’ll once again be sidelined against the Trail Blazers).
Should Beantown find themselves winning their third-straight game Sunday — all without Walker in the lineup — perhaps it could be a wakeup call to a guy like Lillard who, though makes Portland a good team with him in the lineup, could make a team like the Boston Celtics into an all-out championship favorite.