Boston Celtics: 3 key takeaways from this year’s postseason

Boston Celtics key takeaway No. 3) Loyalty and patience

The most important takeaway for the Boston Celtics in these playoffs is loyalty and patience are extremely important for championship teams, but especially for teams who build the team by mainly drafting and developing players.

Specifically looking at the NBA Champions, the Milwaukee Bucks, many media members were pushing Giannis to jump ship, but, instead, he chose to remain loyal and re-sign with them.

He knew that the front office was trying its best to build a championship team around him, and he returned the favor by showing he trusted the process.

The team rewarded Giannis with an elite supporting cast, and he, in turn, led the team to a title.

While Tatum and Brown are already signed to their second contracts, they have already talked plenty about wanting to be on the Cs for a long time.

Of course, as we learned from Kyrie Irving, that doesn’t mean a whole lot but all the front office can really do is try its best to make the best team possible surrounding its stars.

As long as Tatum and Brown are on board with what the Celtics are doing from a front office standpoint, the team is allowed to be patient as well.

Once again, taking a look at the Bucks, their two best players in Giannis and Khris Middleton played together for eight whole years before finally winning a title this season.

It took each of them a while to develop considering neither were lottery picks (Middleton was actually a second round pick by the Pistons and was traded to the Bucks after one season) but now that they finally made it to the top, those eight long years made this championship all the more special.

While they went through some growing pains, Giannis and Middleton spent those eight years improving and building chemistry with each other, which made each of them both better individual players and better fits with each other on the court.

With Tatum and Brown entering year five and year six, respectively, that gives them a few years still to be at the same point in their careers as those two, and further build chemistry and their individual games.

Although the Boston Celtics have fallen short the past few years, there is no reason to panic and make drastic moves to win immediately.

I know it goes against what fans often want, but further developing those two players and building around them is the way to go.

As great as it would be to trade for Damian Lillard, there is just no way the Cs can get him without giving up Jaylen Brown, and is a duo of Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum really good enough to beat teams like the Nets, the Lakers, or the Bucks?

Damian Lillard has probably already hit his peak, but do we really know what Jaylen Brown’s peak is?

Brown is still only 24 years old, while Lillard is 31, so Brown still has many more years to develop and prove he is a true star and a great second option to Tatum.

While Lillard has proven he’s a great player, he is not the true number one option the Celtics would need, and he will most likely decline as a player in the near future.

With all that being said, what Boston’s front office needs to understand heading into this offseason is that their main goal should be to give Tatum and Brown as many reasons as possible to remain loyal to the team, along with remaining patient and waiting for the right opportunities to improve the team (key word being “right“).

The Bucks struck gold with the deal for Jrue Holiday, so all the Cs really need is their own version of such a deal, a great trade or free agent signing that can help elevate the team to a championship level.

As of right now, it isn’t completely clear who that player is, so what Brad Stevens needs to do is remain patient, keep up a great atmosphere to keep Tatum and Brown happy, and strike as soon as the right roster moves present themselves.

Specifically, Stevens needs to learn from his predecessor Danny Ainge’s past mistakes and move on to retooling the roster to make it back to the top of the Eastern Conference and, hopefully to the top of the NBA once more.