Boston Celtics: 3 winnable individual player awards and Cs who could win them

Sure, the Boston Celtics are off to a less than ideal spot, having lost six of their first eleven games through the season’s early portion, but there’s time to turn it around.

Better yet, there’s also plenty of talent on the roster capable of engineering such a run. So far, there have been team-wide issues, but there’s also been individual greatness sandwiched in between the struggles.

Should the turnaround come to be as the season progresses and Ime Udoka figures out his rotations and schemes, these 3 players will be part of the reason why. And their play has put them in the running for the following individual player awards as well:

Boston Celtics SF/PF Jayson Tatum could be the first MVP in green since 1986

It’s been a long time since the Cs had a singular star be the face of the league, but Jayson Tatum could be the man to return Boston to that mantle in 2021-22.

With Jaylen Brown’s hamstring ailment, set to keep him out for up to two weeks, Tatum now has the chance to pull a 2013-14 Kevin Durant–who was missing Russell Westbrook due to an injury in the 2013 postseason caused by Patrick Beverley–for a few weeks and dominate during a few ‘prove it’ matchups against the defending NBA Champion Milwaukee Bucks, the young and surging Cleveland Cavaliers (twice), the 2021 Eastern Conference finals runner-up Atlanta Hawks, and a Los Angeles Lakers team that should have LeBron James back by the time the purple and gold make way to the TD Garden.

After a rocky start to the season, Tatum has come on strong in two recent double-double performances minus the All-Star Brown from the lineup. If he can parlay a stretch of carrying the Cs and then continue to shine when Brown returns, of course assuming Boston can then finish with a top five record in 2021-22, Tatum could be an All-Star candidate.