The Boston Celtics didn't have a perfect season, but the season went about as perfectly as they could have expected with everything that was going against them once started. Everyone thought the Celtics would take the season off, and yet here they are as the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Sure, there were some disappointments, but said disappointments were so inconsequential that it's not like the team suffered from them. This season went so unexpectedly smoothly that Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes listed Boston letting the chance to draft Ryan Kalkbrenner slip through their fingers as their biggest regret.
Even Hughes himself all but confirmed he was grasping at straws when mentioning this.
"The closest we can come to finding a regret involves Boston's second-round pick from the most recent draft, and even that has to be viewed alongside the rousing success of the Hugo Gonzalez pick at No. 28.
"Boston took (and traded) Noah Penda with the 32nd pick, passing on Sion James and Ryan Kalkbrenner, who went 33rd and 34th to the Charlotte Hornets. Kalkbrenner, in particular, would have been a major boost to the otherwise thin center spot. He blocked 2.5 shots per 36 minutes while making a ridiculous three-quarters of his shots from the field."
To be fair, if Boston's frontcourt had proven to be an issue, this absolutely would have been a problem. However, the efforts of Neemias Queta, Luka Garza, and Nikola Vucevic pretty much erased that.
Kalkbrenner has been a stud on a resilient Charlotte team this season, so this is no shot at him, but it's pretty clear that the Celtics had no use for him. Besides, drafting him would have interfered with their cap mastery this season, so one could argue there was some good to come from from passing.
Boston created an enjoyable season when many believed it'd be quite miserable
The fact that not getting Kalkbrenner is seen as Boston's biggest mistake, and the fact that doing so was not costly in the slightest goes to show how much Boston turned the tables on everyone when many thought life had turned the tables on them back in October.
But there was a valid reason to think that. You know what's funny? From a talent perspective, this was supposed to be the weakest Celtics team since their disastrous 2020-21 season, and yet there's a solid chance they'll be back in the NBA Finals.
It goes to show that a large dropoff in talent actually can be made up for when a team has a winning culture. Kalkbrenner would have been nice in Boston, but there's a reason why no one's losing sleep over that.
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