It's already been noted that the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers are taking vastly different approaches this coming season. The Sixers believe that their undeniable overwhelming talent will win out, while the Celtics believe that the Mazzulla Ball strategy is their best bet, regardless of the talent on their team.
In other words, for the latter, it's more or less "trust the process" in a nutshell, which was once the former's iconic motto they lived and died by in the 2010s.
The 76ers went by this motto, though their definition of it was unashamedly tanking for years on end to assemble enough young talent to set them up for a decade. It's an exploitative strategy, but it's not a stupid one for what it's worth. The only reason why it went wrong was that the young talent they assembled, like Ben Simmons, didn't pan out the way they had hoped.
Since then, the 76ers have ditched the motto, but clearly haven't stopped trying to assemble as much talent as possible since drafting Joel Embiid in 2014. While the 76ers' definition of process was all about talent, the Celtics' definition is a bit different.
Celtics' process is about basketball fit
Brad Stevens shocked everyone when he traded Jaylen Brown earlier this summer. It was known beforehand that he had planned to trade the Celtics star, but many were shocked that he traded him to a division rival and for Paul George, an aging former star whose contract was seen as an albatross.
However, when looking at Stevens' offseason as a whole, it's clear he believes that the Celtics' basketball process is the bigger priority over trying to assemble the most talented team possible. George is not a better player than Brown talent-wise, but he is a better fit for what Boston wants to do than Brown.
He's a better shooter, a smarter defender, and doesn't make avoidable mistakes like Brown does. Besides George, Boston added one of the NBA's best offensive rebounders ever in Mitchell Robinson shortly after they discovered that offensive rebounding itself is their failsafe when their reliance on threes fails them on occasion.
The commonality between the two of them is that they are also defensive playmakers, meaning they force turnovers, thus also fitting quite well with Boston's emphasis on possession-maxing. The 2026-27 Celtics won't possess the same talent as the Celtics roster that won Banner 18, but they may fit Mazzulla Ball even more perectly than that team did.
That doesn't mean Banner 19 is on its way, but it does mean Stevens believes the process of basketball fit and identity means more than getting the most talent possible does. It may not be the exact same MO as the 76ers last decade, but Stevens truly is operating under the belief to trust the process more than ever.
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