You remember that cake the Boston Celtics ordered before the season? Well, turns out they're going to just devour it, too. Because while they've managed to masterfully make needed cost-cutting measures, they've done so without abandoning the NBA championship race.
In fact, there's a non-zero chance they wind up leading the darn thing. Who could've seen this coming? Big buy-in believers inside the locker room, maybe, and perhaps the most extreme glass-overflowing optimists in the fanbase. But objective observers? Nah.
"I've never been more wrong about a team in my life than I am and was about the 2025-26 Boston Celtics," The Ringer's Zach Lowe admitted on The Zach Lowe Show. "... I never saw any of this coming."
Admitting to being wrong is never fun and rarely easy, so props to Lowe for righting his preseason wrong. Then again, it's probably not too difficult to admit being wrong about this expectation-obliterating performance, because this is not at all how things are supposed to go.
Doubting the Celtics seemed fair, but clearly this club had different ideas about its perceived gap year.
This summer, Boston subtracted uber-reliable starter Jrue Holiday and lost all proven players from its interior rotation (Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet). And, remember, these moves were precipitated by the loss of the team's top talent, Jayson Tatum, to an Achilles tear that could cost him this entire campaign.
That's why it seemed so safe—if not outright smart—to start penning the 2025-26 Celtics' obituary before this season even tipped off. The proverbial writing was on the wall, and it all spoke of a fall from grace for what was an annual challenger for the Eastern Conference crown.
That's what has made this season's full-fledged dominance so startling to see. And not just for Lowe, but for any passing observer without blind allegiance to Boston.
And, yet, here the Celtics sit among the league's inner circle of heavyweight contenders: fourth in winning percentage, third in point differential, and third in net efficiency rating, per NBA.com. Jaylen Brown is a wholehearted MVP candidate, Payton Pritchard has proved his worth as both a viable starter and an impact bench leader, and this reshaped roster has somehow managed to fill in every crack and crevice.
It's a stunning performance, at least for all those who haven't been around this team and sampled the secret sauce. And, who knows, maybe it'll be on that defines this entire season.
It already has folks walking back their preseason projections in a big way, but maybe Boston is just started on this road to redemption.