Boston Celtics: The 5 players walking through that door in 2018
With Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward returning at full health, the Boston Celtics are the Eastern Conference favorites entering the 2018-19 NBA season.
In March of 2000, a former Boston Celtics coach once ranted about how certain stars of the past was “not walking through that door” to reinforce how a rebuilding team needed time and development to be a winner once again.
That coach was Rick Pitino and some of the players he named were Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. Although Pitino never built a winner in Boston, the team formulated its next big three in 2008.
Led by Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, the Boston Celtics hoisted their 17th NBA championship banner and appeared destined to win a couple more. While injuries and old age eventually got in the way, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge learned from what happened to the team in the 90s and traded Garnett and Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets for a package that has set the team up for the present and the future.
Along with signing marquee free agents like Al Horford and Gordon Hayward, Ainge used a few of those picks to draft Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. He used another in a trade that acquired All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving from the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Now, led by head coach Brad Stevens, the Boston Celtics are set up to contend for an NBA title in at least the next couple seasons (if not right now). It took patience, time and a little bit of losing, but 18 years later there are five stars walking through that door for a team that came just a quarter away from defeating the best player in the world without two of those stars.
The reason they got that far was because they played team ball. Most importantly, the young players on the team were given the opportunity to grow and turn into stars themselves.
Entering the 2018-19 NBA season, the Boston Celtics are the favorites in the East. They are the favorites because of what they did a season ago and who they have returning this season. Led by Irving and Hayward, the green and white have a quintet of stars with their own niche on the team and something to prove this season.