Jayson Tatum still has dreams of raising another banner in TD Garden, but the Boston Celtics are going to have a lot of work to do to make this happen.
In a recent interview for Athlon Sports, Tatum spoke about his desire to win another championship in Boston.
"No, I never looked at it as trying to defend a championship. We already won. Regardless, for the rest of my life, the 2024 Boston Celtics are champions. After that is just trying to win another one. So when I come back, or when the season starts, it’s just about trying to have another parade here in June, and put up another banner," Tatum said.
Celtics fans can share Tatum's sentiment. Not even two years ago, he and the team finally raised Banner 18 after 16 years, and there were even talks of them potentially becoming a dynasty. But those days are in the past. Boston lost to the New York Knicks in six games in the second round last season, and it is fresh off a first-round collapse against the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Celtics are still going to be in playoff contention for a while, but with teams like the Knicks, San Antonio Spurs, and Oklahoma City Thunder looking poised to take the league by storm over the next however many years, it's clear that they have some changes to make if they want to get back to the promised land.
Boston's roster isn't good enough to compete for a championship
Let's pretend that the Celtics don't make any notable changes this summer. In theory, they would have a pretty decent outlook for next season: Tatum and Jaylen Brown will be back together for another season, Derrick White will go back to his third-in-command role, and guys like Hugo Gonzalez, Baylor Scheierman, and Neemias Queta should take it to the next level in their development.
Even though they lost in the first round of the playoffs, the Celtics were still 56-26 and earned the No. 2 seed last season. They're a good team. They're just not a championship-caliber team, and that's what Brad Stevens needs to change.
I'm not even saying Boston should trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo (unless it's done to pair him WITH Tatum and Brown, not to split them up). I'm saying the team should repeat what it did in 2023, when they acquired Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday (and Svi Mykhailiuk, of course), because those players complemented the Jays' game.
The Celtics have a core that has won a championship before and can win another one. Tatum and Brown are both in the midst of their primes and still have a ton of good basketball left together. It really doesn't make too much sense to split them up and drastically change their long-term championship window by swapping Brown with Antetokounmpo.
Regardless, Tatum and Celtics fans are both dreaming of the same thing: raising Banner 19 in TD Garden sooner rather than later. And while this is a real possibility, changes are going to need to be made in order for this to come to fruition.
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