Watch Colin Cowherd of FS1’s The Herd discuss why he doesn’t think the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics fit the mold for a legitimate NBA Finals champion.
Check out the segment below as Colin details why the Celtics lack the ‘alpha’ that all championship teams boast across all sports.
Colin Cowherd: "What the Celtics are is a perfect reflection of what basketball is in the NBA in 2024 – they are offensively gifted and the league has never been more offensively gifted. Six guys on this team could drop 20 points in the Finals and you wouldn’t be surprised. They’re rich: Derrick White is their number three or four starter and he’ll make $18 million this year. They’re mobile: Jrue Holiday, Porzingis, Derrick White; were not drafted by the Celtics. They’re cohesive: ‘TEAM’ above everything else. And they’re a little soft. They’re about a .500 team in the playoffs the last 3-4 years. They are very, very good and very skilled, but they’re not great, and I don’t know how to make the Celtics go from ‘very good’ to ‘great.’
Jayson Tatum is their best player but offensively he mostly floats off-ball. He does not take the game over; he is not Luka. His personality is not ‘alpha.’ His usage rate is not that high. It was below Cam Thomas and Jaren Jackson, and he’s the best player on the best team. If you watch the Celtics play, on five different possessions they could have five different Celtics players score, and it would look fantastic, but it’s almost too collaborative. In the NBA there’s a LeBron, a Steph, an MJ, a Kobe, and Dallas has one – it's called Luka. ‘Get me the ball, I’ll make the pass, I’ll make the bucket’... And that’s not what Boston is. They’re really smart, really collaborative, and like to get Derrick White involved, and the ball moves beautifully. It’s aesthetically pleasing but it’s not old school. Collaborative over alpha, sharing over the individual.
Tatum may have idolized Kobe Bryant, but their basketball ideology is very different. Celtics and the Mavs is a classic matchup of ‘old vs. new', and the ‘old’ historically creates dynasties. Does 'collaborative' win with the star that sometimes is just ‘part’ of the offense and not THE offense late in games?
The Celtics are new, collaborative, there’s chemistry, they share, there's a different scorer every possession, and I ‘think’ it can win a title, but I don’t know if it can against Luka, and I don’t know if that ‘very good’ will become 'great.'”
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