Boston Celtics Offseason Blueprint: Brown Snub, Mazzulla Praise, and Wemby Problems

CCT-June1 === Steve: [00:00:00] Welcome to another week of Celtic Chalk Talk. My name's Steve Purciello your host, obviously, and your only host here to do another week talking about our Boston Celtics. I'm a lifelong Celtic fan since the Bill Russell days. Remember it well. But today we're gonna get into a couple different things about the Celtics, but before I do, I just wanna remind people that The Celtics Chalk Talk is part of a, an independent network of of s- people who put things together. They're basketball fans. They're not writers, but they do their best, and they're quite interesting. There is a host. If you go to thePeachBasket.net website, you will see a host of pods and interesting articles that I would really say that you should take a look at. If you think this pod is good, take a look at the others. You're gonna find them just as good, if not better. So my-- that's my two-minute, or 30-second spiel on the Peach Basket and all the good things [00:01:00] that go on there. Now, about the Celtics let's get into it. First of all, Jaylen Brown gets voted second team. I commend it. I think it's great, but I also think he should've been a first-teamer. When you look at this and you really approach it in a sensible way, you realize this: Luka got first team. Luka played 64, 65 ga- whatever. Jaylen played more. More importantly, Jaylen had... He didn't have a LeBron on his team. He didn't have an Austin Reaves on his team. He did have Tatum for 20 games or so, but he didn't have any of that. And you know what? He was great, and he led this team to 56 wins. Not having the cast that Luka had, Jaylen still won more games than the Lakers. So I, I just don't understand it. I know Luka's more talented. I got it. But do we vote on who's talented or do we vote on, do we vote on what kind of year they had?[00:02:00] And to me, there's no question whatsoever that Jaylen is, had a better year, obviously. And you know what? He did a great job motivating his teammates, and they achieved more than they should've. And he also did a great job closing games out for the Celtics. He was great this year. And if he can't be first team, I don't know what can be. So it's a very frustrating thing to talk about, and it's wrong. The next thing, Joe Mazzulla, Coach of the Year. I know Mazzulla doesn't like it, but I will say his staff and notice I said staff, him and him, they did a tremendous job this year with this team. Nobody expected 56 wins. Nobody expected any of it. Second place in the East. Now, the Coach of the Year is voted on for what he does in the regular season. Mazzulla was the best coach in the league. He preps his team. They go out and play with his plan, and so on. Now, [00:03:00] my problem, and I don't even wanna-- I will get negative, but I don't want to My problem with Mizzou is when the playoffs come around, he gets a little stubborn and he doesn't want to make changes. And we've talked about this a few times now about the different things he could have done in the playoffs to maybe negate Embiid. But that's water under the bridge and I don't want to go through it. I think it's an honor for Mizzou. Mizzou is one of the top coaches in the league. He's got a world championship. He's done a great job. So y- you have to congratulate him and say how-- what a great job and just move along. And as for his staff, they did a tremendous job. And I know oh, they won't... One, one assistant coach did get an interview, but they're not well-known and outside of outside of Sam who is not getting interviews, but none of them will get interviewed for a head job. That's the shame of it because there are good coaches that are growing under [00:04:00] Mizzou and they belong or they deserve to get at least an interview or two to get them there. Now, the next thing I want to focus on is, and we talked a little bit about this, but I think since the last time we talked, things have changed Wembanyama is now officially on the scene. He's in the finals, and I think it won't be the last time. So when you look at the Celtics, you need to begin to think, "How the heck do we beat them?" Now, my thought, beat San Antonio. Now naturally you're lucky you're in the East. The East is not as good as the West, and let Kansas OKC and and San Antonio fight it out for the rest of the years. Who cares? But you, if you wanna get and win a title, and that's what Boston's about. We're not here to get to the finals, we're here to win the title. If that's what you're about, you've gotta figure out how do you play against Wembanyama? Now, let's think about the basketball here. Going back, [00:05:00] Boston with Ime started the idea of taking your rim protector and putting him close to the basket and by guarding the worst shooter on the other team, not guarding the center. So what they're doing here is they're taking Wemby and putting him on somebody and saying, "Go ahead, shoot." It'll happen in the playoffs starting tomorrow Wednesday night when they'll be telling they'll be telling Josh Hart, "Shoot." And if Josh Hart shoots and does well, you shake his hand 'cause you lost. But if he doesn't, you win because Wemby will be planted near the basket. Remember, defensive three seconds, so he'll be moving, but he'll be near the basket, and he'll deter anybody going to the basket. So it makes a problem. Now, the only thing I can figure in this whole thing is what probably the smartest thing Boston can do is get a group of three-point shooters. Why? Because who- whoever Wemby [00:06:00] guards, he's gonna have a problem. Now, when you begin to break that down, you start thinking, okay, Sam Hauser becomes more valuable. Derrick White doesn't And I've talked about this before, and I love Derrick White. Nobody loves him more. But I think he's one of the great clutch Celtics in the last five, 10 years. So the last 20 years, whatever you wanna say but he didn't shoot well. He didn't shoot well, and he hurt the Celtics in the playoffs this year, and he hurt them during the regular season. Great off-the-ball defender, great at blocking shots, tremendous knack for blocking shots, and a very good player and should be number three on the Celtics besides Tatum and Brown. But he's gotta shoot. He didn't. Now you're faced with the thing, you got two more year, two more years of contract. If you hold him and he doesn't have a good shooting year, what did you do? You lost value on [00:07:00] him, and then you got a problem. So that's one of the things I think about. What is-- And I'm not even gonna get into trades or how to handle this, but one of the things Boston needs to do is get enough three-point shooting on the floor. And the trick is they've gotta be able to play defense, but enough three-point shooting on the floor. That means five guys that can consistently hit from three and put them on the floor. Does-- What does that mean? It also means a big. Now, I don't think Luka Garza can defend in a big situation. However, he can hit a three. You've gotta go out or you play the game with Tatum as the five, and I don't know if you wanna do that. But you've gotta do something if you do play the Wemby, and you gotta be thinking, "Look, we're trying to win a title." Wemby is the team and the Spurs are the team we wanna beat. So what do we do? You can't sit there and say we'll be pretty good with this team." No. This is Boston. We win titles, and we want one more as [00:08:00] JB and JT are aging There it-- you saw it a couple years ago with Pierce and Garnett. They played well, I believe in 2012. By 2013, they were out in the first round. Th- so you've gotta understand, th- the time goes quick. 2012, they took LeBron to game seven. 2013, they were home in no time two weeks after the season. So you only have that window for a little bit of time. I don't know how long JB and JT will continue to be good. I have to think two or three more years together, but you gotta capitalize on it. So you gotta do things. Now, I did suggest last week about Anfernee Simons, and I do think it's a good move. And if you can't get him, I think Mr. White from the old Bulls and played with Charlotte this year is another good player to go get. Coby White can play. He can shoot, and he opens things up for Boston. [00:09:00] You need a guy that can, besides Sam Hauser, but you need a guy that can score off the bench and help you offensively. I think Coby White, Anfernee Simons answer that. We saw what An-Anfernee Simons can do. We need that. Now I'm gonna just... And I've harped on the fact that Boston needed someone strong enough to contend with the big guys like Embiid who will go in the post and just beat the hell out of Boston and just had easy shots. Vukovic was like me guarding him. There was nothing that-- Embiid just went right over him. Queta kept fouling him, so he couldn't hold his own. So my thought again, and I'll keep saying it, you need somebody that's bulkier. I'm just gonna throw a crazy idea. I believe Andre Drummond is a free agent. I think you can get him cheap He's not a guy that needs a lot of minutes. You can use him. You can use him with Garza and use both of them. And but you can [00:10:00] use him against big post-up centers like Embiid. And that is a very important piece for the Celtics. And the one more thing he brings to the table, he's mean. And by that, he don't take crap, and he'll defend his teammates. So now JB and JT have somebody out there who's going to get in somebody's face when they start roughing up these guys. I think that's a, an e- easy call. I don't know how much it'll take. He made 5 million last year. I don't know, 7 million? And that's a, an easy call to make to bring Andre D- Drummond in. I think that's something the Celtics need to think about. Next week we will talk a little bit about Derrick White, maybe some other ideas on how to deal with White. I really haven't thought about that, but I think you're in a funny position with him, as I said. That's it. That's it for the week. It's always fun. Great to talk Celtic basketball, and hopefully you're [00:11:00] back again next week for another w- another week of Celtic Chalk Talk. Take care.