The 2023-24 Boston Celtics are undoubtedly one of the NBA's most talented teams and boast a league-high 26 wins on the season. Deciding to ship off Marcus Smart and Grant Williams for upgrades in Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday has benefitted the franchise significantly. Talent doesn't always translate to team success, though. The 2018-19 Celtics are a good example, and that team has been in the news lately after comments from former Boston star Gordon Hayward.
Hayward, who now plays for the Charlotte Hornets, suggested that the Celtics' 2018-19 players weren't willing to make necessary sacrifices for the good of the team in a recent interview on Los Angeles Clippers star Paul George's podcast. Hayward thinks those Celtics -- which featured Kyrie Irving, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier, Al Horford and Hayward -- had "too many agendas." The Celtics went 49-33 that season before losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the playoffs.
"We had probably eight players who had career highs over 40, who were all arguably in their prime," Hayward told George. "The other problem is there were too many of us in the exact same position. We all needed the ball. We all rocked with the ball, we all needed the ball."
Tatum, who has become the go-to guy in Boston, spoke on the shortcomings of Boston's 2018-19 squad from a chemistry standpoint on Tuesday and seemed to agree with Hayward's assessment.
"I mean, yeah, that shit was terrible," Tatum told the Boston Globe. "You guys saw it. We've all talked about it. It didn't work out how we wanted it to, and we were a very talented team but it just didn't mesh the way we wanted it to. And that's all right. Guys learned and everybody's moved on from it. But what Gordon said was kind of right. Guys would come back from injury, guys were trying to prove themselves, like myself. I was trying to be better than I was last year, and it was just kind of a tough year."
Hayward, Irving and Hayward had already made All-Star teams ahead of 2018-19 while Tatum and Brown had yet to establish themselves as legitimate stars. Irving and Horford departed in free agency after their run.
"Everybody wanted to do more," Tatum said. "And we didn't quite understand how we all could coexist with each other. And you just learn from that. No matter how talented a team is, it still has to work together and figure it out. And like Gordon said, we still made it to the second round. Like, it could have been worse."
The 2023-24 Celtics have no problem sharing the sugar. Tatum is leading the way with 27.0 points per game while Brown and Porzingis are also above 20.0 points per game. Then there's Derrick White, who's averaging a career-high 17.0 points per game while Holiday has chosen to take a back seat as a scorer and is attempting fewer than 11 shots per game for the first time since his rookie campaign in 2009-10.
Expectations are high for the Celtics. They sit atop the Eastern Conference with a 26-7 record, are unbeaten in 16 games at TD Garden, and are considered the odds-on favorites to win the 2024 NBA Finals. They appear to have figured out a way for their stars to coexist, but whether they can stay the course and secure their first championship since 2008 remains to be seen.
