Ramp to Camp: What is Celtics’ biggest obstacle in quest to repeat?

Ramp to Camp: What is Celtics’ biggest obstacle in quest to repeat? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

September is here and a new season of Celtics basketball isn’t far behind.

The NBA champion Celtics being their title defense when training camp opens later this month, and a preseason trip to Abu Dhabi means Boston gets an early jump on most of its rivals.

The Celtics worked quickly to bring back much of their championship roster at the start of the offseason, and aside from the recent addition of Lonnie Walker IV, it’s been very quiet in CelticsLand lately. But it’s time to start thinking about basketball again.

Welcome to our Ramp To Camp 2024 series. We asked members of our NBC Sports Boston staff to ponder 15 topics aimed at setting the table for Boston’s 2024-25 campaign.

In the first installment of our late-summer forecast, we asked our staff to identify the biggest obstacle the Celtics might encounter in their quest to repeat as champions.

When we first pondered the subject last month, we landed on four primary pitfalls: Health, complacency, beefed-up competition, and the general burden of being a champion.

Not surprisingly, health was the most common response from our panel. The Celtics are set to start the 2024-25 season with big man Kristaps Porzingis, who is sidelined after offseason leg surgery. And yet this is a team that steamrolled through the 2024 playoffs even with Porzingis hobbled by his leg ailment.

The Celtics leaned into their depth last season, and even if their biggest strength was the totality of talent in their top six, it was a bench full of net rating darlings that helped Boston stay afloat regardless of who was available.

Which is why our vote for biggest obstacle lands on the general burden of defending champions. Don’t misconstrue. This doesn’t seem like a team that will get content after reaching the mountaintop. But it’s simply difficult to stay up there.

Defending champs have to fight any bit of complacency that might creep in. They have to deal with a perpetual target on their back. They can’t skip steps, even if there’s only one acceptable outcome to the…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ramp-camp-celtics-biggest-obstacle-134211114.html

Author : NBC Sports Boston

Publish date : 2024-09-02 13:42:11

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