What a crazy and wild year of sports we’ve had. The pandemic has brought some ridiculous moments to us, but let’s just be thankful that sports can be mostly consistent.
With a new NBA season on the rise, it will be important to get your bets in for the futures.
With Brooklyn back and ready to surge the Eastern Conference, some teams might naturally take a step back.
The Boston Celtics seem like they will be one of those teams. Let’s take a look at their projected win totals and see if we can back it up.
Boston Celtics Win Total Projection: 45.5
Remember, this season is condensed due to the quick turnaround, so instead of 82 games there will actually only be 72 games played for each team.
By win percentage, to this over at 46, the Celtics would be winning around 52-53 games in a normal 82 game schedule.
Losing Hayward to Charlotte, it will give a chance for Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to play freely and not worry about sacrificing their minutes to someone else.
This is Tatum’s team, and he asserted himself as the leader throughout the bubble when they were making their run.
The biggest problem comes from Kemba Walker.
Walker, in his second year with Boston, still has a lingering knee issue that began back in March just before the regular season shut down.
As it stands, the target date for Walker to return is some time in January, but with how it looked in the bubble that date may get pushed back even further.
With Walker out, Marcus Smart will move into the starting lineup, but that leaves Boston with next to nothing coming off the bench.
They will be relying on Grant Williams to improve dramatically in his second season, and on their rookies they drafted, most notably Aaron Nesmith.
Even with grabbing Tristan Thompson as a quality center, I don’t see this as a recipe for success for the regular season.
A Team Built for the Playoffs
While this Boston team will be struggling with injuries throughout most of the regular season, this team should be ready for the playoffs.
A crunch-time five of Walker, Smart, Brown, Tatum and Thompson feels like it can measure up with nearly any other team in the Eastern Conference.
Thompson will help solve their rebounding problems, but he will have to find a way to nurse his injuries too.
All of this to say, I think their win projection total is too high. I think they will win around 43-45 games and just miss out on the over.
That would put them in the neighborhood of just barely being a 50 win team in a regular 82 game season.
I can’t wait to see where Tatum and Brown go this season after their performance together in the bubble, but I’m hard-pressed to believe that both players will be able to carry them to the over.
Once they get Kemba back, look out for this team to make some noise in the postseason.
Final Verdict: UNDER Projected Boston Celtics Win Total of 45.5.
