Celtics guard Marcus Smart joined J.J. Redick’s Old Man and the Three podcast for a live episode on the eve of the trade deadline, and when asked about how wide open the race for the NBA title is this season, Smart argued that the Celtics would have won a title four years ago if not for LeBron James.
The 2018 Celtics were built to be a contender led by Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, but unfortunate injuries to both those players kept them out of a postseason run. Instead, it was 21-year-old Jaylen Brown, 19-year-old Jayson Tatum and 23-year-old Terry Rozier leading a young Celtics squad to the Eastern Conference finals, eventually losing at home in Game 7 to LeBron’s Cavaliers.
