If we power ranked the entire NBA for their future potential to contend, where would we rank the Boston Celtics? Thankfully, we do not need to spend an inordinate amount of time constructing counterfactuals and weighing evidence to answer such a question, given Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey has already accomplished such an exercise on our behalf.
To come up with his league-wide analysis, the B/R league analyst used a very specific formula which draws on “picks in this draft and upcoming ones, young talent already on the roster, current performance, projected future performance and loads of subjectivity (to have) every team in the league … ranked by their chances to win a title in the next three years,” not including the 2024 title.
In such a breakdown, the Celtics clock in a second overall, behind only the Denver Nuggets and just ahead of the Minnesota Timberwolves. “The amount of criticism the Boston Celtics have gotten over the years might lead the casual observer to think they have one of the oldest rosters in the league,” writes Bailey.
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Noting that the entire team is young save for Al Horford and Jrue Holiday, and that this core ” just won 64 games and had the fifth-highest SRS (simple rating system combines point differential and strength of schedule) in NBA history,” the B/R expert makes a solid case for Boston at No. 2.
“If the front office keeps this group together, it’ll remain in the contenders’ tier for each of the next three seasons.”
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