BOSTON — It’s amazing what an NBA championship can do for morale.
Two years ago, when the Celtics gathered at the Auerbach Center for a somber media day, they introduced a new head coach to a team stunned by the news of the irregularities of his predecessor.
This offseason has been marked by unusual circumstances, like any other. Kristaps Porziņģis underwent surgery for a rare ankle injury. Jaylen Brown was left off the Olympic team. Jayson Tatum made the roster but was benched twice in Paris. The team’s ownership group announced plans to sell the franchise.
And let’s just say the mood was a little different this time around.
“I don’t want to state the obvious,” Brown said, “but we won a championship.
“It was bliss.”
Make no mistake: the Olympics were a thing for Boston two best players.
Brown, who was excluded from the American team, suggested that Nike shared responsibility for his absence from the list. Brown took to the podium wearing custom black sneakers, which he planned to officially unveil later Tuesday, promising to reveal “the whole experience that’s going on in the sneaker market” in the future.
As for the Olympics, Brown simply said: “I’m extremely motivated for obvious reasons.”
Tatum was part of Steve Kerr’s team but played only a short time on their way to a second gold medal. He, too, said he will draw some motivation from that situation.
“I guess you could say that if you want to simplify it,” Tatum said. “In real time, it was tough. I talked to Joe (Mazzulla) a lot, and he was probably the happiest person in the world that I didn’t win Finals MVP and didn’t play two games in the Olympics. If you know Joe, that makes sense. Did I need extra motivation to start the season? No. I’m not going to give anyone specific credit for motivating me to start the season. It was a unique circumstance, something I’ve never experienced before in my playing career, but I believe everything happens for a reason.”
But ultimately, “if you’re extrinsically motivated, that’s going to go away and you’re going to be exposed to your external motivation pretty quickly,” said Mazzulla, the third-year coach who, along with Boston’s management, spent the offseason pondering the question: Now that they’ve won a championship, how do they stay hungry to win another one? Ultimately, each player has to answer that question for themselves.
“Everything you embraced last season and everything you say is your goal is going to be tested at a higher level,” said Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens, who cited human nature as an adversary this season, “and if you’re really here for it, then you elevate yourself even higher.”
Tatum, for his part, believes that this is so.
“It was never about just trying to win one,” the four-time All-NBA player said. “Now you can be in the same room with the other great Celtics teams, the other great players. Every guy I looked up to growing up won at least one championship, so now it’s just a question of: How great are you trying to be? What room or what level are you trying to be mentioned in when it’s all said and done?”
Even the sale of the team, which for better or worse will alter the team’s finances, potentially impacting the extremely costly roster-building process in the near future, could not darken the team’s outlook.
“We’ve obviously built a team,” Stevens said. “We’ve worked long-term to get to where we are right now. Plans don’t always go the way you want them to. So far, it’s been pretty good. There’s always going to be challenges. The way (the owners) have expressed it to me since the sale was announced was, ‘We just have to keep doing what we’re doing. Keep doing business as usual and do what we can to build the best team we can, and then we’ll see where we go from there.’”
The team they have assembled is once again a title favorite and is largely the same as last season, save for the additions of veteran Lonnie Walker IV and rookie Baylor Scheierman. They will be without the injured Porziņģis until December, though that brings some good news.
“I don’t know if we’re interested in giving him a timetable,” said Stevens, who is entering his fourth season as head coach, “because his injury is unique, but as far as how he feels and the progress he’s made, I would say we’re very, very pleased with where he is — and maybe a little surprised.”
It was important to Stevens to keep this group together. Because of their chemistry, he believes in their ability to do what the last five champions haven’t done — repeat — even though he knows how difficult it will be. For all the confidence gained and the perceived slights, the Celtics’ motivation will come from each other.
“I think these guys are galvanized by each other,” Stevens said. “They have a unique chemistry that I think really matters, and they deserve the opportunity to take on this challenge together.”
That’s right: the Celtics’ title defense – or, as they say, their title”attack” — starts now.
