When Jayson Tatum went down with a torn Achilles on May 12 during Game Four of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Knicks, the Boston Celtics\u2019 plans for the coming season took a complete U-turn. Admittedly, they\u2019ll go from being sure-shot contenders to, at best, chasing a playoff spot. According to Bob Ryan, even that could be a stretch.<\/p>\n
Tatum will miss the majority of the 2025\/26 season<\/a>, if not all of it. That leaves Jaylen Brown as the number one option for Boston, and Ryan, a famed columnist, does not think that aligns with high ambitions.<\/p>\n Brown is a fine player, one who earned the 2024 Finals MVP after the C\u2019s torched the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> to capture the franchise\u2019s 18th championship. But Ryan does not believe he can carry a team the way Tatum has. The basketball guru and longtime Celtics follower appeared on the CLNS Media Boston Sports Network program and explained why the four-time All-Star will fall short as the team\u2019s new frontman.<\/p>\n \u201cI like him, he\u2019s fine. He\u2019s a wonderful player. There\u2019s a level of hierarchy in all sports. He\u2019s at the next level, the very good level. But he\u2019s not at that level, I don\u2019t think. Just a chance to prove everybody wrong,\u201d he stated<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ryan isn\u2019t the only famed Bostonian to say this, either. Six-time NBA Champion Bob Cousy,<\/a> who is now 97, expressed his concerns with Brown at the helm, and even wondered if the team would have to go through a major rebuild.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my judgment, Jaylen [Brown] is not quite at the superstar level that [Jayson] Tatum is at,\u201d Cousy told<\/a> The Boston Globe. \u201cCan he carry the load by himself? I see a major rebuilding effort here. Jaylen certainly won\u2019t bring them to the promised land. Derrick White\u2019s a good player and he\u2019ll produce and he\u2019ll be consistent, but his game doesn\u2019t lend itself to carrying a team.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan echoed what Cousy opined and vehemently agreed, predicting that the Celtics will fall much further in the East than anyone is willing to admit, out of the playoffs and into the play-in. \u201cNaturally, there\u2019s some blowback from young ins. \u2018Who\u2019s the old guy? What\u2019s he talking about?\u2019 He\u2019s on record now, and I agree with him. I think they\u2019re going to be lucky to be in that 7\/8 mix.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019re going to be fortunate to avoid the Play-In. I really do,\u201d added Jeff Goodman, who conducted the interview with Ryan. That\u2019s probably right on the money. The East no longer belongs to Boston as it has for the last decade.<\/p>\n The New York Knicks<\/a> have improved. The Cleveland Cavaliers finished in the No. 1 spot and, if they remain healthy, could just as easily do it again. The Detroit Pistons are finding themselves as a franchise, and the Milwaukee Bucks will always be dangerous as long as Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> is there.<\/p>\n Fortunately, Boston has a great coach in Joe Mazzulla. If there is someone who can figure out how the Brown algorithm works, it would be him. But unless more major moves are made, there is no indication that the Celtics are getting back to the Finals anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Jayson Tatum went down with a torn Achilles on May 12 during Game Four of the Eastern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-76074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}