{"id":209827,"date":"2025-10-08T19:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/209827\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T19:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:35:07","slug":"celtics-2025-26-nba-season-win-projections-may-shock-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/209827\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics&#8217; 2025-26 NBA Season Win Projections May Shock Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Outside of the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 NBA campaign, the Boston Celtics haven\u2019t finished with fewer than 46 wins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/teams\/BOS\/#BOS\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">since the 2014-15 season<\/a>, when they went 40-42.<\/p>\n<p>Although ESPN\u2019s Kevin Pelton\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/46521096\/nba-2025-2026-season-win-projections-all-30-teams\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">projected win total<\/a> for the Celtics in the upcoming campaign is just 45.6, it\u2019s higher than ESPN BET\u2019s over\/under win total of 40.5.<\/p>\n<p>Even more surprising, however, is that Pelton projects Boston to finish fifth in the Eastern Conference in 2025-26, ahead of the likes of the Milwaukee Bucks, Atlanta Hawks and Detroit Pistons.<\/p>\n<p>Many fans and experts have <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/10\/nba-writer-celtics-led-by-very-diminished-group-this-season\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">predicted<\/a> that head coach Joe Mazzulla\u2019s group will be battling for a spot in the Play-In Tournament next spring, but if they were to finish in the top six in the conference, they\u2019d avoid that fate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs with Indiana, there might be too much focus on the players Boston lost and not enough on the ones who remain,\u201d Pelton wrote. \u201cThe Celtics still have eight players projected better than average \u2014 tied for eighth most in the league \u2014 including All-Star Jaylen Brown and statistical standout Derrick White. The caveat here is that Boston could subtract during the season to avoid the luxury tax and take a chance at the lottery before Jayson Tatum \u2014 likely out for the season after rupturing his right Achilles tendon \u2014 returns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Celtics\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/09\/brad-stevens-celtics-gave-these-players-opportunity-to-stay\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">biggest losses<\/a> over the offseason were centers Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis and Luke Kornet, as well as guard Jrue Holiday. Boston does return Derrick White, Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard, among others, however, as the team will try to extend their NBA-best streak of 11 straight playoff berths.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Celtics have their first preseason game on Tuesday night against the Memphis Grizzlies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outside of the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 NBA campaign, the Boston Celtics haven\u2019t finished with fewer than 46 wins since&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[39048,29175,5488,49546,355,99],"class_list":["post-209827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-derrick-white","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-joe-mazzulla","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}