BOSTON — They seemed to be in an enviable position when the 2017-18 season came to an end a year ago this month.
The Celtics had just taken LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals while playing without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, and the future was looking bright.
Not only were Irving and Hayward going to return from injuries to join youngsters Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, plus veteran Al Horford, but James’ days in [...]
BOSTON — They seemed to be in an enviable position when the 2017-18 season came to an end a year ago this month.
The Celtics had just taken LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals while playing without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, and the future was looking bright.
Not only were Irving and Hayward going to return from injuries to join youngsters Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, plus veteran Al Horford, but James’ days in Cleveland were obviously numbered.
A solid run as the team to beat in the Eastern Conference seemed to be in store for the Celtics as they went their separate ways last May.
Fast-forward one year later, and those good vibes are nowhere to be found.
An up-and-down regular season that was followed by an embarrassing second-round performance has left the Celtics no longer in an enviable position.
The high expectations that were on the backs of the Celtics when the season got going in October were never lived up to.
A lack of cohesiveness was obvious as the Celtics struggled with issue after issue and couldn’t even make it to 49 wins before bowing out to the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in five games.
It was a mess of a season that came to an end on Wednesday night with a blowout Game 5 loss, and now the blame game begins.
Fingers are being pointing in every direction, a lot of them going towards Irving because of his strange leadership style that alienated young players. Irving’s brutal showing in the four losses to the Bucks when he went 25-for-83 with some bad shot selection did not help his cause.
So as the Celtics gathered at the Auerbach Center on Thursday for exit meetings with management, it was time to look back and wonder had it all went so very wrong the last seven months.
“I don’t think anybody was prepared for this year in terms of what the circus was going to be like, the media and everything, expectations and balancing all that and rotations,’’ said Brown. “We didn’t know what it was going to be like.
“I’ve learned a lot and my approach will be different from here on out. I don’t think anybody was prepared for what this season brought.’’
There were players not happy with their roles. There were younger players like Brown, Tatum and Terry Rozier, who were keys to the playoff success a year ago, now asked to take reduced roles with Irving and Hayward in the picture again.
Hayward was clearly not the same player he was before suffering a gruesome injury in October 2017, one of the reasons why the Celtics took an unexpected step back.
Nothing ever seemed to mesh from the start of the preseason all the way through the series with the Bucks.
“It’s really disappointing,’’ said Marcus Smart. “We live and we learn. It’s a lesson and we just move on.
“You ask anybody on the team, we wish we could do it over, just wipe this out of our minds. But it’s good for us all, some adversity. Adversity is good for you. It builds character. It’s going to help everybody.’’
Asked what he would like to change if he had the chance for a do-over, Smart said, “Everything probably. Just switch it up. I just feel like we didn’t give ourselves the right opportunity to do something great. We all locked in, we’re all on the same page. We wanted to do it.
“We just couldn’t find a way to do it. It’s nobody’s fault. It happens. It won’t be the last time you see a team like this go through this.’’
The Celtics were the team that went through it this season, and after being the preseason favorite to win the Eastern Conference, failed to get out of the second round for the first time since 2016.
They were a team that became difficult to watch with all the one-on-one play and the lack of chemistry, and a team that became unlikable, unlike the last two seasons when overachieving Celtics squads got to the conference finals.
“What happened? We just didn’t play well as a team,’’ said Aron Baynes. “That’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. We had a lot of talent, but it was just a matter of we didn’t find a rhythm as a team.
“We were also incorporating people and just trying to find the right roles within that. That ended up being a lot tougher than I think most of us thought it was going to be.
“It was unfulfilled, for sure, this season. Disappointing, unfulfilled is definitely what I’m feeling right now.’’
Now the attention turns to the future and whether Irving will re-sign with the Celtics or leave to one of the New York or Los Angeles teams, leaving the Celtics with a huge void.
There are less than eight weeks before Irving has to decide where he’ll be playing in the 2019-20 season.
Before that happens, the Celtics are left shaking their heads at an opportunity they had with loads of talent that didn’t work out.
“We wish we could start over from the beginning and do things differently,’’ said Smart. “I want another crack at it. If that’s in the plans for us, then we will.’’