After securing the Eastern Conference’s number one seed with eleven games to spare last season, the Boston Celtics cruised to what felt like a long-awaited championship for the historic franchise.
The Celtics lost three total games in a playoff run that involved three gentlemen sweeps against the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, and most notably, the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals. What felt like their toughest series of the postseason somehow also ended up being a clean 4-0 sweep of the Indiana Pacers. If the 64-18 regular season record didn’t have teams and fans alike convinced, that series should have served as a sign to the rest of the league that General Manager Brad Stevens had put together a juggernaut.
In short, the Celtics were dominant, but that dominance came with strokes of injury luck that they took full advantage of. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Julius Randle, Jarrett Allen, and Jimmy Butler were all all-star caliber players out East who missed the majority, if not the entirety of the postseason. It would still be far-fetched to claim that the availability of any of these players would have made a difference to the overall outcome the Celtics endured, as they simply outmatch most teams both on paper and on the court.
Looking ahead to the 2024-2025 season, with the optimistic but also unrealistic assumption that every playoff-caliber team will be at full strength, who are the true threats to the Celtics storming through the Eastern Conference and capturing another championship?
New York Knicks
Starting off with Eastern Conference teams, the New York Knicks took the league by storm when they sent a haul of picks to their local neighbors, Brooklyn Nets, for 3 & D wing Mikal Bridges. Their recent acquisition of Karl-Anthony Towns has split opinion, but with Bridges and the newly resigned OG Anunoby, Tom Thibodeau has two of the best wing defenders in the league that can make up for the defensive frailties of Towns and Jalen Brunson.
In Brunson, the Knicks have what is no doubt their best offensive talent since Carmelo Anthony as he took another step towards superstardom in last season’s playoffs. During the absence of Julius Randle, Brunson’s usage skyrocketed. Despite the heavy defensive attention he received, he averaged slightly over thirty-two points a game across thirteen post-season games. In the final four games of the six-game series win over reigning MVP Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers, he averaged just under forty-two points and ten assists, with three of those games taking place on the road.
Injuries prevented the Knicks from advancing past the second round, but with Bridges and Towns added to the mix, they have championship aspirations and can be a team that poses a challenge or two to the Celtics.
Milwaukee Bucks
The Milwaukee Bucks have suffered devastating injury luck ever since they hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy back in 2021. Both Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo have struggled to stay on the court at the same time when it matters, and even the trade for future hall-of-famer Damian Lillard in the previous offseason couldn’t offset that cycle in last season’s playoffs. Lillard and Middleton were relatively healthy last postseason, but the pair alone, accompanied by an aging roster and a mid-season coaching change, weren’t enough to get past the Indiana Pacers.
In a matchup against the Celtics, the Bucks would have the best player in the series in Giannis, and not many teams can boast to have players of the caliber of Lillard and Middleton as second and third options. There are still questions about the remainder of the roster, as well as the coaching of Doc Rivers, but the firepower of Antetokounmpo, Lillard, and Middleton would serve as a threat to anyone in the league if healthy.
Philadelphia 76ers
There will always be questions about the Philadelphia 76ers’ championship chances due to the uncertainty surrounding the health of Joel Embiid. Tyrese Maxey is a budding superstar in the league and displayed high-level play in Philadelphia’s singular playoff series of last season’s playoffs. Most notably, he singlehandedly secured them a win in game five of the Knicks series, a game in which the Sixers looked destined for defeat.
The signing of Paul George was a slam dunk for the Sixers front office on the naked eye, but George has also had his fair share of playoff struggles. Just these past playoffs, in the absence of Kawhi Leonard, George failed to average twenty points a game in a series that was begging for him to fill the void left by Leonard. For his career, he has shot below forty percent from the field in the postseason in five different seasons. Despite this, just like the Bucks, not many teams can boast of having a three-headed monster like one that comprises Embiid, Maxey, and George, and that level of talent should not be taken lightly.
Dallas Mavericks
Moving over to the Western Conference, it would only be right to start off with the reigning conference champions. The Mavericks have one of the best players in the league, Luka Doncic, and refused to rest on their laurels in the offseason, something most championship teams often fall victim to. They beat out the Los Angeles Lakers to the signing of one of the greatest shooters ever in, Klay Thompson. Thompson, in an already elite offense that heavily features drive and kicks to open shooters, could be deadly. The additions of Naji Marshall and Quentin Grimes could also make up for the defensive deficiencies of Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
Oklahoma City Thunder
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander could have very well walked away with the league’s Most Valuable Player award last season as the Oklahoma City Thunder had the joint-best record in the West. He also answered any doubts about his ability to perform in the postseason by being the best player on the court in their six-game loss against the Mavericks.
Josh Giddey, who found himself as the odd man out in the Thunder’s playoff rotation, was quickly moved for the in-demand Alex Caruso. The Thunder also rather swiftly addressed the rebounding issue that plagued them in the loss to Dallas by signing Isaiah Hartenstein to a hefty but much-needed eighty-seven million dollar contract across three years, with the final year including a team option. The addition of two of the league’s most silently impactful players to an already well-functioning, high-upside roster can only be a positive. And having a player as good as Gilgeous Alexander means there really isn’t a ceiling for this team.
Memphis Grizzlies
With Ja Morant’s off-court troubles hopefully a thing of the past, the trio of, Desmond Bane and former Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr, is still one of the best in the league. Each player’s skillset complements the other, and the last time all three were available for the majority of an NBA season, they finished as the West’s second-best team with a 51-31 regular season record. The season before that, they also finished as the number two seed with an even better 56-26 record and made it to the second round of the playoffs, where they lost to the eventual champions Golden State Warriors (Morant missed the final three games of the series through injury).
With a core of three all-star caliber players in place, the Grizzlies also have the luxury of adding promising young players in GG Jackson and Vince Williams—who both got their opportunity to shine in Morant’s absence last season—as well as this year’s lottery pick Zach Edey who could not have possibly found himself in a better situation to begin his career.
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