Boston Celtics Roster Plans LEAKED + Celtics Legend SOUNDS OFF On Jaylen Brown | Celtics Rumors

Boston Celtics Roster Plans LEAKED + Celtics Legend SOUNDS OFF On Jaylen Brown | Celtics Rumors

We’re going to get to what an NBA legend thinks about the Celtics upcoming season, but I wanted to hear from the Green Teamers first. What is your record prediction for the 2025 2026 Boston Celtics? Comment below right now. Welcome into Celtics Today by Chat Sports. I am your host, Tyler Smith, and on today’s show, a Celtic legend made a big statement about the upcoming 2526 campaign. Plus, we I think we have the 2526 plans for the Boston Celtics, their roster construction, their future prospects revealed. We’ll get into all that in just a moment. Let’s get into what Bob Koozie had to say. He made a bold statement about the 2025 26 C’s and specifically the players leading them at the top as we face a season for the first time in a long time without Jason Tatum at the helm. Here’s what Koozie had to say on the SE’s current stars. He said, “In my judgment, Jaylen is not quite at the superstar level that Tatum is at. Can he carry the load by himself? I see a major rebuilding effort here. Jaylen certainly won’t bring them to the promised land. Derek White’s a good player and he’ll produce and he’ll be consistent, but his game doesn’t lend himself to carrying a team.” Those are kind of like some shots fired a little bit. I’m not going to say he called him out, but for lack of a better word, kind of called out the Celtics two stars here uh for the 2526 season. Now, to be fair, and we’ll get into it in a little bit, like the rest of the roster is not very good. So, I do not 100% disagree with Mr. Koozie here. Shout out to Koozie here. 97 years going strong, still talking ball. But like, I I I get it. I don’t 100% disagree with him because we haven’t seen these two guys play at an elite level. And specifically Derek White be a true second option on a basketball team. But in the time that he’s spent without Jason Tatum on the basketball floor, which to be honest, we know Tatum has been one of the more durable players in NBA history. So, it hasn’t been too much time. The sample size this past year was just eight games. But Derek White has upped his game and upped his production and upped his efficiencies all at the same time. Gone from a 16 point per per game score to a 21 point per game score without Tatum in the lineup. Upped his assist per game up to six. And he had this three-point volume to over 11 a game. And he shot at a 42% clip. And keep in mind, the Celtics as a team went 8-2 without Jason Tatum last season. And they went seven and one with White and without Jason Tatum. So Dwight missed one of those two games and the seeds went one and one without the duo. And then you know the time when Dererick White was on the floor and Jason Tatum wasn’t a 7-1 record. Like I I expect Derek White to be an all-star level player this year. And it could all depend on how many wins the Celtics end up amassing in the first 50 or so games of the season. But I I expect Derrick White to kind of produce numbers similar to what you just saw on your screen. 21 a night, six assists, shooting the three ball at a 40% clip and still being an elite defensive option both on the perimeter and at the rim as well. And then you flip it to Jaylen Brown as well, you know, because we we talk about what these two did the first time we saw JT go down. And look, it was inspired basketball. You’re not going to be expecting these numbers on a nightly basis, but it was awesome to see that in a moment of in of adversity, in a high stakes moment as well, you’re in the Eastern Conference semi-finals, games game five, these guys combined for 60 points. And Jaylen Brown arguably one of the best games of his career, 12 dimes as well. But I mean, White was a flamethrower specifically in the first half. I think he went for like 20 plus there in the first 24 minutes. It was just launching threes, magnet ball from Derrick White and and Jaylen Brown to be quite frank with you. That’s a good way to segue into Jaylen Brown because he’s a player who has had a pretty substantial sample size of playing without Jason Tatum throughout his career. And if you think these numbers are like bogus, well, even some of these games were played when Jaylen Brown wasn’t the level of player that he’s at right now. And he still is averaging 27 points per game, seven rebounds, four dimes, and really, really efficient uh shotmaking from him as well. Considering we know J Brown already is not a great outside shooter. Shoots at about a 35% clip without JT. when defenses are collapsing more in on Jaylen Brown, he ups his volume and he ups his production as well. and to kind of disagree with Bob Koozie a little bit here. Like I don’t think we could be blaming and I don’t know if this was was his intention entirely either, but it’s it’s tough to kind of put all the blame or tough to put the Celtics um prospects and whatever the result is of the 2526 season on Jaylen Brown and Jason and Derek White because not only are they the best offensive options that you have on the roster right now, they’re also the best defensive options. Jaylen Brown and Derek White are all defensive type of players and you cannot say that about a single other player uh that remains in this 2526 rotation here. Anthony Simons garbage defender like doesn’t even try. Can he be a good team defender? It’s yet to be seen but who knows maybe that’s a possibility. Nascada is has played like less than 600 minutes in his NBA career. Chris Bucher is 32 years old and he’s never really been an elite at least movement defender. Can do some things around the rim. Peyton Pritchard’s f like five foot 11. Sam Hower is solid, but he’s got back issues. He’s got dinks and dunks in his injury history as well. He’s probably your third best defender on the roster when it’s all said and done. Jordan Walsh, I mean, he hasn’t had much NBA run. Luca Garza can’t defend a tree. Xavier Tilman’s knees don’t work. Josh Mat’s an unknown. And Baylor Shyman really didn’t play at all in his rookie year. Ugo Gonzalez is your other player left on a standard deal. And I mean, I would love to see the intensity that he would bring, but he would probably be a very h foul happy player, especially early in his career. So, with that being said, I wanted to ask you guys this question. I I thought it’d be cool to bring up a quote from a Celtics legend here, and I don’t think he was necessarily talking down on either of the two players, but he was saying that the Celtics definitely have a limited ceiling with those two at the helm without JT, and especially when you factor in the rest of the roster next season. So, as far as making the playoffs and securing a top six seed in the Eastern Conference, what is your confidence level in Derek White and Jaylen Brown? Scale it for me down in the comments section 1 through 10. I want to hear what the Green Teamers have to say. Now, let’s get to the Celtics plan for the 2526 season. I was buttering you guys up a little bit with some propaganda and some some takes and all that good stuff. Now, let’s get to some stuff that actually matters for the Celtics roster construction over the next couple of seasons. Could they be getting under the luxury tax entirely to eliminate the luxury tax repeater penalties that they currently face? Well, Yasi Goslin of the Third Apron, a Substack that I I honestly would suggest that you guys uh subscribe to. He’s got some pretty good content over there, said the following about the Celtics and their salary cap books and what would make most the most sense for them from a future roster building perspective. He said, “While the Celtics have reduced their tax penalty to a reasonable amount, they’re likely not done. They are just $4 million over the first apron. getting below it would free them of several roster building restrictions. For example, they’d be able to take in more salaries than they’re sending out in a trade, which not a lot of teams in this league are able to do at this point, and open up $14.1 million non-t taxpayer mid-level exception. That that trade exception thing is is huge because a lot of teams are going to be setting out more than they’re taking back. More importantly, this the Celtics are $12.1 million above the $187.9 million luxury tax line, which is impressive considering they started the season over $40 million above the threshold, triggering way more in repeater tax penalties. They appear set on avoiding the luxury tax altogether, and their savings are likely the result rather than a way to open up more spending. Okay, so at this point in time, the Selies now just face $40 million in luxury tax repeater penalties. And you would say, “All right, well, that’s not that much. Most ownerships can eat that.” Well, the Celtics also just went through an ownership change and a leadership change as well, which tells me that, yeah, Bill Chisum is not going to be pressuring Brad Stevens to make moves, you know, for trading away Jaylen Brown or trading away Derek White or something like that, but maybe trading away a guy like Anthony Simons or a bigger contract that is movable on the roster right now to get under that luxury tax entirely. Now, the only way to get under uh away from the luxury tax repeater penalties is to be under the tax line for two full seasons. You have to spend two seasons out of luxury tax completely and then you’re basically just completely reset. You can spend three more years in the luxury tax before those repeater penalties start hitting again. The Celtics were one of those teams in the tax for three years. Now, they face the consequences. Thank the Lord that they got a championship out of it. Now, there is a good chance though that the Celtics won’t be a viewed at least viewed widely across the league or for pundits and Twitter and you know all the talking heads out there as a top contender in the 2627 season when Jason Tatum comes around. So, could that entice them to kind of soft reset for a little bit right now? Just do whatever they can to get into the luxury tax and develop the young talent on their roster and and keep going with the core that they have. JB, Pritchard, Hower, and Derek White. wait for JT to get back and then try to make some marginal money ball moves around the edges, compete that season, and then really kick things into high gear, get back into the tax when 2728 rolls around. Well, Dan Greenberg had a little bit of an outline here on Twitter, or I guess what could be a possibility because we have to ask ourselves, how could this actually happen? I mentioned Simons, I mentioned a couple other contracts, but there isn’t a lot of avenues to be able to get it done. Greenberg said the following. He said, “If the Celtics are $12.1 million away from being under the luxury tax, what is the path to turn someone like Anthony Simons, who makes $27 million on an expiring contract, into $15 million or less? Could you trade for two players and reroute one of them in a three-team trade?” That’s probably the most likely way that this is going to have to go down because looking at one one for one trades, the majority of teams with $15 million players can’t take on Simons’s $27 million. Remember what I was saying before, a lot of teams cannot take back more in a trade than they are already sending out. Basically, it’s Nets and Terrence man, but doubtful that the Seltics want to take on just two more years of fully guaranteed money, 15 million and 16 million on man’s contract. It’s quite the pickle if you want to keep Hower for when Tatum returns. That’s the reason I didn’t mention Sam Hower’s name up to that point because that’s the only other contract that you can really only move outside of Anthony Simons to get under the luxury tax line. You could send away Sam Hower and then maybe Xavier Tilman as well and some sort of three team deal. That’s passes $12.1 million and you’re under the tax line. I would value Hower long term a little bit more than Anthony Simons at this point. What we do know about Brad Stevens and the Boston Boston Celtics though is that he will always make the move and then the smart move that nobody expects. Nobody expected to trade for Anthony Simons. Nobody expected to be getting to be able to get off all $30 million of Chris Esping’s money which they did without having to give up massive halls of draft picks which people thought they would have to do before the free agency cycle began. Brad Stevens will always make the smart, logical move that nobody is looking at, that nobody has projected out there on Twitter. And that’s why I believe in him more than anybody in the entire God’s green earth running my basketball team. What do you guys think? They got to clear $12 million. Do the Selies get under the luxury tax this season. They don’t have to do it until the trade deadline. They have a lot of time to build up some some stock in guys like Simons in order to get this done. They got to clear $12 million. Do you think they could do it? Yes or no? Let me know in the comments. Next, we’re going to talk more about the Celtics plan for this upcoming season, but it relates a little bit more to what they’re going to do on the basketball floor, specifically down there in the front court where they have the most question marks. We’ll have answer that question in just a second. But first, get hooked up with this awesome, awesome deal. Why are they selling Jason Tatum regular Celtics jerseys on a crazy sale at this link right here? I have no idea, but they’re doing it. So, go to chatports.com/tatum sale, this Kelly Green Celtics Tatum jersey. You get it for the low right here. It’s like literally 30 bucks. Nike approved, real deal, all that stuff. this link right here, chatports.comtatum sale. I put it in the comment section. I put it in the description. Click it. Get yourself a Tatum jersey today. All righty, let’s talk about it. So, the Celtics plan, they plan on finding another diamond in the rough. What have they done over the last couple of seasons, right? They turned Luke Cornet into an NBA journeyman afterthought into a guy getting a $40 million contract from the San Antonio Spurs. They turned Daniel Ty into a guy who created a six what? 67 year NBA career like but like seriously they see they continue to find these centers like Diamonds in the rough year after year after year and now they have three guys on the roster right now who have a lot of question marks behind their future NBA prospects Nimas Kada Luca Garza and Amari Williams who I really have a lot of hope uh in him developing as a young talent in this league he’s got elite stuff in between the ears but as far as the guys are going to be playing immediately Jay King said this about Nius Kada said Nimas Kada still has plenty to prove, but already stands as a success story after the Celtics landed him on a two-way contract in 2023. He earned a sta standard roster spot before we working his way into pretty consistent minutes last season. He played like 60 games. Kada potentially the starter next season. Won’t have the same margin for error though. Kada, Luca Garza, and Xavier Tilman make up a center rotation so iffy that even Brad Stevens acknowledged it looks like a weakness on paper. It would be huge for the Celtics if Kada and or Garza exceed expectations and begin to look like a long-term solution at that position. Conversely, it wouldn’t be bad. It would be bad news if the team leaves the coming season with without a single center to trust moving forward. And I’m pretty confident, to be honest with you guys, that we will end up viewing one of these two guys like a Luke Cornet. Like not necessarily a guy who’s going to get a $40 million contract next off seasonason, but maybe a way that we’re viewing Cornet coming into last season. And to be fair, if we had Luke Cornett uh on the roster right now, we would all take that over the Celtic’s current center depth rotation. So, I’m pretty confident that we’re going to end up seeing one of Luca Garza or Neas Kada just based on the past history of the Celtics developing under the radar centers into somebody at least Luke Cornet level, potentially better because I think Nimas Kada projects as a better overall defender and around the rim score. Here’s what he had to say about his upcoming campaign and I think it’s going to be promising stuff to be frank with you guys. is that I think it’s making sure I get in great shape. Go out there and make elite decisions with the ball in my hands and making sure I get great finishes this year. I also want to uh raise up my free throw attempts this year and I just want to be aggressive and make sure I get my percentage up from the free throw line too. Talked about working on his outside shot as well. So, I think I also work on the threes no matter what. You never know what you need of one of them. And like even if I’m not a great shooter off the three-point line, if I’m open and I have to and I’ve got to shoot it, I will shoot it confidently. You never know. I want to make them. So, like he’s looking to advance his game and that’s obviously where he has to grow the most is on the offensive end of the basketball floor and being more of a floor spacer. Is he ever going to get there? That’s, you know, yet to be determined. But I think he’s got the drive and the effort and the the resources put into him now. Like, he’s going to have the biggest opportunity of his NBA career to this point in order to do that and make those improvements in his game and be the Sy’s long-term center because he’s on a really, really good deal right now. If they’re not going to be a taxpayer the next two years, they’re going to need guys like Nimas Kada and Luca Garza to play big time minutes. With that being said, before we get out of here, let’s play a little NBA 2K. The game’s coming out in a couple months or so. Give Dame Kada an NBA 2K rating. We’re not going to scale it all the way from one to 99. I think the lowest NBA 2K rating you can have with your My Player is a 55. So, scale it 55 to 99 NBA 2K rating for Necasada. You let me know down in the comments section. Make sure subscribe to the channel. That will do it for today’s edition of Boston Celtics today by Chad Sports. Block us in for all the Celtics updates that you need all offseason long and into the regular season as well. We’ll see you guys in the next one. And as always, let’s go SE’s.

Boston Celtics rumors are heating up with major updates on the 2025-26 roster plans and a bold statement from Celtics legend Bob Cousy on Jaylen Brown’s ability to lead without Jayson Tatum. Smitty breaks down Cousy’s comments, Derrick White’s All-Star potential, and how Boston plans to get under the luxury tax while still building a championship contender. Plus, we dive into Brad Stevens’ next move, the Celtics’ center situation with Neemias Queta, Luka Garza, and Xavier Tillman, and whether Boston can find another “diamond in the rough.” Get the latest Celtics news, roster rumors, and analysis you won’t find anywhere else. Subscribe to Celtics Today for daily Boston Celtics updates all season long!

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Jaylen Brown Stats Without Jayson Tatum:
– GP: 39
– PPG: 27.3
– RPG: 7.1
– APG: 3.9
– FG%: 50.1
– 3P%: 34.6

Bob Cousy On Jaylen Brown:
“In my judgment, Jaylen is not quite at the superstar level that Tatum is at. Can he carry the load by himself? I see a major rebuilding effort here. Jaylen certainly won’t bring them to the promised land. … (Derrick) White’s a good player and he’ll produce and he’ll be consistent, but his game doesn’t lend itself to carrying a team”

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Derrick White Stats:
– 2024-25 Stats (76 GP): 16.4 PPG, 4.8 APG, 2.0 STOCKS, 44.2 FG%, 38.4/9.1 3P%/3PA
– Without Tatum (8 GP): 20.8 PPG, 5.8 APG, 2.4 STOCKS, 43.5 FG%, 42.0/11.0 3P%/3PA

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Green Teamers! Answer these Boston Celtics questions in the comments:
– Confidence level in Jaylen Brown & Derrick White? Scale 1-10
– Do the Celtics get under the tax this season? Yes or No
– Give Neemias Queta an NBA 2K rating! Scale 55-99

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