The Boston Celtics played phenomenal basketball last season en route to the franchise’s 18th NBA championship. And it wasn’t just the incredible talent and depth on the roster that made it all possible.
This team has a special chemistry and camaraderie. It’s hard to quantify these things. There’s no advanced metric for team chemistry or how much the players like each other.
But if such a stat did exist, the Celtics almost certainly would have led the league.
This group loves playing with each other, and it’s one of the reasons why superstar forward Jayson Tatum is so eager to get back together and start the team’s title defense.
“I had so much fun last year with our group,” Tatum told NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg on Media Day, as seen in the video player above. “I’ve been on teams that — the cohesiveness isn’t as great, so you know when it’s special. We enjoyed playing with each other so much, and we had so much fun throughout the season last year and we created so many memories.
“We accomplished something that’s going to bond us together forever. I missed being around the coaches and the guys on the team, so I’m really happy to be back around them.”
It’s rare to see a team have the type of chemistry the 2023-24 Celtics built, and it’s even rarer for a team to bring back nearly its entire roster the season after winning the Finals.
Boston’s top 11 players in minutes played per game last season are all back for the 2024-25 campaign, which begins next Tuesday against the New York Knicks at TD Garden.
The Celtics did make some new additions over the summer, most notably rookie Baylor Scheierman and veteran Lonnie Walker IV, but pretty much the entire title-winning squad is back.
This gives the Celtics an advantage over other contenders that had major pieces added or subtracted from their roster during the offseason and haven’t developed good chemistry yet.