Cup of Joe. Round Table - Do you want the C's to make the playoffs?


CelticsLife Round Table: Do you want the Celtics to make the playoffs

Rob Welch

Do I want the Celtics to make the playoffs? Yes, yes and YES!!! Do you catch my drift? As a fan of the team, I just can't root for losing. It's not in my blood, I bleed green and expect them to go 82-0 every year. Making the playoffs is essential to the development of this core. Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley, Jared Sullinger, James Young and even Tyler Zeller are all big keys to the future of the C's, Now you could argue if their future is with the Celts or because they are trade bait, but that's a whole other discussion, the fact, though, I am #teamplayoffs.

This team has grit, and it has fight, and what better way to show case that, than on a national stage, where they have nothing to lose? Yes, I realize they may miss out on getting a decent lottery selection, but I do not care. I want to see basketball past game 82, and I want it now. So LETS GO CELTICS, and LETS GO PLAYOFFS!!!

Kenneth Gagnon

 Let’s be frank: the Celtics are not winning the title. This is not Rudy; this team is not overcoming the long odds. If this were Rudy, the movie would end with Rudy getting hit by a meteor on the 50 yard line and his dirt-poor family being forced to pay for the damages to Notre Dame’s facilities. You get the idea. We’re not hanging the next banner this June.

I’m also not generally a fan of fluffy, vague things like moral victories and character building, but somehow I’m starting to think that even having James Young’s face melted off, Ark of the Covenant style, by Kyle Korver thirty-footers would have its positives. The Celtics, in other words, could stand to benefit in the long term from even a brief foray into the postseason. Consider:


  1. If Brad Stevens makes the playoffs, he staves off losing-related insanity for a few months. Brad’s so polite and calm that I can’t help thinking he’s a few losses from snapping - locking himself in a log cabin, growing a weird beard, and drawing in-bounds plays on a whiteboard until he passes out.
  2. If the Celtics make the playoffs, selling free agents on playing in Boston gets easier. We can reasonably assure a Dragic, a Kanter – whoever – that playing for the Celtics is not quite making one’s home on an island that’s on fire. We make the playoffs – even as a 7th or an 8th seed – and that flaming island becomes one that’s just sort of smoldering ominously. That’s not luring Lamarcus Aldrige, but hey, it’s a start.
  3. We would be doing better than the Knicks. Don’t you want to just punch the idea of the Knicks? 
  4. Even a playoff loss has a positive effect on the kids; it’s going to give Sullinger, Smart, Olynyk, Avery, and even James Young momentum entering the offseason. If we lose 20 of our last 21 and people are storming the court with pitchforks and torches, it’s a lot harder to head into summer looking to get better for 2016 (especially because there’s no way Sully is outrunning an angry mob). 
  5. Every season we make the playoffs is one less year the ghost of Red Auerbach descends from the rafters to put a cigar out on a ballboy. 


That last part is made up, but in summary, Yes. I would like the Celtics to make the playoffs, because there are trickle-down, long-term benefits to individual players and the franchise in general when we take incremental steps forward. This would be a baby step, but a step, nevertheless.

Matt Richissin

 I'll never sit down to watch a game and actively root for the Celtics to lose a game - but at the end of the day, do I really want them to make the playoffs? No.

I just don't see it as the moral victory for the players that others do. Is this a big achievement? To make the playoffs in a historically terrible Eastern Conference? A conference whose 8 seed is currently EIGHT games removed from being .500.

I hate to keep coming back to this, but it's why I think the NBA really needs to think about the lottery proposal to include the 5, 6, 7 and 8 seeds. There's just too much to lose out on by becoming a 7 or 8 seed that's likely to be fed to the Wolves. The Cavs just missed the playoffs, and they were rewarded by getting a franchise altering superstar... then then decided to move him for Kevin Love.

The chances of us jumping up significantly is minimal. But jumping up in the lottery is an absolute possibility that presents real value; there's a serious difference in drafting at the 13th spot and drafting at the 10th. And I think there's greater value in being able to get lucky in the draft than there is in making the playoffs.

Start Your Morning Off With... Phantom Cam from the Dunk Contest



Vintage WTHHT: What the Hell Happened to... Tyus Edney?

He was the shortest Celtic in team history until Nate Robinson came along. He's most remembered for his tournament-saving coast-to-coast buzzer beating layup against Missouri in the NCAA tournament (costing me first place in a tournament pool). He had a surprisingly impressive rookie year but then it seemed the league figured him out (sort of like this guy). You may remember Tyus Edney.

After a senior season at UCLA where along with Ed O'Bannon and Toby Bailey he helped lead the Bruins to the NCAA Championship in 1995, Edney was selected by the Kings in the second round with the 47th overall pick. He'd actually make All NBA rookie second team that season after 10.8 ppg and 6 apg in 30 minutes a night. He'd start 60 of the 80 games he played.

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