The Boston Celtics may not be done winning championships in the Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum era — … [+]
It took seven years for the Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum-led Boston Celtics to finally win a championship, but they’ve finally done it.
The Celtics won their NBA-record 18th title by defeating the Dallas Mavericks in dominant fashion, 106-88, in Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals on Monday night. While the series was never much in question after Boston took a 3-0 series lead by an average margin of victory of 10.6 points per game, the more notable storyline is Brown and Tatum finally hoisting the championship after years of coming up just short of the big one.
It took 107 playoff games as a duo before winning their first title (an NBA record) and countless seasons of coming up just short of a championship — three conference Finals losses and an NBA Finals defeat after leading the series 2-1 — but Brown and Tatum can finally call themselves champions after years of criticism and doubt from observers and fans.
Making the moment even more fitting is that Brown — just a year after becoming the highest paid player in NBA history by signing a $304 million contract — is the 2024 NBA Finals MVP after averaging 20.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and five assists per game while routinely guarding and hounding the Mavericks’ best player, Luka Doncic.
There’s no more doubt on whether or not Brown and Tatum can co-exist as a star duo to win a title — they’ve now put that argument to a full rest.
“It was a full team effort,” Brown said while accepting the Finals MVP trophy. “I share this with my brothers. My partner-in-crime, Jayson Tatum, he was with me the whole way. We share this s—t together.”
While Brown will get the credit for being the MVP of the series, Tatum was no slouch — he was the best player on the floor in the series-clinching Game 5 victory. In a game that they never trailed and where they led by as many as 26 points, Tatum posted 31 points, eight rebounds and 11 assists, becoming the first Celtics player in an NBA Finals game to record 30 points and 10 assists. Tatum finished the series averaging 22.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game, where he led the team in every category.
“It’s been a long journey,” said Tatum following the game on the Celtics coming up short over the years. “We have a resilient group. We’ve been through a lot as a team over my seven years. What they gon’ say now?!”
The scary thing is, this Celtics team isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The core of this Boston group is locked in through next season, with Brown — signed through the 2028-29 season — Tatum, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis all signed through next season. The only key free agents are Xavier Tillman Sr. and Luke Kornet.
That means Boston — who finished with an NBA-high 64 wins this season — should enter next year as the favorites to win it all again. The Celtics ended the season with the league’s best offense and the second-best defense, finishing with a plus-11.7 net rating, nearly double of the next-closest teams, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves, at a plus-6.6 rating.
To top it all off, the Celtics went 16-3 this postseason, the second-best playoff record by any team since the NBA moved to a best-of-seven series format for all of their postseason series back in 2003.
According to ESPN BET, the Celtics is +280 of winning it all next season, the best odds of any team in the league, with the Denver Nuggets having the next-best odds at +650 odds. Boston’s odds of winning a championship would be the shortest preseason odds since the 2017-18 Golden State Warriors (-180).
It’s true that the NBA is in a current state of parity never before seen in league history. The Celtics are the seventh different team to win a championship in the past seven years, something that’s never happened in the NBA. The last repeat champion — the Warriors — accomplished the feat during the 2017-2018 season.
Part of that has to do with the difficulty in establishing a dynasty due to the NBA’s new rules pertaining to penalizing teams that go over the second apron when it comes to the luxury tax. The Celtics exceeded the luxury tax threshold in 2023-24 and will do so again for the 2024-25 season, making them repeat offenders.
Lev Akabas of Sportico details how that will hamper Boston when it pertains to roster construction after the 2024-25 season.
“They are also projected to go over the second apron, an additional level introduced in the 2023 CBA that is $17.5 million over the luxury tax threshold,” says Akabas. “As outlined in the CBA, second apron teams can’t send out cash in a trade, aggregate contracts in a trade, take back more incoming money than outgoing money in a trade or use trade exceptions from prior years. Additionally, teams finishing 2025 over the second apron will have their 2032 first-round picks frozen (i.e. untradable).”
While that’s obviously something that will hurt the Celtics when it comes to building around their core led by Brown and Tatum — Tatum can become a free agent in 2025, as he’s now due for a supermax extension similar to the one Brown signed last year — it’s not something that will affect them for next season.
There’s a lot to be determined between now and the beginning of the 2024-25 season with free agency, trades and the NBA draft all playing roles in how teams will look a few months from now.
But considering the Celtics are returning what was clearly the best team in the NBA all year long, there’s little reason to believe they can’t win a second straight title next season.