The Boston Celtics are almost unrecognizable from where they were just a few months ago. In a summer of many changes for the franchise, veteran guard Derrick White spoke on what it was like watching his championship teammates break apart after a wave of major roster moves.
“Yeah, I mean, that is the tough part about the business, but it is a business at the end of the day,” said White, via Sports Illustrated. “Jrue, KP, Luke [Kornet], all of them, it was definitely tough to see them leave. You wish we could play with them forever, but this is kind of the way it is. I always wish them the best. There will be a lot of fun when we see them again, and I’m just excited to play with the people we do have.”
It took years for the Celtics to assemble the roster that won the 2024 championship. At the center were the two stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who ascended into stardom together. After years of development and growth, the Celtics added veterans in the form of Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, and Kristaps Porzingis. Derrick White joined during the 2021-22 campaign after four and a half years with the Spurs.
In just his second year with the franchise, the Celtics went on to capture the NBA championship after boasting the best record in the regular season (64-18). It was the 18th championship in franchise history, and they entered the 2024-25 season with favorable odds to repeat.
Everything changed when Tatum suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon with three minutes left in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Knicks. The Celtics would go on to lose the series, but the implications went beyond just that title run.
With Tatum expected to miss all of the 2025-26 season, the Celtics decided to cut their losses and concede their chance to return to the Finals. To maintain flexibility and lower the payroll, they began to give up key rotation players. It started with Kristaps Porzingis in late June, who was sent to the Hawks as part of a three-team deal.
Next was Jrue Holiday, a 2x champion with valuable experience and an elite two-way game. He was traded to the Trail Blazers just a few days after Porzingis’ exit, and it was confirmation that the Celtics were retooling the roster to accommodate Tatum’s injury. So when Luke Kornet left the team after signing with the Spurs in free agency, fans recognized it as another sign of their intentional reset.
Next season, nobody knows what to expect from the new-look Celtics, but without Tatum, Jrue Holiday, or Kristaps Porzingis, expectations are being kept low for the 2025-26 campaign. Any hope of a Cinderella run will rest on the shoulders of Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and young sharpshooter Anfernee Simons, who will likely come off the bench for Payton Pritchard.
It’s not what anybody was expecting for this Celtics core, but the team has a history of acting fast in the face of inevitable decline. While there are doubts that they will return to their former glory, they still possess enough talent to make things interesting when Tatum returns, and they’ll have the flexibility to try again with a roster tailored to his game.
