“What if everything works perfectly?” is the most useless question in the universe. But we’re going to ask it anyway.
In the entire history of the world, the number of times “everything” has just “worked perfectly” is exactly zero. Nothing ever goes exactly as it’s supposed to. Even if it’s 99.8 percent perfect, and that stray .2 doesn’t matter or change the result, it still is perfect. So, asking if the 2024 Boston Celtics will be perfect is simply not a serious question.
But I am not a serious person, so here goes: what if Jayson Tatum becomes a 45 percent three-point shooter and wins league MVP? What if Jaylen Brown makes no mistakes and has such a convincing season that he cements his place as a top-10 player? What if Jrue Holiday and Derrick White continue to complement each other to create one of the most destructive and mature backcourts in NBA history? What if Kristaps Porzingis heals fine, plays great and never re-injures anything?
Well, if all that happens, and we sprinkle in some “Payton Pritchard is Jalen Brunson with worse PR,” the Celtics are going to win another championship. In fact, they’re going to win like 70 games and go 16-1 in the playoffs. If this Celtics team is healthy and everyone just gets better, we may as well just FedEx express mail in this season to the history books and save everyone the trouble for roughly $3.75 in postage.
This is obviously not going to happen, and thus asking the above question is a pretty silly waste of time. But asking each of those questions individually — which we here at CelticsBlog have literally done — it’s not a problem. They’re perfectly valid by themselves, and wondering about Tatum’s shooting or Porzingis’ injury timeline is the bread and butter of Celtics media. It’s the start of the preseason no less.
So why can’t I just say what everyone is thinking? If all of this could plausibly work out individually, why can’t it work out together? Why put a limit on our dreams?
Because we all live in the world, and understand that you set yourself up for disappointment if your baseline hope — even if that’s all it is — is perfection. I choose to fixate on Tatum’s shooting improving but only casually follow Porzingis’ injury. Others may see Porzingis’ recovery as the keystone to another championship, and don’t much care about if Tatum can improve by four percentage points from three.
We hedge our bets for our own sanity. It’s like asking for a pony for Christmas but reasonably hoping for a dog. But you can’t actually hope for a pony and get annoyed when you wind up with a chocolate lab. It’s just an unfulfilling way of life.
But that’s if we’re being realistic and measured, which is only about 60 percent of my worldview. The other 40 is based on the absurd belief that everything is going to work out, because I’d rather think that than sit around and mope about how the world is against me while developing contingency plans for all of my eventual failures. What a lame way to live.
Just call me Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet, because I believe in the infinite perfectibility of man. Every person, NBA player or otherwise, can get better, and I don’t see why Boston can’t work hard enough and get lucky enough that all of these individual questions get answered with an emphatic “yes!”
So right after Media Day, when every NBA team gets to hold a “hey guys, everything is going to work great” convention, I see no problem with hoping that everything is going to work perfectly. Sure, I’m asking for a pony. But I realize that there is a time and a place to ask for a pony, and come November I’ll be perfectly fine if the season ends with a puppy.
