Published On: Tue, Oct 7th, 2025

Boston Celtics 2025-26 season preview: Will this be a lottery team without Jayson Tatum?

The 2025-26 NBA season is here! Over the next few weeks, we're examining the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding teams to the true title contenders.

  • Additions: Anfernee Simons, Chris Boucher, Luka Garza, Josh Minott, Hugo Gonzalez, Amari Williams, Max Shulga

  • Subtractions: Al Horford, Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porziņġis, Luke Kornet, Torrey Craig, JD Davison — and, functionally for this season (we think?), Jayson Tatum

  • Complete roster

(Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
Can Jaylen Brown carry the Celtics? (Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

The Big Question: How productive can Boston’s gap year be — and is this actually a gap year?

Boston’s chances of competing for the 2026 NBA championship ended with just over three minutes to go in the fourth quarter of Game 4 against the Knicks in May. When Jayson Tatum fell at Madison Square Garden, so too did the concept of the Celtics as they’d been constructed — as a perennial top-five finisher in both offensive and defensive efficiency, as a complete wrecking crew capable of competing for multiple titles … and, as a result, a team worth keeping together despite its standing as one of the most expensive rosters in NBA history.

All that was left was to see how deep Brad Stevens would cut. The final offseason tally: three starters and their best bench big, and the least spending on new talent of any team in the Eastern Conference. That roster churn slashed the C’s financial outlay by more than $ 300 million, getting them under the extremely punitive second apron.

[Yahoo Sports TV is here! Watch live shows and highlights 24/7]

As much as that financial rebalancing made sense for Stevens and incoming owner Bill Chisholm, though, the on-court impact promises to be substantial. Jarring, even.

Boston just watched nearly all of its 2024-25 center minutes walk out the door. It now falls to a committee of Neemias Queta (who acquitted himself well for Portugal in EuroBasket over the summer), Xavier Tillman Sr. and just-signed reserves Chris Boucher and Luka Garza to man the middle. Each brings an intriguing skill-set to the table: Queta as an energetic screen-and-dive/dunker-spot finisher and shot-blocker, the reportedly trimmed down Tillman as a rock-solid positional defender with some feel as a connective passer, Boucher and Garza as experienced and comparatively green 3-point-catapulting floor-spacers, respectively. But none provides the combination of offensive skill and defensive versatility their predecessors offered.

With the centers who staffed Boston’s two-big lineups gone and Tatum sidelined, the Celtics lost the lion’s share of their power-forward rotation, too. Reserve sniper Sam Hauser, youngsters Baylor Scheierman and Jordan Walsh, and ex-Wolves reserve Josh Minott will have the chance to step into the fold and show they can thrive in a bigger role. That group won’t replace Al Horford, Kristaps Porziņġis, Luke Kornet and especially (and most obviously) Tatum, though; they likely won’t even recreate them in the aggregate.

That means the Celtics will have to lean even harder on what remains a talented perimeter corps: Jaylen Brown, granted the chance to test-drive life as a No. 1 option and “charged with becoming a better version of his All-Star self”; Derrick White, a perennial advanced-stats All-Star now getting the opportunity to put up enough regular stats to become a regular All-Star; Payton Pritchard, the Sixth Man of the Year, whose complementary ball-handling and conscience-free shooting will become even more critical; and newcomer Anfernee Simons, who never quite seemed to fit the bill as Damian Lillard’s replacement on the ball in Portland, but who brings inarguable athleticism, explosiveness and long-range accuracy to a team that, under head coach Joe Mazzulla, has proven pretty good at maximizing those sorts of offensive gifts.

After playing at one of the league’s slowest paces for the past five years — including their second-most-glacial last season — the Celtics’ best path to nightly competence is probably hitting the gas to hunt early offense (they were dead last in transition frequency last season, but they won’t have their best half-court initiator now) and cranking up the dial on their already record-setting 3-point-bombing to heretofore unheard-of levels (which, honestly, Mazzulla was probably going to have them do anyway). If Boston can turn games into track meets and 3-point contests, and pairs that with a more disruptive, higher-risk-and-higher-reward brand of defense than the one that’s ranked 26th, 27th and 24th in opponent turnover rate in the last three seasons, maybe it weathers the storm enough to stay in the mix for postseason position in a topsy-turvy East.

But then, is that what the C’s really want? Sure, Simons could be a hand-in-glove injection of pace and 3-point shooting, and Hauser could be a serviceable spot starter at the 4. They’re also on the books for just under $ 27 million and just over $ 10 million this season, respectively … which, with Boston now sitting just $ 4 million away from dropping beneath the first apron, and one more mid-sized move away from ducking the luxury tax entirely — potentially very enticing for a repeater-tax-paying team — could make them more valuable as vehicles for cost savings than as on-court contributors.

[Get more Celtics news: Boston team feed]

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see either, or both, wearing different uniforms by February — especially if Boston’s already floundering near the bottom of the Eastern standings. The Celtics own their 2026 first-round pick, after all; perhaps the best course of action is to embrace the void, allow the natural gravity of Tatum’s injury and the subsequent departures to pull the team down toward the bottom of the standings, and see if a little luck of the Irish can furnish the squad with another blue-chip talent to pair with a rehabbed and refreshed Tatum come the fall of 2026.

You will be shocked to learn that the legendarily chill and normal Mazzulla does not intend to operate this way. From our Ben Rohrbach, at Celtics media day:

"If I ever get to the point where I start basing my motivation on the expectations of others and people that I've never met before," said Mazzulla, "I'll retire — quick. … That's really the focus, not allowing others to put expectations on you. But if you don't have high expectations for yourself, you're not going to get to where you want to get to. So, every season picks up a life of its own, every journey is different, every team is different, and I think you have to look into that as you head into any season."

As one reporter asked: So, the goal this season is to win another championship?

"Every year," said Mazzulla. "It should be."

Whether personnel chief Stevens — the one tasked with taking the big-picture view of things — shares that goal for this season, though, remains to be seen.

Tatum’s rehab goes off without a hitch. Brown, White and Pritchard look fantastic, taking advantage of the opportunity to assume more ball-handling and scoring responsibility by continuing to develop their games … which, as luck would have it, does not preclude the Celtics from being bad! The C’s slip out of the postseason picture, landing a lottery pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, and Stevens moves Simons and/or Hauser, avoiding the apron and loosening up the roster-building restrictions to give himself some wiggle room for wheeling and dealing as Boston prepares to mount a return to contention in 2026-27.

Honestly, it feels like the only “everything fall apart” possibility would include Tatum’s rehab not going off without a hitch, and I don’t want to entertain that possibility. This portion of the preview is over!

Not only would it be fine and completely justified for Boston to dip under .500 this season, it would be advisable to do so! I’ll take the under, at the risk of making Mazzulla rage-weep tears of blood and swear an unrelenting vendetta against my family, friends and still-living former teachers.

East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards

West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz

NBA Basketball News, Scores, Standings, Rumors, Fantasy Games

Most Popular Posts

Categories