Season Outlook

Even those of us who thought the Celtics would be good last year -- those who thought 60 wins was a real possibility -- couldn't have anticipated they'd be as good as they were. Not many teams have won 66 regular season games.

It'd be foolish to expect it again.

First, the Celtics didn't add anybody particularly noteworthy this offseason, and lost someone very noteworthy, James Posey. I have only a cursory understanding of this newfangled "win shares" statistic, but some brief research on Wikipedia and Basketball Reference shows (I think) that Posey was worth about two wins to the Cs last year. I'm not sure there's anyone on the roster to pick up that slack.

Second, quite a few teams have gotten better. New Orleans added Posey. The Lakers have a full season of Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol in the post. Houston added Ron Artest. Portland -- with Greg Oden and another year of experience -- should be better. We only play 30 games a year against the West, but we went 25-5 in those games last year, including a remarkable road trip where we swept San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas in the span of four days. I'd expect a couple more losses against the West this season.

The East also has several teams that have gotten better. Cleveland finally has a point guard (Mo Williams). Philadelphia added Elton Brand and suddenly became a real contender in the conference. Miami has a presumably healthy Dwyane Wade, a full season (if he isn't traded) of Shawn Marion, and Michael Beasley. Toronto has finally turned the reins over to Jose Calderon, and added Jermaine O'Neal to the fold. Chicago now has Derrick Rose, and frankly shouldn't have been as bad as their 33-49 record last year. A couple of more losses against improved East foes seems reasonable as well.

Wait, you're saying. If all these teams got better by adding players, surely there are teams got worse because they lost players. That's true, of course. But in the course of an 82-game season, a team is always going to lose a couple of games to a team they "shouldn't" lose to. Even the 95-96 Bulls -- who hold the NBA record with 72 regular season wins -- lost to the 35-57 Denver Nuggets, and, of all teams, the 21-61 Toronto Raptors.

For Boston last year, it was the Charlotte Bobcats, a fairly miserable franchise that got one of its 32 wins last year against the Cs (and was this improbable Eddie House steal and Ray Allen three away from winning another against the eventual champs). Minnesota (they of the 22-60 record last season) had a possession to beat us at the Garden in January, and we needed a steal and subsequent Leon Powe buzzer-beater to beat the T-Wolves in Minneapolis a couple weeks later. So while I don't expect us to go 1-3 against the Wizards again like we did last year, I would once again expect a defeat or two against non-playoff teams.

Finally, we stayed pretty damn healthy last year. Paul Pierce played 80 games; Ray Allen played 73; and Kevin Garnett played 71. Unless you're talking about Yao Ming or Marcus Camby, injuries are impossible to predict, but players tend to have more health problems as they age (Zydrunas Ilgauskas excepted). We went 7-2 without KG when he was hampered by an ab injury, but the loss of Posey depletes our frontcourt in such a way that we can't expect to do as well should KG or Pierce miss any significant time this year. Ray is a little more replaceable, given that Tony Allen appears to be back in form.

The win total over/under opened in Vegas at 56.5. I think that's a bit low, but I wouldn't go too much higher. My non-scientific prediction: 60-22.