The Boston Celtics have enjoyed quite a bit of success in recent years. Boston looks like the best team in the NBA so far in 2023-24, posting a 26-6 record and a league-best +10.4 net rating as the calendar flips to January. Prior to that, the Celtics reached the Eastern Conference Finals in three out of four seasons, including a run to the 2022 NBA Finals that nearly netted the franchise another championship. However, the 2018-19 season was much-maligned and much has been made of the lost promise of a team that was utterly loaded with talent and ended up falling short with a second round exit to the postseason.
Recently, Gordon Hayward, who was a key cog on the 2018-19 roster, joined Paul George on the Podcast P Show and shed some light on what transpired in Boston’s 49-win season that ended with a second round loss. In short, Hayward thinks the downfall was tied to having “too many agendas.”
"We all had too many agendas, and the agenda to win the whole thing wasn't the main one."
Gordon Hayward on the shortcomings of a loaded 2018-19 Celtics squad pic.twitter.com/vPm6yETr5B
— Podcast P with Paul George (@PodcastPShow) January 1, 2024
Hayward’s explanation makes rational sense, and he doesn’t try to even absolve himself of the blame. The Celtics were incredibly deep with talent, pairing established standouts like Hayward, Kyrie Irving, and Al Horford with young players like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Terry Rozier. That team also had Marcus Smart, Marcus Morris, and others, and it really did seem like a team that fell short of expectations based on almost having too many pieces.
Hayward does lay out that many conversations were had behind the scenes, including what he joked to include about five “players-only meetings” that never had the intended effect because no one was willing to be the one to sacrifice. In the end, nothing worked and, by the time the 2019-20 season arrived, Irving wasn’t there anymore and Hayward slid down the pecking order behind Tatum, Brown, and even Kemba Walker. In some ways, this is a familiar tale, but it’s interesting to hear a current player talk about it in this way, and it’s a peek behind the scenes that is always informative.
It’s particularly interesting for Hayward to have this conversation with Paul George, who is currently on a team trying to navigate a similar situation with a lot of stars figuring out how to coexist. George is keenly aware of how things can go wrong and knows the conversations that have to happen to make it work — as evidenced by his question about whether Boston was able to have those difficult discussions in the locker room. He seems to want to learn from the mistakes of teams like those 18-19 Celtics, and might’ve gleaned some helpful info from his conversation with Hayward.
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