I’m not doubting the teams attutude will be better but attitude alone isn’t going to replace Horford, MaMo, and Baynes. Our frontcourt is extremely thin/untested, defense is an issue. and there will still be the iso-ball problems with Kemba replacing Kyrie but with less talent.
I’m not calling for the end of the world here as my win prediction is only a few games below the Vegas total. I don’t think any of this is unreasonable.
This is reasonable. I like to think of it as: if the Celtics overperform, what does that look like? And conversely, if they underperform, what does that look like?
Overperform:
1. Kanter plays Brook Lopez drop defense over and over, the Celtics long wing defenders help aggressively, and it works against all but the teams with most elite off-the-dribble guys.
2. Kemba is more IT than Kyrie: more 3 pointers (already the case) which makes the floor bigger, and commanding more attention off-ball.
3. Hayward is healthier
4. The Jays make a leap
5. Kanter adds an outside shot
6. An strong defensive (and playable offensive) center becomes available for a price like MEM+salary
Any combination of those things increases the win total. The Eastern Conference also has some weirdly good matchups for a team with Kanter playing a lot. Philly and Milwaukee, in particular, could be ok-ish for him.
Underperform
1. Injuries, obviously
2. Kemba needs the ball to be effective, and that makes the other guys into static pieces while the defense loads up for Kemba.
3. The other guys aren't dynamic enough on-ball to make Kemba's off-ball threat useful.
4. The Jays stay about the same, or improve minorly
5. Hayward is the 35 year-old Manu that he was last year.
6. The league keeps getting better at shooting off the dribble, and makes Kanter unplayable, especially when he's put into PnRs and the other defender is Kemba.
I think that on the whole, the team described in "Underperform" (minus injuries) is an Eastern Conference low playoff team still, so I'd go closer to a bit above the Vegas total than a bit below.