The 2021-22 NBA season is still so young, but about 10 games into the campaign, the Boston Celtics are the league’s biggest headscratchers so far.
It’s been a bit of a tough go for the Celtics, who sit at 4-6 with an 0-3 home record at this point in the year. And to make matters murkier, the team’s top scorer, Jaylen Brown, will miss the next one-to-two weeks with a right hamstring strain. There goes 25.6 points per game for the next four-to-nine contests.
In this week’s episode of the Full Court Sound Off podcast, Solomon and Justin discussed the early season’s biggest surprises, biggest headscratchers, who should already be written off, and who has “whelmed” them the most, as in who has precisely met preseason expectations.
While the Celtics were named as the biggest headscratcher, the Philadelphia 76ers were anointed as the opposite. The Sixers currently sit atop the Eastern Conference standings with an 8-3 record and a lot of solid numbers backing up their level of play so far. Especially considering the drama surrounding the team in the offseason with the Ben Simmons situation, the positive beginning to the campaign is a welcomed and surprising sight in the City of Brotherly Love.
Solomon and Justin also have a discussion about the once-mighty San Antonio Spurs, who are 3-7 and have missed the playoffs in each of the last two seasons, which follows a 24-year stretch of appearing in the postseason every April. The roster isn’t loaded with the Hall of Famers it once was, but head coach Gregg Popovich is still in charge. Solomon thinks the organization is designed in a way that nothing will be hasty, and while that might not always lead to top draft picks and blockbuster trades, it does bring stability. Utilizing foreign scouting is one of those Spurs staples that will need to come big in the next few years to help turn it around.
