Celtics Force Brad Stevens to Reimagine Vision For 2025-26 Season Before Trade Deadline

The Boston Celtics were not supposed to be competitive during the 2025-26 season. Celtics PBO Brad Stevens designed the roster to be scrappy, but ultimately too shallow, to compete this year as Jayson Tatum recovers from a torn Achilles tendon suffered this past May.

Yet, Boston is 15-9 and the Eastern Conference's current No. 3 seed after a 121-113 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday afternoon at the Scotiabank Arena.

Joe Mazzulla has this team looking competitive in an East that looks very much up for grabs, given how disappointing perennial contenders like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks look, Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons' general postseason inexperience, and the New York Knicks' Mike Brown being notorious for engineering deep playoff runs that have never ended in a championship.

That could necessitate a massive pivot from the front office before February if it continues.

Celtics aggressive at trade deadline?

Boston.com's Tom Westerholm suggested that the club's competitiveness could actually force Stevens to pivot with his plan for the 2025-26 season -- not unlike his predecessor, Danny Ainge, did after realizing Isaiah Thomas was a transformational player a decade ago -- and make moves to prepare for a playoff run when Tatum returns.

"We aren’t even at the pivotal Christmas marker in the NBA schedule yet, so we note the standings less to make a point about how good the Celtics are and more to marvel at the progress we’ve seen from a team that started 0-3. After two brutal scheduling stretches — one at the start of the year, one over the last two weeks — the Celtics are now 15-9. They have won their last five games and eight of their last 10. They are just 1.5 games behind the Knicks (who edged the Magic earlier in the afternoon) for second. They are four games behind the Pistons for first," Westerholm wrote after Boston's win up North.

"If this reminds you a bit of the Isaiah Thomas teams of the mid-2010s who overachieved to the point that it might have thrown a bit of a wrench into Danny Ainge’s team-building exercise, you certainly aren’t alone.

"Sometimes in the NBA, you simply have to see what you have, and what the Celtics have appears to be something a little confusing, but really good."

Brad Stevens Kept Enough Pieces to Win With Jaylen Brown and Derrick White

Stevens' genius as a front office executive was on full display this offseason, and Celtics fans were too emotional to understand his shrewd business decisions.

He traded away a perennially injured big man on an expiring contract in Kristaps Porzingis, a guard whose three remaining years on his contract are too rich for a player on the wrong side of 35 who heavily relies on athleticism in Jrue Holiday, and chose not to re-sign a player who may only have one year left and didn't want to spend it on a possible rebuilding project in Al Horford.

Of course, if Boston were losing more than they were winning, Stevens' decisions wouldn't be viewed through these lenses. In hindsight, though, he made moves that cater to the analytics-heavy modern game.

It speaks volumes that he kept some of his most efficient players, the three shooters with a 38%+ conversion rate on over five three-point attempts per game, Sam Hauser, Payton Pritchard, and Derrick White, and kept a star in Jaylen Brown, who can attract attention from opposing defenses to set that trio up. Stevens' center rotation of Neemias Queta, Xavier Tillman, Luka Garza, and Chris Boucher is making less than $10 million combined. Still, as a group, they are grabbing 16 rebounds per game and scoring over 20 points per game.

Throw in his recently drafted players on rookie-scale deals who are actually hitting and changing the narrative on Stevens' draft record, like Jordan Walsh and Hugo Gonzales, and you have a well-rounded Moneyball-esque squad that is a few moves away from being a true Eastern Conference threat.

Tatum's return is the biggest one. Given how sharp he's looked in his recovery process, that could come sooner rather than later.

If this winning lasts, the Celtics front office may feel compelled to bring even more help by the February 5 NBA trade deadline.