What can we say about the quality of play that we have seen from the Boston Celtics’ bench players so far in the NBA’s 2023-24 season?
The expectations surrounding the Celtics’ bench was optimistic before the season began, but based on early returns from the team’s quarter-mark of their current campaign, the reality seems to have fallen short of those projections.
Two of the team’s better players on the bench have been veteran big man Al Horford and reserve forward Sam Hauser, and on some nights backup point guard Payton Pritchard has shown some promise.
But other than that trio of Celtics reserves, there has been very little for Boston to point to off the bench.
While there are bright spots in the Celtics’ bench performance, the overall level of play instills a certain level of disappointment. Will Boston make changes ahead of the 2024 trade deadline?
The hosts of the “Bleav in Celtics” podcast took a close look on a recent episode — check it out above!
Born the same year as Michael Jordan, Bias died from cardiac arrhythmia induced by a cocaine overdose on June 19, 1986, two days after the Boston Celtics chose him second overall in the 1986 NBA draft.
We will never know what level of pro player Bias would have been, or how the Celtics would have fared with him as a roster addition. Fans, rivals and media can only guess what his impact was going to be on the NBA culture of the late 1980s.
But there are many knowns about the league, Boston and its pro basketball fans, our society, and the players who were Bias’ contemporaries.
When we weave these existing factors together, a career and cultural path for a living Len Bias in a Boston uniform takes prospective shape.
As much as his potential statistics, evolution as a player, fit as a teammate, and eventual cultural status are objects of conjecture and debate, his era, the talents of his NBA Eastern Conference rivals, and the strength of the Los Angeles Lakers are not.
If Bias had not died, the 1980s would still have been defined by the advent and growth of hip-hop, the rise of the Showtime Lakers, and Boston coming off a year in which the 66-16 Celtics won an NBA title, the New England Patriots made it to the Super Bowl, and the Red Sox played in the World Series.
Through that landscape of a changing country – and within it, a hotly contested NBA full of rising superstars – we insert Bias.
