It's been over two months since the Boston Celtics clinched their franchise's 18th title, ended a 16-year championship drought and defeated arch nemesis Kyrie Irving and the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals. But despite it all, Jayson Tatum isn't content with reaching the top of the mountain just once.
In fact, the 26-year-old envisions the Celtics being even hungrier come 2024-25.
"We had a hell of a team last year," Tatum told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "They were so fun to be a part of that journey that we had, how we kind of dominated in the regular season and went 16-3 in the playoffs. It looked like it was easy, but it wasn't. It was hard. It's exciting to be able to run it back. We have the same team coming back. We're even more motivated to win another one so let's see what we can do."
Boston has everything it needs to secure the organization's first repeat since 1968 and 1969 -- Bill Russell's final playing season. The team's front office retained the entirety of its elite starting five unit -- Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White -- although it came at the steep price tag of over $930 million. Tatum and Brown have the motivation after USA Basketball disrespected the All-Star duo, first by refusing to recruit Brown to replace an injured Kawhi Leonard and then by forcing Tatum to register two DNPs throughout the gold medal Olympic run. Nothing beyond the norm of what Tatum and Brown have endured in a Celtics uniform.
Even though Tatum and Brown will watch Boston's 18th Banner rise to the TD Garden rafters on Opening Night on Oct. 22, that won't be enough to silence the still-alive and well-naysayers. The New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers underwent notable offseason transformations to raise the competition in the Eastern Conference while the Western Conference is expected to, again, be the wild, wild West.
Tatum also fell short of winning Finals MVP in June, which likely hasn't escaped the mind of the five-time All-Star.
