Kendrick Perkins won a championship with Boston in 2008, but he has absolutely no issue with dissing them today.
Although the Celtics are heading into the 2024-25 season with basically the same roster that won them the 2024 championship, Perkins believes the team aren’t intimidating to the rest of the league.
“No one in the NBA is scared right now of the Boston Celtics,” Perkins said on NBA Today. “I’m just letting you know this. This is why the New York Knicks went out and got Mikal Bridges and they upgraded their roster. This is why the Philadelphia 76ers went out and got Paul George and upgraded their roster. They’re coming into training camp feeling great.
“… A lot of people are looking into the path that the Celtics went through to win an NBA Championship and say that they actually had an easy path. The competition and the teams that they played were not healthy. … There’s a reason we’re on this streak right now with teams haven’t repeated … teams are getting better every offseason.”
Perkins claim came around the same time the Celtics held their media day.
And strangely, their head coach Joe Mazzulla explained why he didn’t enjoy the months after winning the chip.
“I think attachment is something that you have to be aware of, right? I think one of the challenges of this offseason was detaching from the past and having an understanding of if you’re attached to a success or a failure for too long, that could be really dangerous,” Mazzulla said. “And the world tries to keep you attached to the past.
“The world tries to keep you attached to your latest success or your latest failure, and that’s where people get stuck where they’re in — is attachment. And so it was a balance of, I can’t be attached to this past success. It would be the same as being attached to a past failure.”
Some more deep quotes from Joe are incoming this season and we’re here for it.
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