Happy Labor Day! Summer is now officially over here on the East Coast.  The NBA season is now just weeks away and the Boston Celtics are counting down the days to training camp and the 2016-17 campaign.  And in doing so, we continue our primers of the Celtics premiere competition in the NBA’s Eastern Conference here on Celtics Beat.

Stephanie Ready, color commentator for the Charlotte Hornets on FOX Sports South is first up.  The Hornets were one of the surprise teams in the league last year and are generally regarded to be one of the best coached teams in the league.  What makes this band of castaways go? Last year, they rode productive seasons from many free-agents-to-be such as Al Jefferson, Courtney Lee, Jeremy Lin, Marvin Williams and Nic Batum.  Lin, Lee and Jefferson are gone and weren’t really replaced.  Will these losses drop Charlotte from being a team to be taken seriously? And if not, how will they be replaced? Despite finishing with identical records last year, can we get Stephanie to admit that Boston will be far and away a superior team to Charlotte in 2017?

Then there’s the other end of the spectrum.  The clear-cut favorites and alpha dogs of the Eastern Conference: LeBron James and the World Champion Cleveland Cavaliers.  Outside of a LeBron injury, what can stop the Cavs from getting back to the Finals? Dave spoke with Kyrie Irvin before the Olympics, listen to find out what he told him.

It’s on this week’s Celtics Beat. Brought to you by Blue Apron, audiblepodcast.com/celtics, Casper, and American Farmer’s Network.  Available for download on iTunes and Stitcher on Sunday, September 4th 2016.  Powered by CLNS Radio.

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