Havlicek Stole the Pod NBA Basketball Podcast

The Boston Celtics pushed in a fair amount of their chips to land former Milwaukee Bucks All-Star guard Jrue Holiday in the wake of the Bucks trading away the UCLA alum to land ex-Portland Trail Blazers star guard Damian Lillard.

The twin trades set up the Bucks and Celtics to potentially collide yet again as each ups the ante in pursuit of their next title -- what did these trades do to set the stage for an epic Eastern Conference postseason showdown? What do Celtics fans need to know about Holiday and how he could fit in Boston? Do the Celtics and Bucks need to make more moves in anticipation of such a matchup? And how do we expect each team to do in the regular season and playoffs?

With so many questions to answer about these two teams, the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast linked up with Behind The Bucks Pass' Dalton Sell to talk all things Jrue and Dame between the Bucks and Celtics organizations.

Join us for our second emergency pod of the week after a seismic trade has reset our expectations of the Celtics, the Bucks, and the East.

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Damian Lillard is no longer a member of the Portland Trail Blazers organization, having been dealt to the Milwaukee Bucks for veteran point guard Jrue Holiday in a move that likely vaults the Bucks into at least the same tier of contention in the Eastern Conference.

But for fans of the Boston Celtics, the imminent concerns do not just end with the seeding the two teams have at the end of the NBA's 2023-24 season and their potential collision in the postseason; the Celtics have also been linked to Holiday as a potential destination, Boston evidently believing they at least need to explore further bolstering their roster in light of the trade of Lillard to Milwaukee.

What to make of an unexpected and tumultuous afternoon in the league, the seismic fallout of the Dame deal still sending shockwaves through the league's plans? To talk it through, the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast linked up with HoopsHype cap guru Yossi Gozlan and Celtics Blog's Jack Simone; tune into this late-night episode to get your bearings on a rapidly shifting NBA landscape as we do the same.

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Less than a week away from the Boston Celtics' 2023 Media Day proceedings set to kick off on Monday, October 2, a number of unresolved storylines could potentially impact the team's 2023-24 campaign significantly should they remain in such a state much longer than the start of the regular season later in the month.

What is going on with Malcolm Brogdon emotionally and in terms of health? How is Kristaps Porzingis' plantar fasciitis coming along, and what will his role be with the ball club? Who is going to man the point in the absence of Marcus Smart, and who will be a vocal leader sans he and Grant Williams both? And is the coaching staff ready for the tall task of hanging banners?

To get up to speed on all of the above, the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast reached out to one of the two co-hosts of our sister CLNS pod that has been at the center of at least some of those unresolved storylines, The Gambler's Adam Kaufman.

We also get caught up on what news there has been of late regarding late-offseason signings, whispers about what's been going on at Auerbach Center, and even some thoughts on how the Damian Lillard trade saga might play out, so tune in!

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Depending on who you ask, the new-look Boston Celtics are either NBA title favorites or a lower body injury away from existential disaster. The trade that swapped out veteran floor general Marcus Smart for star big man Krisstaps Porzingis is but one of several polarizing aspects of this ball club currently dividing the opinions of what this Schrodinger's Cat of a contender will be come next offseason.

Injury and aging concerns. A shift away from a successful defensive identity under a (even now) still unproven head coach. A potential pressure cooker of assistants behind him. A potential vacuum of leadership. Adding a bonafide star with novel skills to apply in high-leverage moments and a better roster for the style of play coach Joe Mazzulla prefers.

There's a lot to unpack with the version of the Celtics we're pinning our hopes on in the season to come, so the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast linked up with Sports Illustrated's Bobby Krivitsky to break down what the best- and worst-case scenarios might look like for the Celtics.

We also get caught up on all the news of the past week, from a potentially irked Malcolm Brogdon to the potential of new two way big man Neemias Queta, and more.

This episode of the Celtics Lab podcast is brought to you by FanDuel and AG1.

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With the offseason just weeks away from training camp, most of the teams around the NBA have pretty close to the version of their roster that will be taking the floor on opening night under contract, even if they may need to make a few more moves around the margin to get to that point.

That makes league analysts and fans of the Boston Celtics and the rest of the league able to get a pretty good idea about just how likely each team in the Association is to winning it all, tearing it down, or living in the spaces between those two poles. So with that in mind, the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast linked up with Spurs Wire editor Jack Simone to project the order of the NBA's Western Conference for the looming 2023-24 season.

With sportsbooks like Fan Duel predicting Boston as among the most likely ball clubs to come out of the East, there's a good chance the teams we picked as contenders could face the Celtics in their first return to the NBA Finals since 2022 -- and even if they don't, it's good to know a bit about the teams Boston will face in their push to get back there.

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The Boston Celtics have signed Ukrainian wing Svi Mykhailiuk to their 14th regular roster spot, and may very well be done making moves to fortify their roster ahead of the NBA's 2023-24 season for some time. Around the league, other ball clubs are wrapping up their own team building for the offseason, with training camp battles set to suss out the end-of-bench roles and begin the process of getting rosters into playing shape.

With that in mind, we can see -- with a few glaring exceptions -- the likely version of each team in the league's Eastern Conference the Celtics will have to face on their way to the 2024 NBA Playoffs. Drawing on that, the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast linked up with Celtics Blog's Adam Taylor to try and project the order of the East for the season soon to arrive.

They also touch on the news that's still bubbling up this late in the summer, and even touch on international play taking place in the 2023 FIBA World Cup.

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For the first time in years, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers both have a solid shot at winning a banner. With the tally tied up at 17 each, the stakes in this age-old rivalry are not small. Just in time to grease the wheels of that ancient enmity is a new season of HBO's "Winning Time: Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" chronicling the historic feud between the bi-coastal foes in the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson era. And while it will be many months before we know if there's a chance the two rivals will meet in the NBA Finals, the series should help keep us busy.

Older fans revel in the days of Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale vs, Magic, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper, and Norm Nixon. Younger Boston fans can learn what all the hubbub was about. To that end, the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast reached out to the man who wrote the book on that era in the literal sense, Jeff Pearlman, the tome in question being "Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s".

Pearlman joined us to talk all things Celtics-Lakers, how the book and then series came to be, and what he thinks of the series having had an eagle-eye view of its creation, even appearing in cameos with his family. Make sure you catch this Lab -- and Winning Time's second season while you're at it.

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The Boston Celtics are nearly done building their team for the 2023-24 season, with one or perhaps two more signings for deep rotation players still left undone. But for all intents and purposes, we have a pretty good idea about the team that the Celtics will be fielding for their campaign to come, and similar assessments can be made about most of the other teams in the NBA for the season ahead.

With the 2023 offseason rapidly drawing to a close as training camps are now weeks rather than months away, we can begin to project how the 2023-24 season will go for Boston and their peers, so to that end, the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast linked up with Celtics Blog's Trevor Hass to try and predict how the Celtics' season will go at a granular level.

We also get into the search for that last player or two Boston is currently in the thick of, and some other news of interest still percolating up this late in the month of August.

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It may be the dog days of August in the NBA's 2023 offseason, but that doesn't mean we don't have plenty of Boston Celtics-related things to talk about in the depths of the summer doldrums.

From training camp signings and Miami Heat rivals being inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to James Harden threatening to hold out on the Philadelphia 76ers and a hefty helping of what went into the latest Celtics player ratings in NBA 2K24, we have a stacked docket of topics to address on the latest episode of the CLSN Media "Celtics Lab" podcast.

We kick things off by breaking down Boston tendering a camp deal to Duke alum DJ Steward along with Celtics alumni heading overseas and assess the potential impact of a Beardless Sixers on the East. We wrap things up with a chat with NBA 2K frontman Ronnie 2K, so be sure to tune in.

The Celtics Lab podcast is brought to you by Fan Duel.

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The Boston Celtics and the rest of the league are supposedly in their summer doldrums period of the NBA's 2023 offseason, yet a surprising (and not always entirely positive) flow of news is still percolating.

From rumored injuries and withdrawals from FIBA World Cup play to the long arc of justice finally connecting with some very poor decisions made by Celtics alumni with regards to insurance fraud and new NBA 2k ratings getting dropped, there's plenty for Boston fans to think about this week. And with the Celtics Wire's annual fan survey results finally in, we even have our own thoughts on the Boston season to come, the one that just was, and what was done in between them to consider.

So for this week's CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast, the hosts reached out to "First To The Floor" podcast host Wayne Spooney for some help sorting through an unexpectedly busy week for Celtics news in early August as we see just how much we agree with you about this Boston ball club, and whether it's got the goods to deliver Banner 18.

The Celtics Lab podcast is brought to you by Fan Duel.

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