I’m going to be writing my annual SWAGs article soon, but first I wanted to make fun of my previous SWAGs. As you can tell, I approach these “predictions” with various degrees of seriousness. Some of them are wishful thinking, some are random, and all too few of them happen to be silly, but I’ll try harder next time.
Looks like the last time I did this drill was in March (which was before the trade deadline last season). Here are the guesses and my reactions to them now.
Danny Ainge will use the TPE to trade for Harrison Barnes at the deadline
Wrong. It was Evan Fournier after all. I distinctly remember seeing the available names at the deadline and thinking that I wasn’t all that excited about Fournier as an option. So it wasn’t as big of a surprise to me that the team had a limit on what they would spend to re-sign him this summer.
It sounds like the Celtics were trying hard to get Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, or even Jerami Grant, but none of those materialized. Now we have another TPE for what Fournier signed for and we used the rest of the Hayward TPE on Josh Richardson. We’ll see how that goes.
I didn’t bother doing SWAGs for the offseason (I think partly because I was too exhausted by the end of the year and partly because the team started making changes right away so I didn’t really have time to). I don’t think in my wildest SWAGs I could have predicted Brad Stevens becoming the new POBO, but here we are.
Robert Williams III will the starting center by the end of the year
Injuries aside, this actually happened. Williams clearly outplayed Tristan Thompson down the stretch and Daniel Theis was shipped out of town. Sometimes wishful thinking works out. Call it one of the nice bright spots from last season.
Romeo Langford will make a big impact
Nope. Still waiting on that.
I am holding out some hope that Romeo can become what we all dreamed he could be (or at least a solid rotation piece). Maybe switching from 45 to 9 is just the thing he needs. Or maybe a new coach will find the right keys to unlock his potential.
Then again, he’s competing with a number of guys for a limited amount of rotation spots and minutes.
For me the nice thing is that he’ll either earn his minutes or the minutes will go to someone more deserving. Contrast that to last year where Romeo, Carsen Edwards, and others were thrust into larger roles because there simply weren’t enough other healthy bodies around.
Every team needs to devote a few roster spots on development guys. Romeo can still find his groove. We just might need to wait a little bit longer.
The Celtics will finish with 41+ wins and finish 3rd in the East
Hahahahahahahhaaaaaa! (sobs)
COVID vaccines will be effectively distributed to everyone by the end of the season
Depends on how you define “effectively distributed,” but let’s just move on.
Speaking of moving on…
Stay tuned for my regular season SWAGs coming soon. Feel free to share your own in the comments below. I promise not to steal too many of them.
