Remember when Kevin McHale was a member of the Boston Celtics "Big 3"?
I don't because I wasn't born yet, but surely a lot of Celtics fans who are a little more experienced in life do--and they liked him a lot--because he was good. Him, Robert Parish and Larry Bird gave the Celtics some great teams in the 1980s. They battled with the best of them. The Lakers, the Bulls, etc. Just remember all that nostalgia and how good they were for a moment.
Now comes the soul-crushing sound bite.
McHale is now an NBA analyst on TNT, and he had a pretty hot take on this year's Celtics squad. He said they should just wait until next year to contend.
“They’re just beat up now,” said McHale. “In pulling for Boston, which I do, it just seems like they just could never, ever kind of (get it all together). They lost a couple (to start the season) and then they had that unbelievable stretch where they won everything. And from that point on it just seems like there’s always been something. They haven’t been able to stay healthy enough. If they don’t have Hayward, they need everybody else."
"They need everybody else healthy," he added. "Now Marcus has had thumb surgery, Theis is out. Now you’re talking about Kyrie getting a second opinion, and even if he does come back, is he going to have enough time to get his rhythm before the playoffs? It’s just too bad. It’s just one of those years, it seems like, for them and for a lot of teams. It seems like half the teams in the league are going through this. It’s the same thing with Golden State. Are they going to have enough time to get any rhythm?”
Uh, yeah dude. That's all true. That's all sad for Celtics fans. But it's depressing to hear a former star of the team saying it. Celtics fans don't want that to be true. It's a stupid idea for the Celtics to just give up because they've had some health problems.
Maybe he means being weary and not rushing guys back from injuries so they can try to play at 50 percent health in the playoffs. Who knows? After starting the year at 35-15, the Celtics hit a bit of a skid. Even so, they were 13-8 after that as of March 21, so telling them to give up isn't a great idea.
The C's will keep playing hard and we'll see what happens.