Celtics Owner Responds To Gordon Hayward’s Assessment Of 2018-19 Team

Former Celtics forward Gordon Hayward opened up about Boston’s stacked, but failed 2018-19 roster that featured an All-Star bunch and never managed to surpass the second round of the playoffs.

Putting together a team with the likes of Kyrie Irving, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — albeit in their rookie and sophomore years, respectively — the expectations of Banner 18 skyrocketed. Yet, through a scatter of agendas with no primary focus of actually reaching the NBA Finals, as Hayward noted, Boston fell flat on its face and the once-superteam-like roster was split throughout the following seasons.

Both honest and harsh, Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck understood where Hayward, now a member of the Charlotte Hornets, was coming from.

“It blew up. And we had guys leave and so on, and we didn’t take it all the way. So I can’t disagree with him,” Grousbeck said on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Tuesday. “Like my old sport years ago, which was rowing, everybody’s on the boat going the same direction. It feels a lot like that now.”

Grousbeck added: “We’re not a perfect team, but I feel like we’re connected and with that kind of feeling, I’m very hopeful.”

Much like with Boston’s current roster, the front office and ownership went all-in, trading fan-favorite guard Isaiah Thomas for Irving and signing Hayward to a four-year, $128 million contract in free agency. That quickly transformed the Celtics from the easy-to-root-for underdogs of the Eastern Conference to legitimate contenders, built to go toe-to-toe with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

But again, as the story goes, that never happened.

Hayward and Irving both went down with premature season-ending injuries during their debut seasons in 2017-18 and failed to gel with the youngster core of Tatum, Brown, and Terry Rozier the following season.

Boston underwent a bumpy road, which all began with Irving’s fraudulent verbal commitment to re-sign with the team when his impending free agency reached. From then on, it went downhill. The C’s kicked off the season a slow 10-10 and finished fourth in the East, all to collapse miserably to the Milwaukee Bucks in an ugly five-game semifinal series — marking the end of what could’ve been.

In hindsight, the Celtics have made it with a favorable rebound from the several breakups undergone, now sitting cozy with an NBA-best 26-6 record so far this season. The new and improved C’s roster has also played with more cohesiveness than ever under the Tatum-Brown era, propelling hopes of Banner 18 to an all-time high since the two joined forces in Boston.