You Have To Be Both Blind And High As Hell To Give The Celtics Season An Overall Grade Of "B"
For those who aren’t aware of what this is, every year there’s a New England Sports Survey that’s conducted by Channel Media & Market Research. It’s been going on since 2012, and this year included 16,115 participants making it basically the most extensive sports survey in New England. There were certain requirements
– Had to be from CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT
– Followed at least one of the pro teams for at least 50% of the season
– Over the age of 18
– Complete the whole thing (partial survey’s not counted)
Basically for those of us who care about Boston sports, it’s a pretty fascinating look at how the region feels. Well I’m sorry, when I saw the results for what was given to the Celtics as their overall grade for the 2018-19 season I damn near spit out my coffee that I was actually drinking. See for yourself
Excuse me? Not only is the overall grade of B a shock, but the majority of my fellow Celtics fans gave it a B+? For that fucking disaster? Listen, I’m the first to admit I am a card carrying member of the Green Team and I love me some Celtics Kool Aid, but this just makes no goddamn sense. I tried to hold out that things would get better and really weren’t as bad as they seemed basically all season, probably more than most. But not even I can give this team a B, and certainly not a B+. This team had issues legitimately from October through their swift elimination in the postseason.
There was never ending drama, players fighting, losing to bad teams literally ALL YEAR, the lowest win total in 3 years, ending the regular season with a 4 seed, Hayward struggled, the kids struggled at times, and most importantly a pathetic showing against MIL in which they couldn’t even make it 6 games in the second round. Where on earth do you see a B/B+? Not only that, their defense took a major step back and the only consistent thing about them was that they were inconsistent. As someone who has been accused of being delusional at times when it comes to this team, if you truly think this grade is accurate you my friend are delusional.
If we’re living in reality, you can’t go higher than a C. Honestly it’s probably closer to a C- when you factor in the expectations and how everything blew up right from the jump. Again, I’ll try and spin literally anything when it comes to this team, but I cannot spinzone what we witnessed last year. It was bad, real bad. I also can’t understand how 31% of the votes were for an A- to an A+. Even the owner hated last year’s team so not even he would give them that high of a grade.
It’s pretty telling that when it comes to the Celtics, we as fans are very forgiving. The perception around them in Boston is just different. For example, look at how people felt about another Boston team who is going through a season eerily similar to what the Celtics just had
And this was a team that just won the World Series! These percentages are much closer to what there should have been for the Celts, and that’s a fact.
The good news is if last year’s disaster earned them a B, next year’s Celts are going to perhaps have their highest grade ever if they show to not be a dumpster fire and make any sort of postseason run.