The Celtics may have found something new on the wing, and it starts with Paul George looking perfectly comfortable in a supporting role beside Jayson Tatum.
That dynamic already felt different in just one preseason game. George and Tatum seemed to have a cleaner, more natural connection than Tatum ever consistently had with Jaylen Brown, even if the Brown pairing brought plenty of success. Brown and Tatum pushed each other and shared the same drive, but their relationship on the floor often looked more like two elite scorers running in parallel than a duo built to amplify each other’s games.
George, by contrast, appears ready to work around Tatum rather than alongside him in a purely equal sense. At 36 years old and 16 seasons into his career, he sounds like a veteran who understands exactly where he stands now. His job is to complement the Celtics’ true alpha and help unlock the best version of Tatum, which could raise the level of everyone around them.
Brown, of course, is in a totally different stage of his career. He’s 29, in his prime, and just backed it up with a second-team All-NBA season that placed him sixth in MVP voting.
That makes the comparison natural, but the lesson George seems to have absorbed isn’t really about age. It’s about knowing how to fit in.
George pointed to his Clippers years as the reason he’s more prepared for this kind of partnership. Playing next to Kawhi Leonard gave him a better sense of what it means to share the stage with another elite wing.
The Clippers never reached their end goal with that pairing, but when both stars were healthy, the fit looked dangerous. George came away from that experience understanding that, for that team to climb all the way to the top, he needed to adjust around Leonard.
There were bumps in that partnership, but it clearly shaped George’s approach. He said Leonard helped prepare him for playing with another star like Tatum. Even then, Celtics fans have only gotten a brief look so far, and George noted that in practice the two have mostly gone head-to-head rather than taking the floor together.
Still, the early signs have been strong. Even in a tiny sample, Tatum and George looked dangerous, and the idea of George using his game to lift Tatum rather than compete with him gives Boston a new kind of ceiling. In a roundabout way, that vision may trace back to Kawhi Leonard.
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Carters NBA path has had its bumps, but there have also been signs lately that he can help a team in the right role. For Boston, the appeal is clear enough: adding another backcourt option with talent and long-term value attached. The question now is whether that interest turns into one of the clubs two-way contracts, or whether the Celtics keep weighing other possibilities before filling out the roster. [Read more 🡒]
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Brad Stevens has not stopped there, either. Boston has also been active in free agency and the draft, adding Mitchell Robinson and Mike Conley while bringing in Chris Cenac Jr. and Dillon Mitchell, a mix that signals a clear pivot toward depth, experience and a different kind of roster balance. Even with the details still settling in, the direction is hard to miss, and the Celtics are making it obvious they intend to use this reset to redraw the teams identity. [Read more 🡒]