As if it wasn’t bad enough that New York is now in its 12th year without a title in the four major pro leagues, 2023 is shaping up to be a year in which a few of the rivals from Boston could add to the city’s trophy cabinet.
And not just in one, but two sports. The Celtics currently have the best record in basketball. The Bruins have the best record in hockey. Both are championship contenders.
Of all the indignities New York has had to endure of Boston’s making during the 21st century, two parades in one year would be a special kind of nightmare. Though the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins have 12 championships among them since 2001, only once have two come in the same year, that being 2004. It’s unlikely that anything that happens this spring will compare to the vomit-inducing memory of that year for Yankees fans, but we could be on our way to something in the same ballpark.
The Celtics, who lost in the Finals to the Warriors last season, lead the NBA in net rating and have a stable of superstars coming into their own. Jayson Tatum is averaging more than 30 points per game and could be on MVP ballots. Jaylen Brown is not far behind. Marcus Smart is back from injury. The transition from Ime Udoka to Joe Mazzulla as head coach has been close to seamless.
The Bucks and Sixers are formidable competition in the Eastern Conference, and it is no guarantee the Celtics will make it past either one. With the defending champion Warriors currently in a play-in spot, the Nets broken up and the Lakers out of playoff position entirely, there is no traditional power hanging over this season as a clear title favorite, though with Kevin Durant, the Suns could make a claim to that spot.
That works both for and against the Celtics, whose path to the title is easier but who also are not quite as top-heavy as we’ve come to expect from title contenders since Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen started an era of superteams by joining forces in Boston more than a decade ago.
What makes it worse for New York, though, is the Knicks or Nets could end up playing the Celtics early in the playoffs, depending how the seeding shakes out. With both local teams currently above the play-in line, the chances of a first-round collision are not massive, but it could happen. If either gets as far as the second round, that is more likely when we could see Boston — for the second year running — with a chance to knock out a local team.
That might not ultimately be devastating as the fate that could await the Rangers or Devils, two local teams that — unlike the Knicks and Nets — have a very real chance at winning a championship this season.
Barring a collapse on the part of either, they won’t see the Bruins until the conference finals (yes, the Bruins likely will need to get through either the Maple Leafs or Lightning to get there — again, no guarantee). The Rangers and Devils would be underdogs in a potential series with the Bruins, but they would have real chances.
Falling short in the conference finals again would leave a bitter taste for Rangers fans who were happy to be there last year, but will not settle this time around. The Devils, maybe, could live with it a little easier as an up-and-coming team that hasn’t gotten to the playoffs in a long time. As for the Islanders, whose most likely matchup with the Bruins would be in the first round, merely getting into the playoffs would be a win at this point, and no one would expect a victory over Boston — particularly after a 6-2 beatdown at TD Garden last weekend.
Like the Celtics, the Bruins have expertly navigated a coaching change, though without the scandal that accompanied Udoka’s exit. Jim Montgomery has turned the same roster that looked over the hill in a first-round playoff loss last season into a ferocious, swarming team that can beat you from top to bottom.
David Pastrnak, who ranks second in the league with 41 goals, is having an off-the-charts contract year. In net, Linus Ullmark is the clubhouse leader for the Vezina Trophy. Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci are still the elite two-way players they’ve always been. No one wants to play these guys in the playoffs.
These are not quite the same villains that have been at the forefront of New Yorkers’ minds for so long — the Patriots missed the playoffs and the Red Sox are not in all that great shape at the start of spring training. But the stretch runs of the NBA and NHL still may force us to watch yet another Boston parade this summer. Maybe even two.
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It is not a particularly new lament that St. John’s men’s basketball is in a place of national irrelevance, but here we are at what seems as though it could be the end of Mike Anderson’s tenure with the Red Storm, four years without an NCAA Tournament berth, and really without even a serious run at the bubble.
The Johnnies — who improved to 7-11 in the league (17-12 overall) with a 79-70 win Wednesday night over pathetic Georgetown — have not won an NCAA Tournament game since 2000, under Mike Jarvis. That’s a period covering five coaches, 23 years and two iterations of the Big East conference. Maybe this is reality for a program that was once a national powerhouse. Certainly we are far beyond assuming otherwise.
But as the city careens towards a March in which it’s possible no local teams could be in the NCAA Tournament — Seton Hall is clinging onto the bubble and no one else is near an at-large bid (not even 22-6 Fordham) — it is quite a shame.
A few years after Emoni Bates was declared the consensus soon-to-be top pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, it is Victor Wembanyama who has taken up the mantle of the Next Big Thing.
Bates? He’s playing out his college career at Eastern Michigan. If he’s lucky, he’ll be picked in the second round in June. That follows a brief commitment to Michigan State, a disastrous stint at Memphis last season in which the Tigers struggled to make the tournament and seemed better without him in the lineup and a misdemeanor gun charge picked up this fall.
Whether the hype is warranted around Wembanyama, who is widely expected to be drafted No. 1 this summer but now playing professional ball in France, is a conversation worth having. But maybe there is an obvious lesson to learn here about hyping up 15-year-old basketball stars.