Boston Celtics

Founded 1946, and the habit of winning

The Celtics were founded in 1946 as a member of the Basketball Association of America, the league that became the NBA, and spent their first decade as an ordinary team. That changed under Arnold "Red" Auerbach, who built the side that won its first title in 1957 around Bob Cousy and Bill Russell and then kept winning: Tom Heinsohn, K.C. Jones, Sam Jones and John Havlicek passed through the same system, and Larry Bird, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett led later versions of it.

The result is a trophy count no other franchise matches — 18 championships, the most in league history. Twenty-three former players have had their numbers retired, and the banners hang in grids above the court carrying the numbers only, without names. The parquet underfoot is nearly as old as the trophy case. Named the Red Auerbach Court, the oak floor has been associated with the club since 1952, laid originally when wartime lumber was scarce; it was rebuilt in 1999 with pieces of the first floor worked into the new one. Boston is one of only two NBA teams playing on parquet and the only one using oak.

The 2024 title, and the sale that followed it

Championship 18 came in June 2024, when Tatum and Jaylen Brown closed out Dallas in Game 5 and Brown was named Finals MVP. The banner went up on 22 October 2024, before the season opener against New York, with rings handed out and Cousy brought on in a wheelchair ahead of Garnett, Pierce and Ray Allen.

What followed was not a dynasty but a restructuring. In March 2025 Wyc Grousbeck agreed to sell the club to a group led by the private equity executive Bill Chisholm at a $6.1 billion valuation, the most expensive control sale in sports history at the time, with Sixth Street contributing more than $1 billion. The NBA's Board of Governors approved it unanimously on 13 August 2025 and the deal closed that month. Grousbeck did not leave: he remains CEO and an alternate governor alongside Aditya Mittal, overseeing daily operations.

The payroll came down fast. On 7 July 2025 Kristaps Porziņģis went to Atlanta and Jrue Holiday went to Portland in a deal that brought back Anfernee Simons. Two starters from the title team were gone inside a fortnight.

Fifty-six wins without a star, then a collapse

Tatum ruptured his right Achilles tendon in the playoffs on 12 May 2025 and had surgery the next day. He missed 66 of the following 82 games. Boston won anyway, finishing 56-26 and first in the Atlantic Division, second in the Eastern Conference behind Detroit's 60-22, with Brown carrying the scoring load at career highs of 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists. Nikola Vučević arrived from Chicago on 5 February 2026, and on 29 March the club clinched a 12th consecutive playoff berth — the longest active run in the league.

Tatum returned on 7 March 2026 against Dallas, 298 days after the operation and inside the usual nine-to-twelve-month window for the injury. Seats at TD Garden had been draped in white and green shirts bearing his name and number. He started, missed his first six shots, then finished with 15 points, 12 rebounds, seven assists and two steals in a 120-100 win. "It's been a long journey," Joe Mazzulla said that night. "And the culmination of a new journey begins today." Across 16 regular-season games Tatum averaged 21.8 points, 10.0 rebounds and 5.3 assists, setting a career best for rebounding.

The postseason undid all of it. Boston led Philadelphia 3-1 in the first round and lost the series 4-3, the first time the franchise has surrendered a 3-1 lead. Tatum sat out Game 7 on 2 May 2026 with a knee injury. The Celtics cut a 13-point fourth-quarter deficit to one, then missed ten straight shots in the last four minutes and lost 109-100, with Joel Embiid scoring 34, Tyrese Maxey 30 and Brown 33 for Philadelphia. It was Boston's first series defeat by the 76ers since 1982 and its first first-round exit since 2021.

The summer Jaylen Brown left

Boston pursued Giannis Antetokounmpo in the 2026 offseason and missed. On 1 July, with the deal formalised on 6 July, the club sent Brown to Philadelphia for Paul George, a 2028 first-round pick, an unprotected 2031 first-rounder and two second-round picks. Brown had spent his entire ten-year career in Boston, made All-NBA second team and finished sixth in MVP voting the previous season. Brad Stevens said he "will rightfully go down as one of the defining players of this era". This is the first opening-day roster without Brown since 2015-16.

George, 36, is the counterweight on paper rather than in practice: he averaged 16.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists on 43.4 per cent shooting last season, and his Philadelphia spell was interrupted by knee trouble and a 25-game suspension for a drug-policy violation. The rest of the retooling was done cheaply and quickly in early July — Mitchell Robinson signed from New York, Mike Conley from Minnesota, Ron Harper Jr. re-signed — after a draft in which Boston took Chris Cenac at 27 and Dillon Mitchell at 40.

Where it stands in October 2026

Training camp opened on Monday 28 September at the Auerbach Center with a 21-man roster, including Devin Carter and Hayden Gray on try-out contracts competing for two-way deals. The preseason began on 8 October at Cleveland, with Brown's first game back in Boston coming two days later in an exhibition against Philadelphia.

The regular season starts on 20 October with an afternoon road game at Detroit on NBC and Peacock; the league chose that fixture over a Celtics-76ers opener and put Philadelphia at Madison Square Garden instead for New York's ring and banner night, the Knicks having beaten San Antonio 4-1 in June to win their first championship since 1973. Boston's home opener is 23 October against those champions, which doubles as Robinson's first game against his former club, and the Christmas Day fixture is Miami at TD Garden at 2.30pm.

Expectations have been trimmed accordingly. One preseason projection has Boston at 46-36 with title odds of +1600, built around a starting group of Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, George, Tatum and a centre rotation that is the clearest open question. Mazzulla, in his fifth full season, is coaching a roster assembled to stay competitive rather than to win now.

The building

TD Garden holds 19,156 for basketball, among the smallest capacities in the NBA, and the club's average attendance exceeds 100 per cent of that figure year after year. A $70 million renovation in 2014 redid the concourses, screens and dining.

It is not cheap. The average Celtics ticket in 2025-26 was $114, fourth-highest in the league, and concession prices rank near the top as well, though vegetarian, vegan, kosher and gluten-free options are available throughout.