The Boston Celtics have an embarrassment of riches. Even with arguably the team&apos;s two best players, Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, watching from the bench, the Celtics nearly qualified for the NBA Finals this past season.
Heading into the 2018-19 campaign, coach Brad Stevens has a beautiful quandary on his hands: he has too many good players. How is Stevens, perhaps the league&apos;s best coach, supposed to divvy up minutes? Inevitably, someone will probably end up upset.
Stevens is well aware of the difficult dynamics he has to manage. In a recent appearance on Chris Mannix&apos;s Yahoo Sports NBA podcast, Stevens acknowledged that his team is loaded—in fact, he thinks he may have as many as 10 starters on his roster.
"We&apos;ll just do it like we&apos;ve always done it," Stevens said of allocating playing time. "Marcus Smart has come off the bench for two years, and I&apos;ve never considered Marcus Smart to be a non-starter. I just think that you—we&apos;re fortunate enough on our team that we&apos;ve got eight, nine, maybe 10 guys that are starters. So, we&apos;ll figure that out as the time comes."
Nine of those "maybe 10 guys": Hayward, Irving, Smart, Al Horford, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Marcus Morris, Terry Rozier, and Aron Baynes. The 10th spot is likely up for grabs between Semi Ojeleye, Robert Williams, and Daniel Theis.
Stevens had a very political perspective—as you&apos;d expect.
"For me, it&apos;s more about, we have a unique thing, and I think we all have to recognize that," Stevens said. "The starting thing, the finishing and everything else—we&apos;re going to have different lineups out there, and everybody&apos;s going to get an opportunity and lots of opportunities to make an impact."
The NBA regular season will begin on Oct. 16.