An underrated aspect of the Boston Celtics’ disappointing season (remember, according to Bill Simmons, they were supposed to win 67 games and high-five a lot) is Marcus Morris. The first three months of the season, he was playing like a borderline (very borderline), fringe (very fringe) All-Star. He was shooting way above 40% from three in those months. It was basically peak Marcus Morris for those three glorious months; he was providing everything that the Celtics expected of him and more.
Now, in February and half of March, Morris is shooting around 28% on three-pointers, and his scoring has cratered. I don’t know if there’s an explanation for his precipitous dropoff, but we can speculate. It could be a steroid supply interruption. It could be the fact that he hasn’t beaten anybody up in a while. It could be a regression to the mean (which is a fancy statistical term that has no meaning to me). It could be a cancerous locker room making him depressed. It could be Boston-area traffic stressing him out. It could be Daniel Theis’ fault for some reason. Or it could just be random. We’ll never know.
Another underrated aspect of the Boston Celtics’ disappointing season is how happy it makes me. Not only because it makes the Bucks look better, but because Celtics fans have had enough success in their team’s history that they don’t need any more for a while. I feel this way about the Lakers too. Fans of winning franchises should be made to feel pain every once in a while. They deserve it. Especially Bill Simmons.