
Victor Wembanyama’s dominance may force the Boston Celtics to rethink their championship blueprint. Could next season be their best – and possibly last – clear shot at another NBA title before the San Antonio Spurs' new era takes hold? John Karalis of Celtics On SI examines the implications of Wembanyama’s playoff explosion, the importance of countering elite Western Conference talent, and the adjustments Brad Stevens’ front office must consider. Then it's time to answer mailbag questions! Key topics include Sam Houser’s future, trade scenarios involving Bam Adebayo, the potential return of Robert Williams, and whether internal growth from players like Baylor Scheierman and Neemias Queta can fill crucial rotation spots. Karalis also reacts to Isaiah Thomas’s new role with the organization, tackles the debate on the Most Improved Player award, and explores under-the-radar free agent options for Boston’s roster overhaul. Is Boston’s window closing, or will smart roster moves keep th...
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Victor Wembanyama might be changing how the Celtics approach their future. Plus I'm opening up the mailbag to answer your questions. Hey, welcome back to the show. I'm John Corralis. Today's show is brought to you by FanDuel. New customers. You bet $5 you get 150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Head to FanDuel.com to get started. I'm opening up the mailbag in the well, maybe in the first segment here, but I got questions about how many moves the Celtics have to make to become a contender again, which will play into what I'm about to say about Victor Wembanyama. I'll get into Sam Houser's future Isaiah Thomas, the most improved award. I just watched the double overtime game where Victor Wembanyama and the spurs beat the OKC Thunder. Wemby had like 40 and 20 and oh my God, oh my God. This is crazy. Not to go too much into hey, the boss made a good point, but David Locke tweeted out in the middle of this game's like, if the spurs win this series, when did they lose their next series? And obviously this is only game one and they might not win this series and who knows what's going to happen that the answer to that question might depend on Victor Wembanyama and and his health and all of that. But I gotta tell you, if. If he stays healthy and the spurs just continue with this group and almost doesn't matter. They could probably trade a couple of these guys away and start with a couple of new guys and just. Wemby's gonna be so good that he's gonna make everybody around him better. And look, if you're the Boston Celtics, just looking at the landscape, obviously you could do everything you can to try to win a title, but I don't know. You tell me. Get into the comments. I don't even know where to go with this other than to say this next season might be Boston's like, next best chance. Like, only next best chance. If the spurs beat the Thunder, if. Again, if. And they win this championship. I. I don't know. May. Maybe there's a year, maybe next year, the spurs don't know how to handle success. And they. They have that. That thing where the champion loses again. The Celtics have to be. They have to be in position to. To deal with this. And it may mean that they have to really focus on. All right, how do you beat Victor Wembanyama? It's not so much how do you get out of the East? How do you match up against New York or Detroit or Cleveland or Orlando or whomever it may be? How do you figure out what. What can you do? Who can you add to deal with Victor Wembanyama? It's just something that watching this game and watching how amazing he is and what he. What he makes. The spurs you just got to look at, like, oh, man, the Celtics really have to take that into consideration. The Celtics have to look at the spurs and go, if we're going to win a championship, we got to figure out how to beat this dude and make moves that are. Are. Obviously you can't just make moves for a specific team because then you mess with the matchups and you get a different kind of matchup. You still have to beat that matchup. Like a Pistons. Like, the Pistons don't have a Wembanyama, so you still have to beat the Pistons. You still have to get through the east, but you also have to make moves with the Wembanyama in mind. And so I really wonder how that impacts the moves that they. They have to make this summer. Because if the spurs win this championship and then maybe you get a championship hangover, you can kind of pounce and take advantage of that. Then after that, I don't know, man. I know this is not how it always goes. It's never really? Oh, well, this guy's awesome. And they're going to win four straight championships. People always do that. Nicole Jokic has been like that conversation and you say, I don't know how Denver's going to win and they won that one and they haven't won since. But Wemby seems different, man. Wemby seems different. So, yeah, I'm sure Brad Stevens and the Celtics front office there, you know, I just, I picture all of them. I know, I know for a fact that they weren't all sitting together watching this game, but I just picture like if this was a movie, you cut to Brad and Mike Zarin and everybody else in the front office and they're just sitting there watching the game and they're looking at each other with the side eyes going, oh, man, oh man, this guy's even better. Like, Wemby was, was already awesome. I, I would voted for him. I don't have a vote, but I would have voted for him as mvp. I'm surprised that people didn't vote for him for mvp, but as much, you know, I'm surprised he didn't get as many. I'm surprised he didn't get more first place votes is what I'm trying to say. But even, even this, maybe it's just because it's a magnified moment. I'm like, oh, man, this is, that's, this is nuts, man. Celtics, Celtics got some work to do. Anyway, I'll try to flesh that out. Maybe I'll write about it for si. But yeah, I'm sure we all have the same reaction right now, like, oh man, that dude is a problem. All right, let's get to these mailbag questions. Mailbag questions can be submitted@john corrales.com mailbag johncoralis.com mailbag that's the only way I'm taking the questions, so submit them there. The first question comes from Ty, who says, given the current salary, salary situation, in the current positioning of the team, how many moves do you think we need to make this offseason to become a championship caliber team again? Do you think we can make enough moves in this offseason? Do you think it would take longer than one off season to get back there? And okay, that is a fair question. And I think my answer to might be changing a little bit. But my, my initial reaction, Ty, is I can't put a number on the moves because it could be, it could be one. It's probably not one. It might be two or three. But sometimes the one right move snaps enough into place. And the reason why I'm even open to, hey, look, it could just be one for, for this reason. Again, I don't think this is how it's going to go, but I'm also open to this possibility. If you get internal improvement, where Ugo is ready, Baylor is ready, Jordan Walsh is ready, whatever those roles are, increase role starting roles, whatever they are, but they're ready. Nemi is ready to take another step forward. There is a possibility that internal improvement qualifies as a move, quote unquote, that the Celtics don't have to do. Right. It's the, it's the thing that podcasters like me love to say. You traded the old Baylor Shireman for the new Baylor Shireman. You traded the old Nimi Keda for the new Nimi Keda, and you didn't really make a trade, but the guy that you got back is so much better than the other guy. Even though they're the same guy, the next version of him is much better. And that's the, that's a person that you can now depend on in a, in a much bigger role. So internal improvement is part of the plan, is part of the hope. Like you, you just hope that that's going to be a, a meaningful part of how the Celtics grow next year. So it could just be that they use the $27 million traded player exception to bring in a bigger money guy, one person to kind of take that big role again. I, I'm looking at the free agent market. There's not a ton of. I'm looking at the trade market. There's not a ton. But we all know that Brad and the front office tend to surprise us and find, find players. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say that the answer is probably at least two or three moves that you can probably get to this offseason. Another thing to also consider that we, I just don't see talked about enough at this point is Jason Tatum coming back and being himself. That. That is a huge part of the Celtics plan moving forward, where Tatum coming back and being Jason Tatum. We got 80 to 85% of Tatum. He said it himself that he felt like he was 80 to 85%, that Tatum becoming 100% Tatum in the, the new version of Jason Tatum, that is a, a big, that's a big addition to this team. And whatever Jalen Brown you adds to his game, he always adds something. Even though he's going to be 30, it's never too late to add to your game. So I do think that they're going to have to make a couple of moves. I think, as I said at the beginning, Wemby's kind of like, I don't know if the Ascension, whatever, whatever you want to call it. Like, he, he, this was a very loud statement in Game one against okc. I think that does put some pressure on the Celtics. So they're gonna have to make a couple of moves and I think, I think it's going to take at least two or three that to to get them to where you want them to go. One of those moves is the subject of the next question, and it has to do with Sam Houser. We'll get to Sam Houser's future when we come back.
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Thanks, Nick. Today's show is also brought to you by fanduel. You know, the playoffs are really red hot right now. Every possession matters. We're just in a double overtime game with the the spurs and the Thunder. If you want to get even closer to the action, FanDuel has a great offer to get you started. You a new customer, bet $5. Get 150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins so you can turn 5 bucks into 150 in bonus bets just for getting started. FanDuel during the playoffs, it gives you everything you need right in one place. You can check stats, trends, matchups right before you make the picks. It makes the whole experience feel a lot more informed. The app is easy to navigate. You get all sorts of different kind of things to wager on. So check it out. When you sign up, it's going to ask you to set a limit, set a budget. Please do so so you can gamble responsibly. Very important. Only gamble. Only bet what you can afford to lose. Just in case you go cold, head to FanDuel.com to get started. FanDuel play your game. Thanks for making lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. Being here every Monday through Friday. I do appreciate you doing so. I will be dropping bonus podcasts throughout the week. You know, usually like a couple here or there. So you got to be subscribed. Get on to that YouTube comment section and share your thoughts with me. I'm John Corrales. I cover the Boston Celtics for SIS Celtics on SI. I've been covering the team for 20 years. I've been doing this podcast for 10 and I take your questions@john corrales.com mailbag so if you have a question, please go to john carous.com mailbag to submit your question. Just like Josh R. Who says, who asks how likely is it that the Celtics trade Sam Houston this off season to try to get help at point guard or center? Are Baylor, Jordan, Hugo ready and able to step into Sam's spot now? I just talked about those guys. Are they ready? I don't know. There's, I think Baylor is, is close. I think he, he, he's close enough where I think they're going to rely on him to do that. They're going to trust him to go into the off season and, and grow and, and, and be a guy they can potentially start. Because Sam Houser's salary, almost $11 million, is just a critical part of the plan to add to the team and stay under the tax. And I can already hear it because I see every once in a while it's like, oh, so nice to see people concerned about a billionaire saving his money. That is not it. That is not it. I don't care about Bill Chisum's pockets, right? He, he can pay whatever he needs to pay, but staying under the tax, it just allows the Celtics to reset and become bigger spenders moving forward. It just, it just is what it is. The and if you're gonna be a fan of the team. I would suggest also opening your your eyes to financial situations that it's not what it used to be, it's not what it was 20 years ago where you could just say pay the tax. It doesn't matter the way it's structured now. It's so punitive to get out of that repeater tax. It just the money you spend on a roster could cost one team $50 million in taxes, could cost another team well over 100 to 200 million in taxes. And you could say so what? But so what doesn't apply. Teams aren't. No team is just going to fork over that money over and over and over again unless they are guaranteed to be contenders. And no team is guaranteed to be a contender anymore except for the San Antonio Spurs. So let's just understand that there are financial realities in this collective bargaining agreement that have to be considered and it has nothing really to do with Bill Chisholm necessarily. There's also duplication and while you do want a deep roster, you don't want too much duplication. Brad Stevens actually kind of talked about it in his end of season press conference. You almost kind of, he said you almost kind of didn't want all of these guys that ascended this season. It's almost easier if a couple of them didn't because you have so many players that are of equal talents and playing at a somewhat equal level. It's kind of hard to give anybody consistent minutes. If you trade away Sam Houser and Baylor Shiren is ready to step into that role, you just have a guy who's consistently in that role. It's a good problem to have to have too many players that are good. But also there is such a thing as too many players that are good if they're all of equal talent level and they're not all superstar talent level. You know what I mean? So I think Sam it's very likely that Sam Houser gets traded this off season. I don't know if it's in direct conjunction with a player coming back or if it's part of a multi team thing or if it just ends up being Sam going into somebody's traded player exception or mid level exception for draft capital down the road one way or the other. My expectations that Sam Houser is gone and Baylor Shireman steps up and they move in a different direction while adding players and still finding a way to stay under the tax. So I think all of that stuff is possible. What is not possible comes from Tina. Tina L. Who Asks, is there any way that we can get Bam out of bio with the Jays? Or what do you think about Robert Williams coming back? Bam? Adebayo is. I. I think just a really hard no. Pat Riley might have been posturing when he said, the only way I'm trading, I'm. I'm kind of loosely paraphrasing. I'm not, but it's. It's pretty close. Only way I'm training Bam is if I get Wembanyama back. They really love Bam at a bio. And let me tell you something, Tina, the thought is a good one. I would love, I think, Bama to buy you on this team, especially as he expands his offense. I think that that would be amazing. He's not going anywhere. He's just not 26, 27 is the first year of a contract extension where he's going to make about $52 million. So it would take a lot to get him unless they could do it before the calendar year switches. The. The Heat, they consider him a big part of their culture, so they're not just going to give them up, even though I think Miami would probably be smart to just reset, but they're not going to. So Bam. Bam is not going anywhere. Not. Not cheaply anyway. And I don't. I just don't think the Celtics. What are the Celtics going to do? They're. They're not going to give up Jalen Brown. They're not going to give Jason Tatum to get Bam at 52 million. You're going to have to trade away a couple of guys. You're gonna Hauser for sure. Derrick White for sure. So it's gonna. It's gonna be like that type of trade, and I. I don't. I just don't think that that works out. So on top of it being a difficult trade at that money, Miami's just not going to give him up. Rob Williams, he. He had some healthy moments with the. The Portland Trailblazers. I love him. I would love him back if he comes back on a minimum. Sure. But also, he's such. Such an injury risk that I would just be afraid of him getting hurt. So I would. I would love Rob back. It's. It's tough. It's tough to build. It's just tough to build. It's like getting poor Zingus back. Yes. In theory. Like Rob. I love. I would love to have Rob if you could somewhat guarantee that he would be healthy and available. I would love Robert Williams. He's so good. He's. He's an incredibly good player. I just don't trust the injuries and so back on a minimum. Sure. But I, I just, I can't build a roster or a lineup around Robert Williams being the, the, the key or a starter or something like that. It's just too, it's too risky. Scott asks what do you think of picking up Keon Ellis as a complimentary piece who can play defense and handle the ball in the event of injuries? KEON Ellis is 26 year old guy. He can shoot, he can play defense obviously. Is he a ball handler? Can kind of sorta. But he has gotten into some primary ball handling duties. But primarily I think he's better off the ball again. Kean Ellis, I think he'd be great as a 3 and D option if the Celtics picked him up. He is a free agent. That would be, that would be a great option to have and he could take a portion of the mid level or you could sign and trade him and add him depending on the number. What's he going to make? Can he get into The Celtics have a 4, 4.7, 4.2 somewhere in the $4 million range traded player exception. Could you do a sign and trade into that? They have an 8 or an over $8 million traded player exception. You can, you can. If teams are offering him the taxpayer mid level of 5 million or 6 million and change. Celtics could do 6.5 or 7 million and bring them in that way. Is that how they want to spend their money? I, I don't know. I like Kean Ellis. I think they'd be. He'd be a fine piece to add. I'm not so sure about the handle the ball but in an emergency situation like that, sure. Let's come back. We'll talk about Isaiah Thomas. We'll talk about most improved player when we come back here on the Locked on Celtics podcast, today's show is brought to you by quo. Missed calls and slow follow ups are silent killers for businesses. And that's how money gets left on the table without people even realizing it. And that's why today's show is brought to you by quo. It's spelled Q U O. The business communication system. Built so you never miss a call. Quo helps businesses keep every conversation organized by letting your entire team manage calls and texts from one shared number. No drop messages, missed opportunities or disconnected communication. Those are killers. It's designed for how modern businesses actually operate. Everything lives in one clean thread. All the calls, texts and voicemails so the whole team sees the conversation. This is super important. 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Join the Lockdown Every dare club get ad free audio access to the members only discord and more. All built for the most loyal fans. That's you. Go to lockdown celtics.supercast.com lockdown celtics.supercast.com to sign up. $5 a month or $50 for the year to join the Everydayer club. All right, once again, I'm taking your mailbag Questions@john corrales.com mailbag so we've touched on a couple things here with a lot of team building and all of that stuff. Let's talk a little bit, a little bit differently here with the mailbag, starting with Kevin from la, Isaiah Thomas is back working as a pro in college scout, rightfully so at this moment. If The Celtics win Banner 19 or or beyond, do you think he can find guards who can be shot creators and do other things? First of all, let me just say welcome back, Isaiah Thomas. I didn't think this story was that big of a deal because it's like, yes, Isaiah Thomas is once again employed by the Boston Celtics. He's going to be based out of Seattle, which means he stays home. It's not like he's coming to Boston on a regular basis. He's not going to be on the bench or around or whatever. He's going to be scouting teams out at his home. You know, Seattle, Oregon, up and down the West Coast. So it's, it's. If I didn't tell you that Isaiah Thomas got hired by the Celtics, how many people would actually know? So, but I will say I underestimated the reaction because as soon as people saw Isaiah Thomas, Celtics hire Isaiah Thomas, people just went nuts. That's how much he's loved. And so I underestimated that response. Good for him. I'm glad. And the number one thing I'm hoping for for Isaiah, the Celtics win the championship next year and Isaiah Thomas gets a championship ring from the Boston Celtics. That would be incredible. If anybody who has played for the Celtics in recent history, who doesn't have a ring, if anybody deserves one, it's Isaiah Thomas. So I think it would be an incredible story for Isaiah to come back and in whatever capacity, work for the Celtics and get a ring. Now, can he find guards who can be shot creators and do other things? Like. Isaiah has a good feel for the workers. Right? He's the, he's one of the hardest workers you're ever going to see. So he can see things. He can pick out certain skills in guys. Look, any scout that is worth his salt can find you people that could contribute. So I think Isaiah Thomas will have an opportunity to find something in players and anybody that reminds him of himself. I'm sure the Celtics would be like, yes, that. That's exactly what we're looking for, who reminds you of yourself. So I think that's a look. I don't know how many of these players will be directly traced back to Isaiah Thomas, but if the Celtics start drafting guys from the west coast and you know, players that, you know, Gonzaga and Oregon, a, you know, whatever, whatever, then you can legitimately ask the question like, hey, what role did Isaiah have in, in this player getting here? If he can find one, then he's done his job. And let's wrap it up with Joe K. Who says, not a question, but a statement. There should be a petition to make the most improved player award based on game one to game 82, not previous season to current season. Joe, I think you have a point, but I think it can be both. I think the most improved player award is a great award to, to reward the work that goes in, in the off season. And some guys make those huge leaps from last season over the summer to this season. Now, I will also say that this is the Nish Kada kind of corollary here. Keda came back this season better than he was last season, but then game one to game 82 significantly better than he was at the beginning, at the end, than he was at the beginning. And so I, I understand 100% why was Nikhil Alexander Walker won the award and why Jaylen Duran was up for the award. It's that jump from last year to this year was huge, especially for Nikhil Alexander Walker, who's been in the league for a while, gets an opportunity, makes the most of it. How now, to Joe's point here, how much did Nikhil Alexander Walker improve, actually? Like how much measurable improvement other than he got a lot more opportunity and he scored a lot more points and was playing great. Playing great, no doubt. Again, not taking anything away from him. But what did he improve exactly? In fact, I'm just gonna look it up because he, he did actually, obviously, with the added opportunity, have a better season than he's had in the past. Right? 20.8 points per game. His previous high was 12.8. So his shooting, his shooting was at 46%, up from about 44%. He shot 30. Let's say we'll round up 40% from three, up from 38 the year before, 39 the year before that. So what did he improve other than he got twice as many field goal attempts? Well, let's look at, let's look at the per 100 possessions for Nikhil Alexander Walker. His points, 29.5 for sure, but up from 18.4 last year. The, the obvious, it was obviously an improvement. But if you go back, he has multiple per 100 possessions seasons of 20 plus. If you go to the per 36, his points, sure, again, big jump. But the jump from last year is nine points versus more than double in the actual actual points. So when you level it off, he improved. But the, the improvement of per 36 minutes, up from 13.4 to 22.5, that's still six more, six more field goal attempts at 46% shooting. There's your difference. Like did he actually get better or did he get more opportunity? Nimius Kada got better, just a demonstrably better basketball player. So I, I think that, Joe, your point is good. I think Mimi deserved the award. I think he is by definition the most improved player in the league from where he was last year to this year, from where he was from day one to game 82, all of that stuff. But that's not how the award is going to be handed out. And it's tough. It's tough because I can see it and my fellow, my colleagues on the beat can see it. I, it's harder for people who aren't watching every game like we do to pick up on it. And so it's, it's a tough, it's a tough award to kind of parse out that way because the 30,000 foot view is points and opportunity. And oh my God, what a, what a great season this guy's having compared to, you know, eight, nine, ten points a game. But I, I will argue that the Mishkeda was, I will argue with anybody the Mishkada was the most improved player in the league. But I understand he was never getting that award, which sucks because he absolutely was. All right, thank you for the questions again. John corrales.com mailbag john corrales.com mailbag to get your questions in. As those questions come in, I will use them to do bonus podcasts to keep answering some of these questions and get like two, three more questions out there. So if you have them, submit them. I will do regular like Mailbag. Monday will be a thing during the course of the off season, so please keep submitting those. Thank you for listening, thank you for watching, thank you for being in every day or I do appreciate you being with me every Monday through Friday. Please tell everybody about the show, Please share the show and tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team every day. 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Host: John Karalis
Date: May 19, 2026
Episode Theme: How Victor Wembanyama's rise alters Boston's championship approach and mailbag Q&A on Celtics team building, cap dilemmas, and future moves.
John Karalis dives into the seismic impact Victor Wembanyama is having on the NBA postseason and, more importantly, what the emergence of a generational star in San Antonio means for the Boston Celtics’ own championship window. He reflects on the strategies Boston must now consider, not just to navigate the Eastern Conference, but to beat a team built around Wembanyama. The episode then transitions into a listener mailbag, tackling questions about offseason moves, player roles, and cap management, with additional thoughtful commentary on team construction, Isaiah Thomas’ new role with the organization, and the Most Improved Player award’s criteria.
"Wemby seems different, man. Wemby seems different... Celtics got some work to do."
— John Karalis (05:35)
"The Celtics have to look at the Spurs and go, if we're going to win a championship, we gotta figure out how to beat this dude..."
— John Karalis (05:58)
“No team is…just going to fork over that money…unless they are guaranteed to be contenders. And no team is guaranteed…except for the San Antonio Spurs.” (16:49)
“If the Celtics win the championship next year and Isaiah Thomas gets a championship ring … that would be incredible.”
— John Karalis (26:28)
“If the Spurs win this championship… maybe you get a championship hangover, you can kind of pounce and take advantage of that. Then after that, I don’t know, man.” (04:10)
“Just understand that there are financial realities in this collective bargaining agreement that have to be considered — it has nothing to do with Bill Chisholm [owner].” (16:21)
“It’s a good problem to have—too many guys that are good. But if they’re all of equal talent level and not all superstar talent…” (17:23)
“If anybody… who has played for the Celtics… deserves a ring, it’s Isaiah Thomas.” (26:35)
“Niemias Queta got better, just a demonstrably better basketball player… but that’s not how the award is going to be handed out.” (30:01)
For more Celtics analysis and to submit your own questions, contact John via johncorrales.com/mailbag.