Payton Pritchard Outlines Celtics Lofty Goals for Next Season

The Boston Celtics dominated the NBA en route to the 2024 NBA Championship, but since then, things haven't exactly gone their way. Despite a stellar regular season in 2024/25, they were blown away by the Knicks in round two of the NBA Playoffs, but that wasn't the worst of it.

In Game 4, the Celtics saw superstar Jayson Tatum go down with an achilles tear, meaning that he'll miss most, if not all of the 2025/26 regular season, and since that point, they've traded some of their key pieces. While Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard remain, this team looks very different ahead of the regular season, with Anfernee Simons, Georges Niang and Neemias Queta set to play key roles for them moving forward.

However, that hasn't changed things for Pritchard, the Celtics spark plug off the bench, who has now outlined Boston's lofty goals for next season.

“We’re definitely trying to be a playoff team. We’re trying to win a championship.”

That may simply be a player trying to get the fanbase engaged and excited about the upcoming season, but given the talent of the team's three best healthy players, there's no reason to doubt their belief in this statement. With Joe Mazzulla behind the bench, this team will be full of optimism despite the changes and their loss of talent in the past few months, and while they may not be a genuine title threat in the Eastern Conference, they're an organization that nobody should write off heading into the new season.