Media Day circus will be Celtics’ first test of the season

BOSTON — Monday was supposed to be a fun day. It was the day that the Boston Celtics put on their uniforms, take a bunch of pictures, and answer a bunch of softball questions about the upcoming year.

Celtics Media Day, however, will not be fun and games anymore. It’s going to be an absolute circus.

We’ll still hear from players about how confident they are in the team, and how confident they are in themselves to put last season’s Finals loss behind them and use it as motivation for this upcoming year. We’ll still get a few quirky answers here and there, and maybe Marcus Smart will show off a new robe to lighten the mood, but it won’t be the usual jovial setting we normally get on Media Day. Most of the focus will be on that dark cloud that is over the Boston organization right now.

Media Day is rarely seen as anything but a fluff day for teams. Everyone is 0-0 and optimistic about the season ahead. But the Celtics are about to have their first test of the upcoming season, before they even hit the floor for training camp.

The Celtics’ media relations staff must have put in a lot of overtime over the weekend, preparing the team for what is ahead. Even though no one can — or will — say much on the matter, Monday is going to be dominated with questions about Ime Udoka’s season-long suspension, and his actions that caused the Celtics to levy that unprecedented punishment. 

Players are going to be asked how shocked they were to hear the allegations and subsequent penalty. How much did they know ahead of time? How on earth are they going to to come together to recreate last year’s late-season magic?

Instead of questions about his off-season conditioning and antics with Deuce, Jayson Tatum is going to have to awkwardly talk about Ime. Instead of talking about the new tricks he added to his bag over the last few months, Jaylen Brown is going to have to talk about Ime. And on and on it will go until even the guys at the back of the bench have to talk about Ime. Brad Stevens, who was emotional throughout Friday’s press conference about Udoka’s suspension, is in for another round of questions about the matter, and how he plans on picking up the pieces left in its wake.

And we haven’t even gotten to the new guy, Joe Mazzulla, who will hold his first presser as interim head coach of the Boston Celtics on Monday. He too will of course be hit with a bunch of questions about the previous guy, not to mention plenty of questions about his past run-ins with the law. Talk about a tough first day.

It all puts a dark and ominous cloud over what was supposed to be one of the most promising Celtics seasons of the last decade. Fresh off a trip to the NBA Finals, the Celtics were preseason favorites to get over the hump and bring another title home to Boston. That has all flown out the window with the mastermind of last year’s incredible run now gone from the team.

It will still come down to what the players can do on the floor. The Celtics are still in great shape on that front, with Tatum and Brown leading the way. As long as those two stars shine bright, the Celtics will still be a damn good basketball team. And if Mazzulla can get everyone to buy in as they did last year — Smart and veteran Al Horford will be integral pieces in that cause — then the C’s should still be able to contend.

But the risk of the season completely falling apart increased greatly last week. With every early-season loss, every blown defense or lack of execution, the “What If” questions will mount. It took Udoka half a season to get his message across and get the team to play the way he wanted. Mazzulla, whose coaching style and approach are a giant mystery, will likely have similar growing pains in his first-ever head coaching job — heck, his first-ever bench job — in the NBA. 

Losing streaks will draw questions about Ime. Any new tabloid developments will draw questions about Ime. It’s going to be a full season of questions about Ime for the Celtics, an unwanted distraction for a team that relies on its focus.

The Celtics could still go out and do what they need to on the floor. But that task just got a whole lot more difficult. There are going to be a lot more hurdles along the way, and a lot more disturbances in the process.

The Celtics better get used to the circus, because it’s not always going to be about basketball throughout the upcoming season. They’ll get their first test on Monday when the Media Day spectacle comes to town.