ESPN thinks the Celtics will come in first in the east

A Bristol, Connecticut based sports company seems to have a lot of faith in a local team this season.

That makes sense. A local news station has faith in the local team. But no. We ain’t talking Little League here. This is the NBA. This is ESPN. The media giant owned by Disney thinks the Celtics will have a magical season, earning a first place finish in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. That’s right. they think the Celtics will have a better record than the Cleveland LeBrons — slightly I guess.

You see, if you click here, you can see what they project for all sorts of teams. The reality is, ESPN thinks the Celtics will win 49 and a fraction games and the same could be said for Cleveland. They just have the C’s as more likely to win 50 games than the other good team in the east.

It’s kind of funny though; the Celtics went out and got Gordon Hayward AND the third overall pick in this past NBA draft Jayson “Channing” Tatum. Jaylen Brown will also have more experience for what that is worth. Even so, the projection has them getting less wins than they did this past season. Yeah. It’s possible, but they’re a better team this year than they were last year. Most fans probably only care about making the playoffs and seeing their favorite team play well there anyways, so there’s that.

The reason why they could have a better record than Cleveland this year is simple: they did last year and the Cavs are looking to rid themselves of Kyrie Ivring.

Here’s what’s apparent though: if the Celtics were in the western conference, they’d probably have a tough time making it to the playoffs because of how tough the schedule is out in the wild, wild west.

Tune in next week for a reaction to ESPN’s NHL rankings. Oh wait…