Celtics still not expecting Avery Bradley for start of season

Boston will start next season in Miami against the Heat, and a refrain from Celtics fans all summer has been “if we just had Avery Bradley and our injured guys we could have won that series.” I hate the “if we had been healthy” game, in this case because two of Miami’s big three were not healthy either.

That first game in Miami isn’t going to answer the question anyway, because Bradley isn’t likely back.

Players want to be back faster than they should be and Bradley told A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com that he may not be ready to go for the start of training camp. Which is no shock. We’ve known that for a while. But that’s what he said.

“I don’t know anything,” Bradley told CSNNE.com in a phone interview. “They just want me to get healthy. That’s all they really tell me. They don’t really give me time frames.”

The Celtics are more cautious.

“We know there’s a possibility that Avery won’t be able to play the first month of the season,” Danny Ainge, Boston’s president of basketball operations, told CSNNE.com. “So we have to be prepared for that. You never know how these things play out; will it be a month? Or two months? I don’t think it’ll be much longer than that, or he could be back sooner. You try to build a roster where you can get by with any injury, that can sustain you through a short period of time.”

The fantastic offseason Boston has had helps here.

They can slide Courtney Lee right into that defense-first, knock down threes starting role. If you want to play around with adding some offensive punch, Jason Terry is there. Doc Rivers has some options.

And he has the depth to win despite the missed games. Which is a luxury he lacked last year due to a flood of role player injuries.