Are the Boston Celtics really title contenders?

While it’s undeniable the Boston Celtics are exceeding expectations this season, it’s less of a consensus the team is actually in contention for a banner — what are the arguments?

The Boston Celtics have exceeded expectations this season, but are they really going to contend for a championship in the postseason?

There’s a lot of reasons to suggest they won’t — the biggest being that they’ll have to get through the league-best Milwaukee Bucks to do it — but there’s some very compelling arguments to be made about the reasons why they might.

One such case was made by SB Nation’s Mike Prada, who outlined a number of key factors supporting the thesis that the Celtics have a legitimate shot of winning it all if they continue to play as they have.

Noting that the general consensus of contenders focuses on the two Los Angeles teams (the Lakers and the Clippers) as well as the Bucks, Prada also points out that bookmakers prefer even the Utah Jazz, Philadelphia 76ers, Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets in terms of title odds.

However, there are compelling signs this estimation may not be such a good one, with Prada laying out a case of six reasons why Boston should actually be part of the serious contender conversation.

First of those reasons is the math.

The Celtics currently possess a +6.8 net rating, trailing only the Bucks and Lakers, and notably ahead of the Clippers, Rockets, 76ers, Toronto Raptors, or Miami Heat.

The metric, which measures the difference between net defense and net offense, has been one of the strongest predictors of postseason success, and with Boston among the elite teams in this category, it’s hard to argue they shouldn’t be in the picture based on this single fact alone.

Speaking of those offensive and defensive ratings, they are top-five for both,and only the Bucks and Lakers are as well. They also happen to be the only team with a top-12 record in seven of the eight factors for winning.

The Celtics own the league’s second-best record against teams with a winning record at 13-9 — only Milwaukee has more at 12-7, and own a worse net rating in those games (+4.4) than Boston (+4.5).

Prada also notes they’ve managed to do this despite having only 15 games with their best five players healthy.

If the math doesn’t convince, the growth shown by third-year All-Star Jayson Tatum is offered as yet another point of evidence, as is All-NBA point guard Kemba Walker’s ability as a synergistic playmaker able to hang back and let Celtics wings score — or take over when his number’s called.

The team’s ability to come up with loose balls in chaotic situations — particularly Marcus Smart — is another point in Boston’s favor for Prada, as is the Celtics’ center-by-committee.

Usually viewed as a detriment, the Swiss-Army-knife approach to Boston’s frontcourt is portrayed as a boon by the article’s author, who notes the different skills Daniel Theis and Enes Kanter.

Prada also downplays the importance of the Celtics’ thin bench given rotations shorten in the postseason, suggesting, “they should be able to get by even if just one of the [bench] players can pop in any given game.”

It’s a compelling case from an analyst not known for sporting green-tinted lenses in his analysis of the Massachusetts franchise, and hard to deny save for one key category.

That category would be the paucity of championships won by a team without a top-five player, the usual exception of the 2004 Detroit Pistons aside.

However you feel about these competing perspectives, that the Celtics have a puncher’s chance at worst is an excellent starting point few would disagree with regardless of how we parse the above arguments.

And for a team seen by most analysts to perhaps challenge their mediocre showing of 2018-19 — a year of massive expectations punctuated by chaos and disappointment — as a best-case scenario, that’s as good of a start as one could reasonably hope for.

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