The question felt premature when it was first floated. Now, it feels unavoidable.

The Celtics (33-18) didn’t make the biggest headline-grabbing move at the deadline.

They didn’t chase the biggest star on the board or mortgage the future in any type of way.

Instead, Brad Stevens made a very specific, very deliberate bet:

Shoring up Boston’s biggest weakness would matter more than chasing star power.

That’s how Nikola Vucevic ended up in green.

And the deeper you look at the East, the harder it is to argue Boston isn’t sitting in the strongest position right now.

This Celtics team was already winning without a safety net.

They’ve spent the entire season without Jayson Tatum, leaned into internal development, and still found themselves near the top of the conference with one of the best point differentials in the league.

They’ve won games with depth, effort, and lineup flexibility - often on nights where logic said they shouldn’t.

The Vucevic trade didn’t change who the Celtics are. It clarified it.

Boston’s biggest issue all season has been obvious: defensive rebounding and frontcourt stability. Neemias Queta and Luka Garza have been excellent relative to expectations, but asking them to shoulder playoff-level responsibility for four rounds was always a gamble.

Small-ball lineups worked - until they didn’t. And when they didn’t, the Celtics had no counter.

Now they do.

Vucevic gives Boston something it hasn’t consistently had since Kristaps Porzingis was moved: a real, reliable, high-minute center who can rebound, stretch the floor, and keep the offense functional when things bog down.

He’s one of the league’s best defensive rebounders, one of the few centers who forces opposing bigs to guard the perimeter, and a legitimate hub offensively without needing touches forced his way.

That matters more than raw scoring.

The East right now is full of teams with questions. The Knicks have star power but are still figuring out fit and consistency. Milwaukee looks fragile, physically and structurally, with Giannis banged up after surviving the deadline. Cleveland has depth but not answers late in games. Miami is Miami -  dangerous, but flawed. Philadelphia remains tethered to availability and health.

Boston, meanwhile, just got cleaner.

They traded from surplus. Anfernee Simons was good in Boston, even trending upward, but his role was always conditional. With Derrick White and Payton Pritchard anchoring ball-handling duties, and Jaylen Brown evolving into a nightly engine, Simons’ scoring punch was helpful - not essential. When Tatum eventually returns, that redundancy only grows.

Turning that redundancy into frontcourt stability, financial flexibility, and a trade exception is roster management at its sharpest.

And the ripple effects matter. Joe Mazzulla now has lineup answers instead of lineup questions. The Celtics don’t have to win the rebounding battle by committee every night. They don’t have to survive non-Queta minutes with hope and hustle alone. They can toggle between physical, traditional looks and five-out spacing without losing identity.

That’s how playoff series are won.

The other piece here is psychological. This group has lived on chips-on-shoulders all season - Derrick White’s All-Star snub, Jaylen Brown carrying the offense through injuries, Pritchard constantly adjusting roles, role players proving they belong. The Vucevic trade wasn’t desperation. It was confirmation.

Confirmation that the front office believes this season is real.

Confirmation that this team’s floor is high enough to justify pushing chips in.

Confirmation that Boston doesn’t need to wait.

Does this trade guarantee the Celtics are the best team in the East? No. That’s not how February works.

But it absolutely makes them the hardest team to game-plan for, the least vulnerable to matchup hunting, and the most structurally sound roster from top to bottom.

And when you zoom out - when you look at balance, adaptability, health, depth, and clarity of purpose - it’s fair to say this:

If the Eastern Conference has a team that looks the most complete right now, it’s the one that just fixed its biggest flaw without breaking anything else.

That team is Boston.

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Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.