Boston Celtics Should Avoid Markieff Morris

The Boston Celtics may be reuniting former teammates after Kevin Pelton of ESPN reported that Markieff Morris is looking for a trade and has absolutely no interest in staying with the Pheonix Suns.

After the Celtics failed to trade up in the draft, failed to reel in a top tier free agent and failed to make any blockbuster trades this offseason the team still has one of the best collection of assets to deal with.

It appears as though a trade is a foregone conclusion for Morris and if the Celtics are interested the Suns will certainly listen. The Suns are still a very young team and the Celtics have plenty of young prospects and draft picks that could do wonders for the Suns.

Everybody now knows that the Suns are interested in a trade so the bigger question becomes are the Celtics interested in trading for Morris. Morris could immediately be one of the more established players on the Celtics but they already have a tremendous amount of players on guaranteed contracts and Morris’ position does him no favours.

April 2, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; Phoenix Suns forward Markieff Morris (11) shoots the basketball against Golden State Warriors forward David Lee (10) during the first quarter at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

The only two big offseaon acquisitions the Celtics made were for Amir Johnson and David Lee who are both power forwards. Throw in that Jared Sullinger has been working on his conditioning this offseason and Jonas Jerebko is one of the top three point shooters on the team and there simply is not much room for Morris.

Morris is a good enough of a player that the Celtics will either have to give up a significant draft pick or a player that is going to have a large role on the team.

If Jared Sullinger is involved in the trade that may be the only way it makes sense. Adding another power forward will continue to clutter the Celtics’ roster as they simply do not have enough room for what they currently have.

It should be safe to assume that Johnson and Lee will be staying with the team so it becomes a matter of dealing Sullinger or Jerebko or sticking with what they have.

If the Celtics can do a straight up trade with Sullinger, that may be the only way this works. They are both young and have similar size but Morris has had more success shooting the three ball. One of the biggest concerns with Sullinger is his sub 30% three point shooting and Morris has been above 30% every year of his career.

The problem is that Morris is not that much better. He has been below 32% in each of the last two seasons and Sullinger also has a significant edge in the long mid range game. Between 16 feet and there three point line Morris shoots at a rate of just 39.7% while Sullinger hits it at a rate of 47.5%.

Apr 8, 2015; Auburn Hills, MI, USA; Boston Celtics forward Jared Sullinger (7) shoots the ball over Detroit Pistons center Joel Anthony (50) during the second quarter at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The Celtics won 113-103. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports

The Celtics need more improvement with their three point shooting but with how important the mid range game is they may be losing more than they are gaining if Sullinger is on the way out.

Offensively, Morris is not enough of an upgrade for the Celtics to consider sacrificing the minutes of Lee, Johnson or Sullinger in his favor.

On the defensive end, it gets even worse for Morris. The Celtics cannot afford to get worse rebounding the ball and Morris has a total rebounding percentage of 10.7 and a defensive rebounding percentage of 17.0. Sullinger, who has never been known as a top rebounder, is better than Morris in a landslide with a total percentage of 15.4 and a defensive percentage of 20.9.

Blocking and stealing the ball is a wash between the two, with Morris getting the edge stealing the ball and Sullinger getting the edge blocking the ball. Once again, this works in favor of Sullinger as the Celtics have guards that are better at taking away the ball, while blocking shots is an area of dire concern.

Throw in the added dimension of Morris demanding a trade and the Celtics would be wise to stay away from him. The Celtics have three power forward options in Lee, Johnson and Sullinger that are better than Morris and all three of them are already more comfortable with Stevens’ system.

The Celtics certainly have the assets to go after Morris if they want but unless they give up next to nothing to acquire him they will be better off keeping what they have. The Celtics have the guard depth to sacrifice one of them but there is no guard worth sacrificing for a power forward that could potentially be 4th on the depth chart.

Power forward is a position where the Celtics can feel comfortable and there is no reason to sacrifice in other areas especially considering the Celtics are still very young and developing.

Morris would probably be successful with the Celtics because of his ability to shoot the three but almost any realistic trade scenario will involve the Celtics giving up too much and taking a step backwards in their rebuilding process.

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