The Boston Celtics are already in the conversation for legitimate NBA title contenders, but could use a little extra firepower at their disposal. Might they look to add more talent by participating in offseason trades?
Around the time of this year’s NBA trade deadline, we pushed out many a pieces discussing deals the Boston Celtics could partake in the help bolster their roster and to, ultimately, strengthen their chances of legitimately contending for a championship in 2019-20.
The cutoff date of February 6th came and went and, while we saw numerous players change area codes, we saw none take on the 617 digits that belong to the city of Boston.
As time would tell, the C’s wound up proving capable of holding their own after standing pat at the deadline as they ended up going 11-5 from February all the way to the season’s COVID-19 induced suspension on March 11th and clinched their sixth consecutive postseason berth along the way.
With the scenario of the league officially canceling the 2019-20 season becoming more likely every day, it would appear that the C’s should soon start to shift their focus towards competing for a championship in 2020-21.
Though keeping their team’s roster intact past the trade deadline this year proved to be a solid move over the few months that proceeded, many — including ourselves — believed that, once the postseason rolled around, the team would sorely struggle against the top teams in their conference, especially ones with formidable and intimidating front courts such as the Philadelphia 76ers and the title favorites themselves, the Milwaukee Bucks.
This is not to say we didn’t believe Boston didn’t have a chance in this year’s postseason — truth be told, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. However, with a few tweaks to their roster, their odds of attaining banner 18 would be increased significantly.
Their core group of Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward and Marcus Smart is seemingly as good, if not better, than almost every other team’s in the league. However, at the end of the day, in order to win a championship, it takes an entire unit and, make no mistake, the Boston Celtics could use for some fine tuning.
With this in mind, here are 2 trades the C’s could partake in without having to sacrifice their current core.