Boston Celtics: B/R low on C’s free agency signings in re-grades

The Boston Celtics are a team that’s underwhelmed throughout the first 25 games of action in 2020-21.

Though last season they were good enough to come within two games of making their first NBA Finals appearance in over a decade, the shamrocks have found themselves on a roller coaster ride of emotions to start their follow up campaign, going 13-12 and, most recently, dropped their third game over their past four to the lowly Detroit Pistons.

This start to the season has been quite rough, and none of their offseason acquisitions have made things any easier.

The Boston Celtics had a lackluster 2020 free agency period

Though Danny Ainge and co. did manage to sign two players in Tristan Thompson and Jeff Teague, who play positions that were in need of bolstering within the rotation — center and backup point guard –, to date they have not had the impact that many (including ourselves) believed they would coming in.

In fact, in a recent piece published by Bleacher Report, writer Dan Favale went as far as to bestow the team’s free agency decisions with a ‘C’ rating.

Citing what the team could have done in comparison to what they ultimately did do as the main reasons for this rating, the article went on to radiate displeasure with Boston’s underwhelming offseason signings:

"Teague might be outplaying Brad Wanamaker, who left for Golden State, but that’s saying nothing. He’s hitting under 29 percent of his twos and turning the ball over on an inexplicable 23.8 percent of his transition possessions. Carsen Edwards and rookie Payton Pritchard are both currently better backcourt options.Thompson is at least on a redemption streak. He caught fire during Boston’s latest road trip, averaging nearly 11 points per game on 62.9 percent shooting while playing some excellent defense away from the basket.Watching him log minutes alongside Daniel Theis underscores the Celtics’ shaky line of thinking, though. They’ve even needed to experiment with both bigs playing next to Grant Williams. Maybe there was no wing to be had at the MLE, and Boston does have its massive traded player exception. But the addition of Thompson continues to feel like a misallocation of resources."

While there’s still time for these players to step things up (after all, we still have 47 games left to play), at the moment, their free agency signings are looking more like roster fillers than actual difference makers.