Boston Celtics: The only 3 players worth trading Marcus Smart for

Despite the individual successes found by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, otherwise known as the league’s second-best wing duo, the Boston Celtics have been an absolute disappointment through 34 games played in 2020-21.

Boasting an average record of 17-17 while going a sub-.500 7-9 in February, this team seems to be in need of some shakeup, particularly within their roster.

While the team’s two All-Stars in Tatum and Brown should be seen as “untouchable” commodities, considering the fact that this team as currently constructed has struggled so much through the first half of the season, the rest of the bunch must be viewed as expendable — it’s painful to say, but, sadly, it’s true.

Unfortunately, this includes Marcus Smart

The Boston Celtics should only consider dealing Marcus Smart for a handful of players

Since joining the Boston Celtics back in 2014, Smart has etched himself into the hearts of Cs fans, and, soon into his tenure, became known as the lifeblood of Boston Celtics basketball.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that this season has gone so south for the shamrocks, many ideas have been proposed in regard to how the front office can go about saving this sinking ship of a season and, on several occasions, we’ve seen fans and media alike propose the potential idea of dealing away the All-Defensive player.

Desperate times typically call for desperate measures and, should this team continue to stumble, we could find Trader Danny forcing his hand and pulling out all the stops.

Though we at the Houdini wish not to see Smart shipped off, we understand that these types of scenarios are simply out of our control.

When pondering on this, we at HH got to thinking: if Boston actually did look into dealing their Swiss Army Man, what potential return players would they consider worthy of being targeted?

In our eyes, there are really only 3 realistic targets that we believe the Celtics could view as worthy of trading Marcus Smart for:

Player worth trading Marcus Smart for No. 1) Dejounte Murray

First on the list, we start out with a player of a similar ilk to Marcus Smart in Dejounte Murray.

Since taking over as a starter for the San Antonio Spurs, the point guard has found quite a bit of success whilst running the show.

Now, in his fifth season in the association, the All-Defensive team talent is currently finding himself in the midst of a career year, boasting averages of 15.7 points, 7.2 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.6 steals per game on 45 percent shooting from the field.

The idea behind Murray being a player the Boston Celtics should consider targeting should they decide to shop Smart is that they could get back someone of a similar skillset, though with higher upside, and in the midst of a reasonably priced contract.

A side part to this deal would also be the Celtics theoretically dodging the bullet of having to deal with the pitfalls of contract negotiations once the 2020-21 season wraps, as he could simply price himself out of the team’s grasp, whereas Murray will be making an average salary of $15.9 million over the next 3 and a half seasons.

The do-it-all 24-year-old  is the type of two-way player that this Cs team could use.

Sure, to that one could easily argue that Smart, when healthy, fills that role. However, keep in mind, this is in the event that the team shops the 26-year-old.