Boston Celtics: 3 franchise-altering offseason moves Cs must consider

The Boston Celtics are in the midst of one of their worst seasons in recent history, and no light at the end of the tunnel appears to be in sight.

After making it to their third Eastern Conference Finals in four years and within just two games of reaching their first NBA Finals in over a decade last season, now 51 games into 2020-21 the shamrocks seemingly look like a shell of themselves and quite far removed from their preseason status of having the fourth-best odds of taking home the Larry O’Brien trophy.

Though there are still 21 games remaining on the docket, many fans are already penciling in this season as a wash and, in turn, have set their sights on the offseason, concocting ways in which this underwhelming team can better position themselves for a title run in 2022.

While we at the Houdini still believe there are ways in which the Cs can go about turning their season around, we also think it’s never too early to start planning for the future.

The Boston Celtics must make some bold decisions this coming offseason

It’s evident that this team could be in line for some serious shakeups in the offseason to help get the franchise back on track.

At this point, Boston could use for some heavy-duty makeovers all across the board, and we believe there are 3 franchise-altering moves the Celtics must consider making:

Franchise-altering move No. 1) Move on from Kemba Walker and/ or Marcus Smart

We’re simply holding no punches back with this first potential franchise-altering scenario — simply put, the Boston Celtics should strongly consider moving on from one or both of Kemba Walker and/ or Marcus Smart this coming offseason.

The sad reality is, this team’s core as currently constructed is simply not good enough to legitimately vie for championship contention.

While they did make it all the way to the third round of the playoffs just last season, perhaps this was more due to the impact in which the COVID-induced hiatus had on the league as a whole rather than how good they actually were — let’s not forget that the Cs came into the bubble going 5-5 post the All-Star break, swept an injury-riddled 76ers team in round one, and went to seven games against the disfavored Toronto Raptors.

When looking a bit deeper into the ECF run of 2020, it really wasn’t all that impressive.

Between the albatross contract attached to the injury-riddled Walker and the often hard-to-watch offensive production from Smart, this offseason Danny Ainge and co. should strongly consider looking into parting ways with at least one of these players, for their departure would accomplish many things including clearing up cap space and opening up roster spots.

The ideal scenario would be to either swap the former All-Star’s salary along with a few picks to bring on another star — more on that later — or the Swiss Army Man’s remaining year left under contract in exchange for a player at a position that better fills the needs of this Cs team — someone like John Collins in a sign-and-trade with Atlanta, perhaps?

Though to some it may be hard to accept from a personal standpoint, from a pure logic perspective it makes a good amount of sense to look to part ways with one of these aforementioned ballers.