The Boston Celtics are a team with a chance to either flourish or flounder during the 2021 offseason — at this point, frankly, there’s no middle ground.
Less than 24 hours after their gentleman’s sweep series defeat to the Brooklyn Nets, Adrian Wojnarowski dropped one of his famous nukes and reported that Danny Ainge would be stepping down from his role as General Manager and President of Basketball Operations and, in his place for the latter role, Head Coach Brad Stevens would move on up to the front office.
After their disappointing 2020-21 campaign, it was already apparent that the Cs would be under the microscope this summer but now, with such a shakeup as the one they’ve already endured, the attention focused on the franchise will now be even greater.
Arguably the team’s biggest task heading into this summer is to try and find a replacement for their fallen star, Kemba Walker, at the one, as his inconsistencies (unfortunately due to his injuries) played a huge role in their demise this past season.
We at the Houdini have gone about and discussed a few low-cost options that the Boston Celtics could look to nab as potential replacements for the 31-year-old this offseason, as they’ll have little wiggle-room in the salary department to be legitimate active participants in free agency.
Of course, there are still ways in which they could wind up landing a high-value upgrade at the position, and perhaps the most notable route is via trade.
Should they indulge in such an act, and scour the market for a player of interest, there would certainly be no better target for them to pursue than Portland Trail Blazers star, Damian Lillard.
Coming off of another fantastic season, the 30-year-old once again saw his team trounced from the first round for the fourth time in the last five seasons.
Literally just minutes after their defeat to the Denver Nuggets on Thursday, the superstar went to Instagram and posted a cryptic tweet that had fans and media analysts alike stirring up speculation that he may want out of Oregon:
While there’s absolutely no way of knowing what his intentions are this offseason based on this post, should the speculation wind up becoming true, and Lillard makes it clear he wants out, there is no doubt that the Boston Celtics should pursue the point guard using everything they have at their disposal.
To get the ball rolling with this Lillard-to-Boston agenda, we at HH have gone about and concocted 2 trades we believe the Cs should offer in the hypothetical scenario that the star winds up on the block: