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:
Trade idea No. 1) Boston Celtics swap Jaylen Brown for Damian Lillard
Like we said in our introduction slide, the Boston Celtics had quite a disappointing 2020-21 campaign.
After making it to within two games of nabbing their first NBA Finals berth in over a decade last season during the Lake Buena Vista bubble, the shamrocks failed to recapture any semblance of similar success in their follow-up campaign, as they finished off the year with a mere .500 record of 36-36 and, as mentioned already, were bounced from the first round in five games.
Something needs to be done should they wish to re-insert themselves into the upper echelon of the league’s elite teams, and upgrading the most important position in the game today should do the trick.
Adding the likes of Damian Lillard, who just posted stellar per-game averages of 28.8 points, 7.5 assists, and 4.2 rebounds on 45 percent shooting from the floor and 39 percent shooting from deep, to a team already in possession of a budding superstar in Jayson Tatum should be of the utmost intrigue for every fan of the Celtics.
Now, of course, attaining someone of the perennial All-Star/ All-NBA talent’s ilk is going to cost quite a pretty penny for any interested buyer. While I, myself, have gone on the record to state him to be one of my favorite players in the league, should Lillard be on the table, Boston would have to give up Jaylen Brown in the process.
A first-time All-Star this past season, the 24-year-old took huge leaps forward in his progressions and posted an impressive stat line of 24.7 points, six boards, 3.4 assists, and 1.2 steals on 48 percent shooting from the floor and 40 percent shooting from deep.
Though he and Tatum proved to be quite an impactful tandem on a nightly basis, like we stated earlier, improving upon their guard play should be viewed as more important than trying to keep their wing talent in the conversation for best in the league and, based on what we’re seeing with the Los Angeles Clippers, having a star wing duo may not be the best recipe for success.
With this trade, the Cs seemingly thrust themselves back into the legitimate playoff contenders conversation by partnering arguably the best point guard with arguably the best player under-25 in the league, while Portland brings on a youthful franchise cornerstone in Brown to either partner with CJ McCollum or to simply start from scratch with and look to get pieces to build around him.
Trade idea No. 2) Boston Celtics land new starting point guard and center
The problem we have with the first trade — other than the fact that we see Jaylen Brown leaving us — is that, even with Lillard’s immediate impact that he’d bring, the Boston Celtics would still find themselves strapped for cash whilst possessing plenty of holes within the rotation that need filling.
Like we said, if the Cs wish to acquire the superstar guard, they’ll need to part ways with Brown.
However, just because the two are imperative to make any deal work between both Portland and Boston, this is not to say more assets from both sides can’t be thrust into a package along with them.
This trade sees a few more moving pieces attached but, in all honesty, it may be the more ideal scenario to pursue.
Now, many may expect that adding Kemba Walker’s contract into the mix may be an obvious turnout and, in other proposals we’ve seen across the media landscape — admittedly, including some of our own from the past — this has been the case.
However, with how lowly his contract is viewed, Portland would easily be more inclined to just bypass the inclusion of the former All-Star in a deal.
Fine.
Instead, what we see to make salaries work is the inclusion of Tristan Thompson once again along with Robert Williams III, Aaron Nesmith, Payton Pritchard, two future firsts, two seconds, and, perhaps the biggest loss of the assets not named Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart.
In turn, the Trail Blazers send the Boston Celtics Damian Lillard (the whole point of this article) as well as two players in Jusuf Nurkic and Robert Covington that could easily play major roles in a complete franchise turnaround.
Obviously, with Lillard, the impact he would bring to the Cs would be immeasurable.
With Nurkic coming aboard, Boston nabs a talented starting center with impressive size (7-foot, 290-pounds) who, throughout his five-year tenure in Portland has posted averages of 14.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 1.4 blocks on 49 percent shooting from the floor.
On top of this, the Cs also are getting a hard-nosed, defensive-minded veteran presence in Covington who can guard seemingly any position, space the floor (shot 38 percent from deep this past season), and who could at the very least try to replace the ever-present presence of Smart and his intense on-court energy and antics.
This trade, in specific, may see a large amount of turnover for both ball clubs, but in the long run could prove to be mutually beneficial, especially considering that, in this scenario, Lillard wants out of Rip City.
The Boston Celtics plug some rather large holes within their rotation that could close the gap between their most recent first-round exit and legitimate championship contention while the Portland Trail Blazers bring on a bevy of young assets, a building block in Jaylen Brown, two expiring contracts, and draft capital.