Boston Celtics: 3 former first-round picks Cs should consider trading for

The Boston Celtics have been a rather busy bunch throughout the 2021 NBA offseason and, in turn, have seemingly set themselves up quite nicely for a bounce-back year during this coming campaign.

After enduring one of their most disappointing seasons from over the past decade in 2020-21, new President of Basketball Operations, Brad Stevens, has made it a point to shake things up this offseason, and the moves that landed them the likes of Al Horford, Josh Richardson, and, most recently, the steal of a signing in Dennis Schroder have gotten the front office off to a hot start.

However, despite the fact that the Cs have been on summer vacation for a little over two months, there are still more than two months remaining between now and the tip-off to next season, which means Stevens and co. still have time to make more moves if they wish to and, based on last year’s turnout, they should strongly consider doing so.

Though we believe there are still a few quality free agents available on the open market should they wish to go this route, their salary cap situation coupled with their early summer maneuvering suggests that they may be more inclined to make moves via the trade market.

While the likes of Damian Lillard and Bradley Beal look to be staying with their respective franchises heading into next year — for now, anyway — there are a few other players that could potentially be realistic trade targets for the Celtics.

In fact, there are 3 former first-round picks that the Houdini thinks could be quality additions to this Boston team:

Boston Celtics first-round trade target No. 1) Cole Anthony

To give credit where credit is due, the folks at Bleacher Report inspired the idea for this article just a few days ago when they published their recent article discussing trades to save free agency’s biggest losers which, based on their past takes, obviously included the Boston Celtics.

In the piece, writer, Greg Swartz, suggests the idea of the franchise dealing for second-year point guard, Cole Anthony who, according to the article, could still be a great grab despite the recent acquisition of Schroder:

"Anthony, 21, averaged 12.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 0.6 steals in 27.1 minutes as a rookie for the Magic last season, starting 34 of his 47 games. He could step right into the starting job in Boston, sharing the floor with young All-Stars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who would help share ball-handling duties. While Anthony looked like a building block in Orlando, the Magic now have an overflow of point guards. They took Jalen Suggs with the fifth overall pick, and Markelle Fultz is due to return from a torn ACL. Suggs is big enough at 6’4″ to play either guard position, but he will be the primary initiator of the offense no matter where he lines up."

In a response piece, we discussed how we agree with Swartz’s sound logic, and that the 21-year-old was even a player we at HH believed could have easily been the C’s lottery selection at last year’s draft. However, ultimately, we thought that giving up Romeo Langford and a future first-round pick for a player who has been impacted by injuries the last two years may be a bit steep.

Though we still believe this to be true, this is not to say we’re totally out on the idea of the Boston Celtics looking into the availability of Anthony.

Make a tweak by, say, taking out Romeo and throw in Grant Williams and such a deal becomes a bit more intriguing in our opinion.

Shipping out as little assets as possible to acquire a player who once was revered as a top-3 guard in his class would be a smart move to consider by Stevens this summer.

Though some may think the Magic would never give up on Cole Anthony so quickly, and they may be right, remember that since coming aboard less than a year ago they’ve gone about and added two other first-round selected point guards (one of whom was taken 5th overall in this past draft) to their backcourt.