Boston Celtics: 3 deals Cs should pursue using their $17M TPE

The Boston Celtics have been one of the busiest teams throughout the 2021 NBA Offseason, seemingly making transaction after transaction. Now, heading closer to the upcoming campaign, we don’t expect their momentum in this department to slow down, and, frankly, neither should you.

Thanks to the wheeling and dealing ways of newly appointed President of Basketball Operations, Brad Stevens, the Cs not only managed to snag some potentially high-impact assets to help them right off the bat this year but, also, some that could prove to be of great service at some point down the road.

For those of you who are not aware, we are talking about the $17 million TPE that the shamrocks managed to snag in exchange for the sign-and-trade they took part in involving Evan Fournier heading to the New York Knicks.

For the second year in a row, Boston finds itself in possession of a rather sizeable exception that brings a ton of hope to the fan base that the front office may be able to use it to acquire a legitimate difference-maker via the trade market.

Unlike last year, however, many believe that the Cs have a good chance of finally cashing in on this promise what with the fact that Stevens is now leading the charge and not the trepidacious Danny Ainge.

Because of this excitement, we at the Houdini have already gone about and started discussing ways in which the Boston Celtics could go best use their new TPE and, just recently, pushed out a list of 3 players that could be ideal targets for the team to pursue.

As a follow-up to this said list posted by my co-editor, Andrew Hughes, today we go a step further and discuss specific trades that Stevens and co. should consider pursuing for each respective player:

Boston Celtics trade No. 1) Kentavious Caldwell-Pope heads to the Cs

Though the perception of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope may have been damaged during these past few seasons, going from a solid go-to scoring option during his time in Detroit to being a mere tertiary presence during these past few years with the Los Angeles Lakers, the eighth-year veteran still has plenty left to give to a ball club and a wing-hungry one like the Boston Celtics should be interested.

Be it in a starting spot, which is the role my co-editor believes the Cs should target him for, or as a simple high-end reserve, KCP could be a fantastic presence on this team and likely would be of greater service with them as well than he would with the Washington Wizards.

Already proving himself to be a great two-way role player for a Championship contending team (won title with LA in 2020), Pope is coming off a 2020-21 season where he posted per-game averages of 9.7 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 1.9 assists on 41 percent shooting from beyond the arc.

While expectations are rather high that soon-to-be sophomore Aaron Nesmith will have quite an improved season this year which, in turn, would hopefully help bolster the wing scoring spot, adding on the 28-year-old would give Boston fewer question marks pertaining to this aspect of the rotation, for he’s already a proven commodity in this department.

In our humble opinion, parting ways with a top-18 protected first-round pick could be worth it for a player who can play either the two or three, can serve as a lockdown defender, and who can help space the floor with his long-range shooting stroke (has shot at a clip of 37 percent from deep over the last five years).