N.A.N sees Boston Celtics being a Christian Wood trade suitor

After splitting their back-to-back Friday and Saturday night, the Boston Celtics sit in seventh place in the Eastern Conference. Is that good enough for President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens moving forward?

We’d hope not. The win Saturday night against the Portland Trail Blazers was thorough, but the loss the previous night in Utah showed that this team is deeply flawed.

While the Jazz sport the second-highest point-per-game average in the entire association, ceding an average of 127 points over the weekend is no way to go on…assuming hopes of not just getting to the playoffs, but winning while there, is the franchise’s goal in 2022.

Even the Portland win had the asterisk of being without Damian Lillard, who will miss the first portion of December with a lower abdomen injury.

Hardwood Houdini is all about what could happen to change the course of the Boston Celtics season, and that often includes scouring the ‘net to find trade possibilities that could improve the roster.

On this Sunday, that brings us to NBA Analysis Network, who floated out the Cs as one of the 3 teams they believe could pursue Christian Wood:

"Making just $13.6M this season, the Boston Celtics could absorb (Christian) Wood’s salary using their $17.1M TPE from signing and trading Evan Fournier to the New York Knicks this past offseason. Along with having a handful of young talents, the Celtics can make this trade a reality fairly easily.They have guys like Payton Pritchard, Aaron Nesmith and Romeo Langford, as well as plenty of draft picks to leverage for Christian Wood, hence why the Celtics are going to be a very busy team leading up to the trade deadline."

Here, they mention two different means of acquiring the former second-round pick out of UNLV, who has been a key element in the Houston Rockets’ current five-game winning streak.

The first is using the traded player exception acquired in the sign-and-trade of Evan Fournier to the New York Knicks this past offseason. That would likely be a draft pick-rich option for Houston that compromises the future for the Cs.

This isn’t the preferred option. Wood himself doesn’t elevate the ceiling of the team to the point of mortgaging the future. With as many issues the team has had behind closed doors, making the wrong move with the team’s future draft health is a risky one.

Pooling together a few young players to go along with salary filler–and we’re almost always referring to Juan Hernangomez in that situation–would be the more likely path and one that benefits Boston far more.

Will Wood be on the team’s radar moving forward? He could be. N.A.N isn’t off-base here.