Cs unlikely to land Ben Simmons, Jerami Grant, Domantas Sabonis via trade

Winter is here for the Boston Celtics, who are mired in their most difficult stretch of games since the season began.

Luckily, business was taken care of on Saturday night when the Cs avoided a back-to-back sweep by the hands of their opponents. The New York Knicks came to town and, despite a brilliant performance from the struggling former Celtic Kemba Walker, Boston held strong to knock off NY 114-107 and further bury the ‘Bing Bong’ battle cry into the ground.

Of course, the night before they were able to make a valiant comeback off the strength of their second unit to make things interesting with the Golden State Warriors before the Cs ultimately gave in to a 30-point effort from Steph Curry and a 27-point outburst from Andrew Wiggins.

Is the strength of their recent play–which includes a shocking 14-point victory over the Milwaukee Bucks at the TD Garden to snap a three-game West Coast losing streak the prior week–enough to keep this team together through February 10th’s trade deadline?

Well, the jury is out on that one, but it does seem as though the team will be unlikely to make any major moves for guys under the arbitrary ‘star’ threshold in the meantime.

MassLive’s Brian Robb poured cold water on any hypothetical embers surrounding rumors of the team looking to land the likes of Ben Simmons, Jerami Grant, or Domantas Sabonis when asked by a Boston Celtics Mailbag reader:

"Any Simmons trade would have to involve multiple teams and that doesn’t seem realistic with the Sixers’ high asking price with what Boston has to offer. Jerami Grant just went down with a thumb injury in the midst of a down year. His defense would be a big help but like Sabonis, I’m not sure he’s the guy you go all-in to pay the high asking price, although league sources confirmed the C’s had some interest in him last season."

Long-story short, none of these guys move the needle enough to justify mortgaging the future of the team’s draft stock. Boston Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens has made it clear that a third star is his focus, and none of the aforementioned forwards would qualify as the necessary ‘Jays’ fit considering the asking prices for each so far.