For a while now, we at HH have been stating that the Boston Celtics may in fact be one of the most surprising teams from this current 2021-22 campaign, and not in a good way.
Despite taking part in a plethora of trades and transactions this past summer in an effort to fix up the team’s weaknesses, 37 games in the shamrocks essentially find themselves exactly where they were at the end of last season — hovering around .500 with little hope in sight.
Currently at 18-19, Boston finds itself slotted into the ninth seed out in the Eastern Conference standings and, should they not act quickly, they realistically could sink even lower as the year moves along.
Hopefully, however, Brad Stevens and co. step into action sooner rather than later and make some much-needed adjustments, preferably via the trade route, and, should they do this, a popular belief is that they should look into offloading the likes of Dennis Schroder.
Despite how one may feel about the veteran point guard — for us, there’s truly is nothing but love –, a popular talking point that, frankly, is rather strong is that being he’s on an expiring deal the franchise should strongly consider swapping him out for assets that can help the C’s moving forward rather than running the risk of losing him for absolutely nothing in free agency.
Luckily, if they decide to place the 28-year-old on the block there should be plenty of other organizations inquiring about him for, at his price range, he truly is an absolute steal of a commodity when in the right situation.
Recently, we went about and listed 3 teams that we believe will likely consider pursuing Dennis Schroder at some point between now and February’s trade deadline and, today, we will be discussing 3 realistic trade packages the Boston Celtics could potentially receive from each of them:
Realistic offer Boston Celtics could receive No. 1) Cs get a two-way wing
Despite the fact that they have rising superstar Luka Doncic on board, the Dallas Mavericks find themselves struggling to stay afloat in the tightly contested Western Conference playoff race, and a big reason for this is due to their lacking offensive creators outside of the likes of the franchise cornerstone.
As mentioned in our piece discussing why the Mavs could be a potential trade destination for Dennis Schroder, currently the All-Star youngster finds himself ranked fifth in the league in assists per game and fourth in points created off of assists and, with this coupled with the simple eye test when actually watching them perform, it’s quite apparent just how involved the 22-year-old is in his team’s offensive production.
Dallas is far too dependent on him when it comes to their play on this side of the ball which, in turn, has proven to have a negative effect down the stretch of a season over the past several years, be it from an opposing defense’s perspective or the wear and tear on his body that ultimately has led to him missing games or being limited when it has mattered most.
Because of this, we believe it may be in the team’s best interest to look into bringing on another offensive initiator to help ease the burden for Doncic, and, as has already been established, Schroder could easily be the guy to help in this area of the game.
In this scenario, we see the Boston Celtics parting with their backcourt talent and, in exchange, we see a long-time favorite target of ours at the Houdini in Dorian Finney-Smith coming aboard along with a future second-round pick.
An efficient two-way talent who can play either the three or four, Finney-Smith could prove to be a great 3-and-D commodity within Boston’s rotation. On the year, the 28-year-old finds himself posting solid per-game averages of 10.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, two assists, 1.3 steals, and half a block on 45 percent shooting from the floor and 37 percent shooting from deep.
Is this a true mega-deal that the Celtics should absolutely jump on? Not exactly, but by no means would this be a poor decision should Stevens find himself shopping Schroder.