Boston Celtics: 3 hostile player-team relationships to monitor this offseason

The Boston Celtics are in buyer mode still after learning this roster can actually compete in the Eastern Conference.

In the regular season.

If things don’t go well this postseason, there’s a chance that certain key contributors–key enough to have value on the trade market but not key enough to be considered franchise-shifting like Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown–could find themselves as trade chips.

Things could go well and there could still be moves, though. Of course, Boston Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens would have to be in a position of power to pull off such a deal with things going well.

But maybe a Cs team that falls in the east semis or conference finals could hunt for the final piece to put them over the top…and the league may have buy-low options available due to the volatility levels professional ballers have with their front offices.

Talent gets wasted far too often in this league, though players certainly don’t endear themselves to certain cities they play for.

Either way, if anything were to go wrong in the relationships between the following three stars and their franchises, Stevens oughta strike on the trade market:

The Boston Celtics could goad the Atlanta Hawks into making John Collins their third star

John Collins famously isn’t copasetic with Trae Young despite their complementary roles on the court. It’s a problem that could be at least a small piece of the #10th seeded disheveled puzzle in the ATL.

An NBA Play-in failure feels like a nail in the coffin for the relationship between a player who doesn’t mesh with the heart and soul of the franchise and, well, said franchise.

As a deadeye long-range shooter and a freakish athlete that can get up and down the floor, he’d be a fine third star for the Celtics, or at least has the ceiling to be.