The Boston Celtics are a team no formidable foe wishes to square off against during this year’s upcoming postseason run.
They’ve just been playing that well as of late.
However, despite their recent successes, this summer fans and media pundits alike are bound to see the front office look to try and improve the rotation even further in an effort to better surround franchise cornerstones, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, with a supporting cast more equipped to make a run at an NBA championship.
Granted, the moves in which Brad Stevens and co. will look to make could find themselves ranging from incredibly small to astronomically large but, nonetheless, we’ll likely see a few individuals being offloaded in order to make room for some fresh blood come the 2022-23 campaign.
With this, of those on the roster outside of the likes of, say, Tatum, Brown, and even Robert Williams, we at HH believe there are 3 players, in specific, that run the risk of being traded this summer:
Boston Celtics player No. 1) Aaron Nesmith
Based on how things went down with Romeo Langford at this year’s trade deadline, it’s apparent that Brad Stevens’ patience is growing a bit thin when it comes to the slow development of some of the team’s youngsters.
With this in mind, might Aaron Nesmith be the next rookie-scale prospect to be given the boot?
Coming into the 2021-22 campaign, many viewed the wing–who was seen as one of the best scoring prospects and arguably the best shooter from the 2020 draft class–as being a potential breakout candidate for the Boston Celtics, as he wound up showing glimpses of true potential towards the back-end of last season and absolutely shined during this past offseason’s Summer League and preseason play.
Fast forward several months later, however, and we find the sophomore struggling to find consistent minutes within the rotation when healthy and, even when he does come across playing time, he’s only managed to do the bare minimum with it.
Through 45 games played, Nesmith finds himself putting up mere averages of 3.4 points and 1.7 rebounds on just 36.6 percent shooting from the floor and an even worse 24 percent shooting from deep in just 10.5 minutes a night, all of which are down from the already rather underwhelming numbers he went on to put up in year one.
Now, with all this coupled with his recent ankle injury that will likely have him on the sideline through the end of the team’s west coast trip, it would appear that the second-year pro will already find himself on the outside looking in on Ime Udoka’s playoff rotation and, thereafter, could go on to be placed on the trade block in an effort by the franchise to try and use what remains of his value of being a recent lottery selection and perhaps exchange him for someone who can better help the team win in the now.