Boston Celtics: “Pass or Pursue” on 2 offseason Harrison Barnes trades
By Mark Nilon
Boston Celtics trade No. 2) C’s essentially swap out White for Barnes
Multi-team deals have seemingly become all the rage in recent years and here we see the Boston Celtics taking part in one with the Sacramento Kings and Utah Jazz.
With the fact that the C’s don’t have many assets at their disposal due to past deals they’ve taken part in, it’s fair to say that any trades they opt to make moving forward will need to see as few moving pieces as possible, and Piercey proposed such an exchange in trade No. 2 that falls into such confines.
According to him, this 3-teamer is something that solves some serious problems for every squad involved:
"Bojan Bogdanovic is not a distinct upgrade over Harrison Barnes. He does not pack the same defensive punch. He is, however, a decidedly better three-point shooter. Barnes’ career three-point percentage of 37.9% is great, but it’s no match for Bogey’s 39.2% mark. The Kings could justify that maximizing the spacing around Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox is a higher priority than defense. As for the Jazz: this is not a position they wish to be in. If they’re doing this deal, rest assured they were forced to trade one of Donovan Mitchell or Rudy Gobert elsewhere, if not both. No team opts to trigger a rebuild if they can avoid it. Landing a first-round pick for Bogdanovic is good value from that perspective. They’ll sleep well knowing the Sacramento Kings are doing everything in their power to ensure the pick doesn’t fall under that top 10 protection. Meanwhile, Boston gets their guy without even having to part with Theis in this package. Bringing the Jazz into the fold makes this trade much more straightforward for them and Sacramento."
As we stated in the previous slide, some would argue that Derrick White is a player whose production has been underwhelming and, in turn, could be seen as something holding this Boston Celtics team back.
With this in mind, of course, Brad Stevens and co. should look to take part in this type of exchange that would bring a potentially lethal third option in Harrison Barnes to this championship aspiring ball club.
Similar to the first trade proposal, however, we can’t understand the logic of the other parties involved but, as far as the Celtics are concerned, they should absolutely jump at such an opportunity.