Boston Celtics: 2 C’s that should be untouchable in a Bradley Beal trade

Boston Celtics player No. 1) Robert Williams III

Robert Williams had himself an absolutely phenomenal 2021-22 campaign with the Boston Celtics, officially breaking onto the scene and surprising the masses with his stellar on-court production.

Seeing 29.6 minutes per night, the big man posted impressive averages of 10 points, 9.6 boards, two assists, and a whopping 2.2 blocks on 74 percent shooting from the field.

With Time Lord on the floor, the C’s were absolutely electric on both ends, especially on the defensive side of the ball where, prior to missing the final seven games of the regular season due to a left knee injury, the team gave up 104.4 points per 100 possessions with the big man in the game and bumped up to 109.2 without him.

Even when obviously at less than 100 percent health, Williams did manage to showcase just how impactful he can be for Boston throughout this year’s playoffs, especially down the stretch during the final four games of the NBA Finals where he simply stuffed the stat sheet with 8.8 points, 9.3 rebounds, two assists, one steal, and 2.8 blocks per contest on 71 percent shooting.

All year long, the 24-year-old, alongside Marcus Smart, spearheaded the charge towards making the Celtics the league’s best defensive unit thanks to his astounding rim-protecting skills and his highly underrated IQ and lateral mobility that allowed him to stay with his assignments even when outside of the painted area.

Now, by trading him away in order to execute a Beal deal, already Brad Stevens and co. would be committing to becoming a significantly less efficient defensive unit (has boasted an extremely putrid 115 Defensive Rating since 2019 and is a career negative defender), which, frankly, was arguably the main reason why they were able to weather their early-season storm of playing at a sub-.500 level, only to then go on to clinch their first Finals berth since 2010.

Simultaneously, the Celtics would be losing their focal point at the pivot and, considering just how much of a dip in two-way production they saw this year alone with him out of the lineup as opposed to him in it, this should not be viewed as a desirable scenario, even if Beal can snap back into his remarkable 2020-21 self.

Losing a player who prefers to play off the ball and focus in on doing the little things on both ends of the floor in exchange for yet another ball dominant offensive player doesn’t sound like the best course of action when it comes to this team trying to position themselves to make another run at glory come next season.