Boston Celtics: “Pass or Pursue” on 3 listed targets using $17.1M TPE
By Mark Nilon
The early stages of the 2022 offseason may have already gotten off to a tremendous start for the likes of the Boston Celtics, but considering the fact that they still have several TPE’s at their disposal, things have the potential to get a whole lot more interesting.
Easily the most valuable of the bunch is the one received last offseason via the Evan Fournier sign-and-trade with the NY Knicks that netted them the lofty $17.1 million luxury.
Since receiving the exception, all fans and media pundits have been able to do is speculate about who the front office could wind up utilizing it on, yet, to this point, nothing has been made of it.
While said TPE has not decreased in value as time has passed by any means, it has inched its way closer to the ultimate expiration date of July 18th.
With less than a week remaining, Stevens must consider all his options before making an ultimate decision on what to do with the exception, and, while we at HH have discussed specific routes the front office should consider taking, our sister site, Chowder and Champions, have also gone about and dipped their toes in the proverbial waters as they recently went about and posted a piece discussing 3 players they believe would be worth absorbing into the TPE.
With this, it inspired us at the Houdini to push out another installment of our favorite series we like to call “Pass or Pursue”, where we take proposed ideas pertaining to the franchise and discuss whether Boston should avoid having them become a reality or if they should actively try to make them happen.
So, without further ado, let’s get started:
Proposed Boston Celtics target No. 1) Derrick Favors
First up, we have a player who has recently garnered a ton of buzz over the past few days as being a potential TPE trade target amongst Boston Celtics fans in Derrick Favors.
Ever since the Brogdon exchange, the talk of the town was that the ball club needed to look into addressing their frontcourt, particularly their big man depth for they ended up losing Daniel Theis in the exchange and, in many ways, Favors could be an ideal option to consider.
At least, that’s what writer Tarringo Basile-Vaughan believes considering his intangibles and the lowly cost it would likely take to attain him:
"Don’t panic, obtaining Favors shouldn’t require trading Payton Pritchard or Grant Williams in return. They could send back a player like Luke Kornet and a future second-round pick to get a deal done. But I’ll leave it to Stevens to work out the details. As far as Favors goes, he is a wide body, who rebounds and can knock down a jumper. He has averaged just over 5.0 points per game over the last two seasons with the Thunder and Utah Jazz but playing on a contending team may rejuvenate the 30-year-old Favors who has averaged 10.6 points and 7.1 rebounds during his career. Not dynamite numbers, but its more about the role than the numbers anyway. As a backup and depth piece, Favors would be a great move because of the rebounding and the energy he would bring off the bench along with a Grant Williams. He also has the experience and the presence to start a game here or there. I wouldn’t be mad if Stevens made this move at all."
Quite frankly, we at the Houdini can’t help but agree with the entirety of this aforementioned analysis, and the only things we would alter on this list would be by adding the fact that he’d be a stellar screen setter for his teammates and another talent who can help continue to bolster the C’s top-ranked defensive unit (boasts a career defensive rating of 104).