Boston Celtics free agency: The most likely use of C’s Exhibit 10 contract

With the calendar turning to August, the NBA faces what is traditionally a down period following the conclusion of the Summer League and the start of training camps. This year, though, it is anything but traditional for the Boston Celtics — or anyone else for that matter.

Kevin Durant’s trade request and the Utah Jazz’ intention to trade Donovan Mitchell, coupled with Sean Marks and Danny Ainge’s high trade prices for their wayward superstars, have slowed the offseason transaction wire to a crawl.

That’s not the biggest deal for Boston. While they are reportedly delving into the Durant discussions, if Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens stands pat with his roster, it would still be one considered as a title favorite by sportsbooks. What the Cs are looking for at this point is value adds via free agency or their Summer League squad.

One way to add those types of talents would be with their Exhibit 10 contract, defined by the league as a single-season, minimum-salary NBA deal that allows the franchise to convert the contract to a two-way deal as long as that change is made prior to the beginning of the regular season.

According to MassLive’s Brian Robb, because the Celtics did fill up their two-way slots (with JD Davison and Mfiondu Kabengele), the Exhibit 10 is the best means of adding the kind of talent that’d fill in spot minutes on an already loaded depth chart. Matt Ryan, who a reader specifically asked about in Robb’s weekly Boston Celtics mailbag, and fellow SL studs Broderic Thomas and Justin Jackson were named as potential Exhibit 10 options:

"“Despite the ankle injury, Summer League couldn’t have gone better for (Matt Ryan). The Celtics did fill up their two-way slots though so the best he can hope for right now is probably an Exhibit 10 with a outside shot of making the roster with a strong camp. There will be plenty of names in contention for that (Brodric Thomas, Justin Jackson, Free agent big X) so it will be an uphill climb for him. However, it’s likely a waiting game for now as Celtics consider other moves.”"

The Boston Celtics should definitely add Matt Ryan and a free agent big man to the roster

If the Cs end up landing Kevin Durant or decide to stand pat, either way they’d do well to add a sharpshooter like Matt Ryan, whose usage is low but 3-point conversion clip is high. Low maintenance snipers like Ryan and Sam Hauser are the perfect guys to have around in the event depth is diminished in a Durant deal to space the floor around two isolation-heavy scorers in KD and Jayson Tatum, but they’re steady hands who can be plug-and-play options in case of injury no matter what.

As for the big man rotation, adding someone to at least compete with Luke Kornet for minutes behind Robert Williams and Al Horford seems like a necessity in the case one of the C’s primary pivots misses any time.