Boston Celtics: Heavy trade swaps Derrick White, pick for pair of Suns forwards

NBA beat writer Jack Simone has been advocating for the Boston Celtics to find a suitable trade arrangement for Derrick White in the past several days — coming up with a mock swap for CelticsBlog sending the 28-year-old and a second-rounder to the Dallas Mavericks for Maxi Kleber, Reggie Bullock.

The advocation comes from the vantage point of White having superior trade value to Malcolm Brogdon on the open market. Chad Finn of the Boston Globe even believed initially that the arrival of the latter meant a deal was coming for the former.

In his latest effort for Heavy Sports, Simone comes up with an even better deal involving White, who was acquired during this past February’s trade deadline from the San Antonio Spurs for Josh Richardson, Romeo Langford, the C’s 2022 first-round draft pick, and a 2028 pick swap.

This time around, the Boston Celtics send that same White + future second-round pick package and instead land two ideal 3-and-D with size and versatility in Jae Crowder and Cam Johnson from the Phoenix Suns:

What kind of deal the Boston Celtics would trade away Derrick White for

MassLive’s Brian Robb has reported that the Boston Celtics would only trade Derrick White away as one of the main pieces in a package designed to haul in a ‘bigger fish’ — making a swap like this one on the ‘less likely’ side of things.

White was supposedly included in Boston’s initial offer to the Brooklyn Nets for Kevin Durant and has been linked, along with Marcus Smart, as potential trade pieces in a deal for Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal.

The Cs roster is one that doesn’t necessarily need any moves beyond fringe transactions that fill out the final three open spots on the depth chart. Malcolm Brogdon and Danilo Gallinari should fill in a number of the holes the second unit had when dueling against the Mariana Trench deep Golden State Warriors bench during the NBA Finals this past June, and the starting five was far and away the best in the ‘Association’ in 2021-22.

Boston Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens isn’t a closed mind by any stretch, but it’s questionable if any deal will come along this offseason that tempts him to break up a core that was two games from Banner 18 two months ago.