Boston Celtics: Pass or Pursue on 2 CP trade proposals
With the way the 2022-23 NBA season is unfolding, it could be a razor-thin margin between bringing home Banner 18 and being sent home in the Finals, or even the Eastern Conference finals, for the Boston Celtics.
Joe Mazzulla has preached patience and trust with this group of whom many of the guys on the team have been making deep playoff runs since 2017. Al Horford, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart were all part of the Isaiah Thomas conference finals team, and Jayson Tatum, Brown, Smart, Robert Williams III, and Grant Williams all came within two games of the Finals down in the 2020 bubble postseason.
Does this team need to stay make a critical deadline move like the 2020-21 Milwaukee Bucks did in trading for P.J. Tucker, or do they stay the course like last year’s Golden State Warriors? The answer could dictate the front office’s game plan for the next year — and perhaps the subsequent years after that.
ClutchPoints came up with two aggressive trades, and the Houdini is playing pass or pursue on them:
Boston Celtics give up no one but cede two future draft selections for Alec Burks
The first mock trade proposal from CP’s Owen Crisafulli sees the Cs cede two future draft selections for Detroit Pistons sharpshooter Alec Burks. Burks, who was part of the Kemba Walker salary dump from the New York Knicks that opened up the cap space to sign Jalen Brunson, has turned out to be an ideal complement to star sophomore Cade Cunningham.
Only problem? Cunningham is out for the year and Detroit is now in the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes. That makes Burks an unneeded, and potentially even counterintuitive, supporting piece for the Pistons.
Two future picks, if one of them is a second-rounder, could be worth it for the price of Danilo Gallinari and other salary filler.
Pursue, if it costs just one first-round draft pick
Jalen Smith can transform Boston Celtics frontcourt but Pacers may balk at price
We know former Butler head coach and Boston Celtics front office figurehead Brad Stevens has a strong relationship with his former home-state’s pro team, as the offseason Malcolm Brogdon trade has established a rapport with Pacers President of Basketball Operations Kevin Pritchard.
If Indiana goes into seller mode — which is no guarantee considering their current No. 6 ranking in the Eastern Conference — the Cs could pounce on per-36 minute monster Jalen Smith with a package headlined by Payton Pritchard, so says CP’s Owen Crisafulli.
Unfortunately, the two-way stretch big would require too many draft picks to realistically add since Smith is under team control on an absolute bargain deal over the next two seasons after this one. Grant Williams would be one of the few pieces the Pacers would likely take back in a swap while giving up minimal draft capital, but that’d be a backwards move unless Williams explicitly made a trade demand — which is not particularly likely.