Grading the Kristaps Porzingis trade from every Boston Celtics angle
By Eric Fritts
Opportunity cost
With any significant deal like this opportunity cost is important to appraise. Basically, what else was out there?
For Boston, it’s not totally clear but not a whole lot when looking at the trade block and free agency. As far as bigs go, other options might have been Draymond Green who just opted out of his contract to enter free agency, not to mention the baggage he comes with. Deandre Ayton, who will most likely be traded for two or more role players to fill out the Suns’ roster, and potentially Jakob Poeltl, whom the Celtics were interested in at the 2023 deadline.
With the limited information available and, considering the market for each one of those guys, Porzingis was as good of a deal as any that were out there for Boston. But on the other side of things, this trade will always be remembered as the almost Brogdon trade. The opportunity cost of losing Smart instead is in itself polarizing, all depending on how one feels about Smart. Brogdon remains in Boston which will require some smoothing over, but that’s the business of this association.
Grade: B
Conclusion
At the end of the day, at the end of the season, the NBA is tough. It’s hard to win in this league and even harder if a team won’t take appropriate risks.
Which is exactly what this was, a calculated risk.
Brad Stevens, like the rest of us, has seen this team go deep in the playoffs time after time and still come up empty-handed. He knew something needed to be done and if all the wings are staying put, then that meant improving the front court and trimming the excess in the backcourt.
This trade does exactly that. Now we’ll all have to wait and see how head coach Joe Mazzulla and his new assistants put it all together.