Most teams in the NBA would readily trade rosters with the Boston Celtics. They just won a championship last year, but perhaps more impressively, they kept the team together. All of the core pieces who helped them win a title last season are back and ready to help them push for another one this season.
That said, with continuity comes a lack of flexibility. The Celtics are a second-apron team, meaning they don’t have a ton of room to make moves. But they shouldn’t want to. Their team is as close to perfect as there is in the NBA, and trading one of their core pieces right now doesn’t make any sense.
That’s why a recent trade proposal is particularly confusing.
Trading Derrick White makes no sense for the Celtics
Colin Keane of The Sporting News recently concocted a trade idea that involves sending Derrick White to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Jonathan Kuminga, Brandin Podziemski, and Kevon Looney.
He argues that this would help the Celtics financially while still keeping them in the lead as favorites to repeat as champions.
“From a financial standpoint, this trade would be a crazy win for the Celtics,” Keane wrote. “Kuminga and Looney are both on expiring contracts, and Podziemski is on a ridiculously cheap deal that has him making $3.5 million (this season), $3.7 million, and $5.7 million over the next three years — one of the best contracts in the NBA considering how much Podziemski contributes to winning. From a basketball standpoint, the Celtics would get worse immediately, but not to the extent of losing the status as favorites to repeat as NBA champs.”
Unfortunately, this trade completely misses the point of everything the Celtics are doing.
The reason the Celtics are such a dominant team is because they have five guys on the floor at (almost) all times who can space the floor and defend at a high level. Nobody they would be getting back can do both of those things as well as White.
Plus, from the financial side of things, this isn’t as great as it seems. Sure, getting those three players on small contracts would be nice, but Kuminga is in need of an extension, and some team out there is going to pay him the big bucks—putting Boston in a worse financial state than they are already in if they wanted to match the offer.
Boston is a championship contender, and blowing up their roster for Podziemski and Looney (if they had to let Kuminga walk after this season) is senseless.
Trading White would destroy the perfect system they have so carefully cultivated, and this deal completely misses the point of everything Boston has going for them.