In the modern NBA, we’ve seen that it’s hard to keep more than a handful of players on one team for multiple years. But Brad Stevens and the Celtics have seen the way things are going and gotten ahead of the curve. The Jaylen Brown trade was the price to pay for future flexibility, and the Cs have used that freedom to secure almost their entire rotation.
After extending Payton Pritchard for two years and $44.2 million on Tuesday, Boston now has 10 players under contract for at least the next three seasons. That includes Pritchard, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Mitchell Robinson, Sam Hauser, Neemias Queta, Jordan Walsh, Chris Cenac Jr., Ron Harper Jr., and Hugo Gonzalez.
White has a player option for the 2028-29 season, RHJ’s deal is non-guaranteed, and Cenac Jr. and Gonzalez have rookie options, but that’s ten players, almost all key parts of the rotation, who will be in Boston as long as the Celtics want them.
In fact, the only players on the roster who won’t still be under contract are the newly acquired Paul George, Luka Garza, Mike Conley, and Baylor Scheierman. Scheierman will likely be extended, Conley and Garza are free agents on minimum deals who can easily be brought back, and PG has a player option for next season before becoming a free agent.
Celtics could keep entire roster together for multiple seasons
It’s not crazy at all to think that if this season goes well and the Celtics like this roster, they can keep it together for the rest of the decade and set up a ridiculous amount of continuity at an affordable price.
They could re-sign George at a lower number as well and have plenty of draft picks and other tools to keep adding to the roster as they see fit. People scoffed when Stevens preached optionality for the future after the Brown trade, but he has quickly made good on his word and brought his vision to light in just a few months.
We still, of course, need to see how things look on the court, but on paper, the Celtics have an incredibly deep and versatile roster that’s built for the present and future, without breaking the bank, and with plenty of flexibility going forward. In this apron era of the NBA, that’s almost impossible.
Championships are won on the court, not on spreadsheets, but given what they had to work with, Stevens and company could not have done a better job of setting up the Celtics to win not one, but multiple banners with this roster.
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