MassLive's Brian Robb believes the Boston Celtics can regret their sign-and-trade this past offseason -- one that created a TPE and sent restricted free agent Grant Williams to the Dallas Mavericks on a four-year deal -- if there is an injury in the frontcourt to either Kristaps Porzingis or Al Horford.
"The Grant deal remains to be seen from an evaluation standpoint," Robb prefaced before saying, "The team let an asset walk away for future draft picks and a small TPE. If the Celtics do something useful with that TPE that would make it defensible. However, if Boston ends up being a big short in the postseason due to injury after letting Williams walk, that’s a situation that will be rightfully second-guessed."
Interestingly enough, Robb had the opposite viewpoint about the team's other early offseason trade; the one that landed the Cs Porzingis at the expense of the longest-tenured member of the team, Marcus Smart. The MassLive reporter believes Boston's front office might have been better off considering a deal for "a guard," earlier after last offseason's Malcolm Brogdon trade.
"To be honest, he was probably a year late on moving a guard (be it Smart or someone else)," Robb prefaced before saying, "That area was loaded after the acquisition of Malcolm Brogdon and clearly there weren’t enough minutes to go around for everyone. By opening the door for more minutes for White and filling a huge need with Porzingis, the Smart deal was clearly a home run."
Grant Williams looking like a bargain Boston Celtics should've kept
Williams is starting more games for the Mavericks but is actually producing similar numbers to his 2022-23 Celtics campaign. He could've done everything he's doing in Dallas in Boston right now had the front office kept him.
And as Robb said, Joe Mazzulla would certainly feel a lot better about the long-term health of his frontcourt.
At an average salary of roughly $13 million for four seasons, Williams is looking like a bargain right now. Especially so when you consider the Celtics are paying Payton Pritchard an average of $7 million over the next four years instead.