Brad Stevens Is Amazing

In the span of ~13 hours today, Brad Stevens dramatically reshaped the Boston Celtics roster. Specifically, what he did was trade two players in their 30s each making north of $30 million per season, did so without giving up any first-round picks, and saved the team ~$27 million in the process, which puts them under the second apron. He did his work early – no small matter in a league where just about every team has limited flexibility, so first-mover advantage is somewhat important – and he executed two deals that absolutely no one saw coming. Just like usual.

The on-court return is somewhat secondary in this instance, but what Stevens has done here is give himself options. The Celtics can do one of three things moving forward.

Keep Cutting Salary

My initial thought for this offseason was that the Celtics need to cut enough salary to get under the luxury tax, to reset the penalties for being over it for a time when Jayson Tatum is once again fully healthy. In trading Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis today, the Celtics cut ~$27M of the ~$40M they would need to cut to get under the luxury tax threshold. Said differently – they have now done the hardest work. The rest of the work is not nearly so insurmountable. Should they so desire, there should be multiple avenues to deal Georges Niang ($8.2M) or Sam Hauser ($10.04M), and Anfernee Simons ($27.7M) would also likely have multiple suitors. In other words, they can now likely cut enough salary to get under the luxury tax without trading Derrick White or Jaylen Brown, which seemed borderline impossible to me a few weeks ago. This is legitimately nothing short of incredible. The C's being able to keep responsibly planning for the future while keeping Tatum, Brown, and White together would be a master stroke. To be honest, the rest of the NBA is likely furious with the Trailblazers, Hawks, and Nets right about now.

Go For It!

It's no secret that the East is wide open next year – now more than ever, given Tyrese Haliburton's tragic Achilles injury that absolutely gave me horrible flashbacks to Jayson Tatum's near-identical on-court injury (too soon). The only three East teams I think can be counted on to be good next season are Cleveland, Detroit, and New York. I would put Boston firmly in the next tier with Indiana, Orlando, and Milwaukee, with Atlanta, Miami, and Philadelphia trying to edge their way into that group.

The Celtics as they are constituted at the moment are unlikely to be the team that takes the court when training camp starts in October, but the eight-some of Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Anfernee Simons, Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Neemias Queta, Georges Niang, and Baylor Scheierman is a solid group. It's short on size, but that may be addressed tomorrow in the Draft, and/or possibly bringing back Al Horford on a veteran's minimum contract. So this could be a really fun team. They can play fast, be functionally deep, score prolifically, and compete defensively. There have been many, many, many worse seasons in Celtics history.

Wait Until the Trade Deadline

There's absolutely no reason the team needs to pick a direction today. A lot of things are going to be in flux this coming season, both in Boston, in the East, and NBA in general, both on and off the court. The Luxury Tax and Apron penalties that the Celtics can incur are based on their team payroll at the end of each league season. So the C's can wait and see how the first few months of the season go and pick a direction in February. This is true of the team in general, and Simons in particular is a microcosm of this. With an expiring $27.7M contract and having just turned 26 years old, Simons gives the C's a ton of options, as I stated earlier today on BlueSky:

To this point in his career, Anfernee Simons has been an extreme defensive liability. And if that continues, probably the C's won't want to extend him. But what if he can be a competent defender? What if he's never really bought in defensively because in the past six seasons (he was drafted seven seasons ago, but didn't really play in his rookie 2018-2019 season), the Blazers have been awful? They had a .409 winning percentage in those six seasons. To put that in context, the C's have had a .409 or worse winning percentage just 11 times in 79 seasons, and just three times this century (2005-2006, 2006-2007, and 2013-2014). Perhaps surrounded by better defensive talent – Simons has never played with a starter as gifted defensively as White – and summarily chastened by it being his contract year, Simons will be improved defensively. If he is, perhaps he's a candidate to stay in Boston long-term. Or perhaps that would just make him a better trade chip, if the team is doing very poorly, relegated to ninth place in an East where things have broken right for a lot of their competitors.

The point is, Stevens and the Celtics now have flexibility that they didn't have yesterday. It was imperative that the C's move off of Holiday and Porzingis as soon as possible, because there was a better than decent chance that their stock would have worsened by being in Boston this season, if for no other reason than they're older and their health is an open question. If Holiday or Porzingis stayed, and then they got hurt in January, there would be no trading him in February. And then the C's would have no flexibility and no hope. Now they have both. Simons affords them that, and in the meantime, his shot profile and style of play with the ball in his hands is a reasonable – albeit not as effective – facsimile of Tatum. Simons (and Niang) will help spread the floor for Jaylen Brown (and to a lesser extent, Derrick White) to create off the dribble.

It is definitely sad to be losing Holiday (I was about done with the Kristaps Porzingis Experience), but he helped us win a title, and the hard truth was that he was not going to help us win another. At least, not in a Celtics uniform. By moving his contract now, the C's are closer to being set up for their next title run. And they didn't have to sacrifice a first-round pick to move him. I thought they probably would have to, much like they did when they traded Kemba Walker's contract. And if that is impressive, then both ends of the Porzingis deal feel like a borderline miracle. In acquiring him, the C's received two first-round picks. Two seasons later, they traded him, and got a different team to sweeten the pot by giving up a first-round pick. And then absorb most of the salary coming back, so that the C's could get under the second apron line. This really just should not have been possible, especially when the player in question heading to the team who helped facilitate this (Terance Mann) is often not even a starter (he's started 169 of his 412 career games).

There will undoubtedly more to unfold in this Celtics offseason, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, so I don't want to get carried away with analyzing fit or the careers of Anfernee Simons and Georges Niang just yet. But the hardest work for Boston is done. That work seems like wizardry, but the one thing cooler than magic is math, and fortunately, Brad Stevens is great at both. Brad Stevens is amazing, and I'm so happy he's in charge of my favorite team.