Bigs (and Other Guys) I Like

The Celtics have had an interesting offseason to date. I won't pretend that I have liked all of the moves, or that I am fully confident in the team – as it is constructed at 3:07 pm on July 6th – that this team is either the Eastern Conference favorite or NBA title favorite. They're right in the inner circle, but I think there's work to be done.

To that end, I put together a list of current free agents that I think would be a good fit. First, let's look at the depth chart:

• Bigs: Porzingis, Rob Williams III, Horford, Kornet
• Wings: Tatum, Brown, Hauser, Brissett
• Guards: White, Brogdon, Pritchard, Banton
• Deep Bench/Maine: Davison, Walsh, Champagnie

To me, the team desperately needs another big. The three main guys are all old or injury prone, and Kornet is exposed defensively if he has to play for too long.

They also have to decide if Hauser is a real guy on this team. Last season, he played 16.1 minutes per game in the regular season, but just 6.9 in the playoffs, and a lot of those minutes were in garbage time. If the C's aren't willing to play him or Oshae Brissett 20 minutes in a playoff game, then they also need another wing.

With that in mind, here's the list of free agents I think is reasonable could be signed for the ~$6 million that I believe the C's are able to spend* (IE, not PJ Washington, because he wants $18M per year, and even if he gets less than that, it probably won't be 1/3 of that):

• Trendon Watford: The Trailblazers say they are starting a youth movement, and yet they waived a 23-year-old who was a real solid contributor for them last year. His defensive rating doesn't look great, but he also logged heavy minutes for a team that was intentionally tanking. On the offensive side, he shot .560/.391/.720 last season, and in his two seasons in the league, he's shot .547/.333/.737, across 2,051 minutes. Last season, he played 1,182 minutes. Among guys 25 or younger, who stand 6'9" or taller, and who played at least 1,000 minutes last season, Watford's .599 eFG% ranked 15th out of 41 guys. Is that a lot of parsing? Yeah, it is. Is it relying on a lot of stats toward the end of year when his team wasn't trying to win? Yeah, it is. And yet, it's still a better eFG% than DeAndre Ayton, Wendell Carter Jr., Lauri Markannen, Jarred Vanderbilt, Evan Mobley, and a whole bunch of other good to great players, including the last-place finisher, Paolo Banchero. He's a young big who could soak up a lot of minutes, who's proven he can shoot, and who could play up in the right situation. And he probably won't cost all of that $6M. Color me very intrigued.
• Paul Reed: This would achieve two goals – getting a good young player who's proven he can hang in the playoffs, and it sticks it to the Sixers. And it gets a "Paul" on your team, which is obviously a good idea. The Sixers would probably have to match any offer – they've already lost Jalen McDaniels, Georges Niang, and Shake Milton for nothing for seemingly no reason – but you could at least drive the price up on them a little.
• Dario Saric: If you just wanted to make sure every big on the team had a checkered injury history, you could sign the burly Croatian. All kidding aside, it does seem like he's put the health issues behind him, and he hits his free throws and threes.
• Christian Wood: He won't play defense, but...well, he won't play defense. Nothing could have crystallized that more than last season, when not even a contract year could spur him to defensive effort. But he does pull down rebounds, and he's obviously comfortable shooting the ball.
• Kelly Oubre Jr.: Did you know he hasn't played in the playoffs since 2018? He's never really played meaningful minutes in the playoffs, but in the 2017 semis vs. Boston, he shot .516 from the field for the Wizards. Not a big, this would only be a fit if the C's didn't want to commit to Hauser or Brissett, but I'd be intrigued. He's a pest – he's goaded Tatum into multiple technical fouls the past couple of years – and would replace some of that "fuck you" that the team lost when they traded Marcus Smart.
• Bol Bol: There were a lot of times last season when I was rueing the fact that the C's traded this guy away for luxury tax savings. But then he fell out of Orlando's rotation, and they played well down the stretch with him making only minimal contributions. Still, he's intriguing. And probably cheap.
• Javonte Green: If you really get none of these guys who can bang and rebound, you could do worse than bringing back Green. His three-point stroke has improved, he's an energy guy, and the vibes are impeccable.
• Blake Griffin: Same as with Green. No reason to not bring him back if you can't get anyone more expensive.
• Moses Brown: I still believe in Moses Brown.
• Terence Davis: The only guard I really am intrigued by. In general, I'd love to see what the team has in JD Davison, because he strikes me as more of a true floor general. But Davis wasn't afraid to step into Game 6 and 7 against Golden State a couple months ago, and put up 14 on 5-for-11 in the latter. That's the kind of confidence the C's offense could use. But again, I think big and wing depth is more important at this stage.
• Other bigs: Darius Bazley, Juancho Hernangomez/Bo Cruz, Tony Bradley, Tristan Thompson
• Other non-bigs: Hamidou Diallo, Derrick Jones Jr., Goran Dragic, Ish Smith, Anthony Lamb, T.J. Warren,

As you can see, there's no sure thing on this list. If Reed was an unrestricted free agent, you might say him, but then again if he was unrestricted he'd probably have been signed by now.

If you think the C's are a big short, the road you start to walk down is looking to flip Malcolm Brogdon, but then you might be a guard short. I think that might be preferable, because I do like Davison and Banton, but I'll save the Brogdon fake trades post for another time. With the Grant Williams situation behind them, hopefully the C's will be adding another player or two in the coming days. Perhaps it'll be one of the above players! I'm excited to see what they do.

*: Who knows with these new salary cap rules. I don't understand why the NBA wanted to make their system as difficult as humanly possible for fans to track.