There’s always one thing all clubs fresh off a Finals run have on their to do list for the offseason:
Keep the core intact. Teams have to first make sure their star(s) are happy, and then they can move on to the next step. So far, the Celtics have done just that. They’ve kept Jayson Tatum. They’ve retained Jaylen Brown. Defensive stalwart Marcus Smart is still in Boston. Those moves were the right ones to make. The Celtics have made some moves they might benefit from for years to come, and some that they might end up regretting. We’ll start with the latter:
Last month, on June 30th, Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant unexpectedly requested a trade. Several teams were trying to snatch the star, such as the Heat, Suns, and Raptors. None of them struck a deal with the Nets. Then, when the trade talks stalled, and everything was quiet, something unexpected occurred: The Celtics joined the chase. They offered Jalen Brown, Derrick White, and a draft pick for Durant. It came right out of the blue. The Nets rejected it. They offered another trade package, though. They wanted Brown, Smart, a rotation player and a draft pick, just for Durant.
The Celtics don’t want to give up Smart. But they’re willing to let Brown walk. Any trade that includes Brown in it is the wrong one. Why swap a superstar that has long reached the end of his prime for a young star that has a high upside? Brown already has chemistry with the team, while if Durant joins the Celtics, they might spend a whole year creating a bond with each other. What if Durant doesn’t mesh with Tatum? What if the Celtics have to change their whole system so they can work well with him? What if he gets injured again? What if they perform just like last year’s Lakers, and not even qualify for the Playoffs? Those are a lot of what-ifs. The Celtics should stick with what they know works, which is keeping their core, and adding more role players. That brings us to the next part…
The arrival of Malcolm Brogdon to Boston is a lifesaver. The Celtics didn’t give up any important players in the trade, and the most notable player is Daniel Theis. In return, the Celtics got a scorer and playmaker who’s in the middle of his prime. Boston showed in the Finals last month that they needed a playmaker, and pronto. They were committing an overdose of turnovers, which set up easy fastbreak points for the Warriors. Brogdon is not an elite playmaker, but he’s good enough to give his new teammates more open looks than they’ve seen in recent years. This will also take the load off of Tatum and Brown, both of whom looked gassed by the end of Game 6. This move might have just earned the Celtics banner number eighteen.
The addition of veteran Danilo Gallanari is a good one too, partly because he brings veteran presence to the young Celtics team, but also because he allows the Celtics to use the popular drive and kick play more often. Just imagine it: instead of driving into the paint and getting tangled up with someone, eventually losing the ball, they can kick it out to the open man on the perimeter if they add more three point shooters like Gallanari.
The last thing that a championship-caliber team should do is keep the good role players. This is sometimes hard to do seeing that if you just went through a deep run in the Playoffs, other teams might offer the productive role players more money, and then you lose an important piece. The Celtics have done good in that department so far, retaining Derrick White, Al Horford, Grant Williams, and Payton Pritchard. When you don’t run it back, and add too many new players to your team, then you’ll find yourself at the bottom of the standings because your players don’t have any chemistry with each other.
Because the Celtics have done all this, I think they will again have a shot at winning the title, perhaps a greater chance than last season. But we’ll just have to wait and see.