I went to my first Boston Celtics game of the year on Sunday, when they faced the Milwaukee Bucks, and during the game I found myself asking a familiar question: Do the Celtics need to make a trade?
The NBA trade deadline is Thursday, which is the time of year when fan anxiety kicks into overdrive. Will your team be buyers, chasing that one player who can get them over the hump? Sellers, stockpiling draft picks and looking toward the future? Or will they make smaller, under-the-radar moves that won’t move the needle but might help duck the luxury tax?
There’s one question I wonder how much Brad Stevens and the front office are asking themselves: What if they do nothing?
When Boston reset its roster this offseason and took on Anfernee Simons’ contract, the immediate reporting around the deal suggested the Celtics would look to offload his expiring deal as soon as they had the chance. Now, with the deadline approaching, those reports are surfacing again. Simons is making $27,678,571 this season, and there’s a good chance he’ll be in line for more when he hits free agency this summer.
That $27 million could be used to bring in a pair of rotation players who help Boston right now, or be packaged in a deal for a bigger name. Stevens always says the team is open to a deal. But maybe the move is simply waiting for Jayson Tatum to come back from injury.
To be honest, I never fully warmed to Simons, and I never really knew why. Maybe it was because the moment he landed in Boston, people were already trying to trade him. Or maybe it was because he’s on an expiring deal and I assumed the Celtics wouldn’t have the cap space to re-sign him next summer.
Either way, watching him on Sunday, when he scored 27 points in just 25 minutes, made me rethink things. Maybe they don’t need to trade him.
When the Bucks jumped out to an early double-digit lead, my first thought was, “Bring Simons on.” In past seasons, Boston’s go-to scoring option off the bench was Payton Pritchard. But there’s something different about having a true microwave scorer like Simons who can change a game in a hurry.
With Tatum expected to return this season, the idea of a Pritchard-Simons one-two punch off the bench in a postseason game, especially one where the Celtics are struggling to score, doesn’t sound like a bad plan at all.
At the start of the season, I thought it might be best for Tatum to take the year off. But based on what he’s been saying in interviews, it sounds like he believes he’ll be back before the end of the season. If that’s the case, I think this roster is good enough to win a title.
Boston’s one clear weakness is frontcourt depth. Behind Neemias Queta and Luka Garza, there isn’t much cover unless the team truly believes rookie Amari Williams can handle playoff minutes. If the Celtics do make a deal, I’d much rather see them target a big man for rotational depth than chase a star center like Myles Turner or Ivica Zubac, moves that would almost certainly require Simons to go the other way.
The Celtics have the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, and that’s without Tatum. He may not look exactly like himself right away when he returns, but even a limited version of Tatum as a second option is better than most teams’ first.
The deadline is just days away, but the Celtics are in a strong position no matter what they decide to do.
