Celtics Off-Season 2020 2.0

 

Celtics Off-Season 2020 2.0

     I have seen a lot more players linked to the Celtics in both trade talks and in this upcoming free agency. There are three particular moves I have seen that I have really liked. John Hollinger shared his expected player worth for centers for this upcoming season.  The only name from that list that really stuck out to me was Serge Ibaka at 5.5mil. If Ibaka is going for MLE money then I would love to have him. He would be able to provide good rim protection as well as spacing from the center position. Another big man that I want to come back to Boston is Aron Baynes. I wouldn't be surprised if he would be willing to sign for around the 5 million dollar range. I expect many players to be signing one year deals that would be typically below market value. Baynes, like Ibaka, can guard bigs like Embiid and provide additional spacing. I loved him when he was in Boston two years ago, and I still think that he would be a great fit for the 2021 season.

    The trade I would like to see is one brought to my attention by Dan Greenberg. The move he suggested was Derrick Rose for Enes Kanter and our 14th overall pick. This all hinges on if Enes Kanter accepts his player option for 5mil for this upcoming season. Derrick Rose makes just a tad over seven million this year, so in order to make the money work it would likely have to be Kanter. We could package a few of our young players on their rookie deals, but losing someone like Grant, Timelord, or Romeo, I think would be giving up too much. So let's just say Kanter does opt-in, how does this benefit the Celtics? Like I said in my most recent blog, the Celtics are in desperate need of bench scoring as well as someone to back-up Kemba. Derrick Rose will definitely provide both those things if he comes to Boston. This also benefits the Cs by addition by subtraction. I think Kanter was a positive considering he was only making 5 million last year, but he has his shortcomings. He struggles defensively, sometimes looking like he’s on ice skates when he has to defend the pick-and-roll. His rebounding and post scoring will be missed, but it also opens up more minutes for Robert Williams. I really like the idea of the big rotation being Theis, Baynes/Ibaka, and Timelord, because they all have different skill sets that you could use depending on the matchup. Even if they don't sign one of the two aforementioned bigs, a trio of Theis, Timelord, and Grant could be pretty solid.