Are more Celtics trades looming after Al Horford addition? Examining domino effect of Kemba Walker deal on Boston’s roster

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2021/06/are-more-celtics-trades-looming-after-al-horford-addition-examining-domino-effect-of-kemba-walker-deal-on-bostons-roster.html



Are more Celtics trades looming after Al Horford addition? Examining domino effect of Kemba Walker deal on Boston’s roster



Updated 2:12 PM; Today 2:12 PM



Milwaukee Bucks' Brook Lopez (11) defends against Boston Celtics' Al Horford (42) during the first half of Game 3 of a second round NBA basketball playoff series in Boston, Friday, May 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)AP


By Brian Robb | brobb@masslive.com



The Celtics took a big step in their offseason reshuffling on Friday afternoon after officially dealing Kemba Walker and two future draft picks to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Al Horford, Moses Brown and a second-round round pick.

However, the reshuffling of the roster (two bigs incoming with a point guard out the door) has created a bit of a glut on Boston’s roster for the time being.

Here’s a closer look at the 13 players currently under contract with Boston for next season


Guards: Smart, Pritchard, Edwards

Wings: Tatum, J. Brown, Langford, Nesmith, Parker,

Bigs: Horford, Thompson, R. Williams, G. Williams, M. Brown

Boston could certainly bolster their backcourt by retaining unrestricted free agent Evan Fournier with the additional salary flexibility they’ve created by reducing their salary hit from Walker to Horford (about $9 million). However, running it back with that group probably isn’t enough of a meaningful change to get this group back towards contending in a loaded Eastern Conference.

Brad Stevens has always had a preference for versatile wings and shooting bigs so carrying four true centers on the roster along with Grant Williams as another stretch option does not seem like ideal roster construction for the new president of basketball operations. That’s before even mentioning two-way player Tacko Fall, who will be a restricted free agent. Fall probably saw his odds of being retained going down plenty with the added depth.

So what avenues could Brad Stevens and his front office explore to address the potential logjam in the frontcourt? Finding a taker for Tristan Thompson and his $9.7 million expiring contract next season will be on the table if Boston can find a contender in the market for his services. Finding a good match in contracts there would be key for Boston getting a deal done since they probably want to maintain long-term flexibility for the summer of 2022 when an avenue could be pursued to open up significant space under the cap to build around Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.


Selling on Rob Williams before he’s potentially due a pricy new contract after next season is another option. However, the team remains very high on his long-term potential according to league sources so this path feels unlikely barring an overpay by another team.

With Grant Williams holding minimal trade value at the moment and still only costing $2.6 million in salary next year, his spot seems safe for now. Moses Brown’s contract is also non-guaranteed but he showed enough in Oklahoma City last year to likely earn a 15-man roster spot at the least to provide good depth in the middle.

The Celtics do still have the taxpayer mid-level exception ($5.9 million) to help bolster the backcourt on top of a potential Fournier re-signing but balancing out the team’s budget across the roster figures to be a big focus going forward this offseason. There aren’t going to be enough minutes to keep Horford/Thompson/R. Williams happy assuming that all three are going to be played primarily at center. The double big lineups were not a great fit last season so it’s hard to envision them being used extensively again with any of the duos in that group.


Boston has the option of retaining them all three to protect against health and durability concerns with Horford and R. Williams but having over $40 million locked up in centers is not a great team-building strategy when none of those players are top talents. The Celtics could use some more shot creation and backcourt depth with Walker out the door and they have suddenly have some excess talent in the frontcourt to help address that area. There’s a lot of time left this offseason for more roster shuffling but it’s a good bet that there will be more dominoes to fall in Boston’s frontcourt moving forward.


Bob



.

All it will take is for the right guy to become available in a trade for all the domino's to fall We may even see one of the two young wings get traded. Langford started to really show what they thought he could do at the end of the season. Nesmith is a real question mark as far as I am concerned. The one thing he has over Langford is his offense. I think once the game slows down a little more for this kid, we may relish having him, but can we wait for that? So possibly, one will go. Pritchard is safe right now, he has to take the next step forward or he will become one of those guys on the end of the bench who never really got any better after his first "breakout season" He will get a pass, as I think Grant will also.

If we want to get more veteran help in here, then it may be time to part with one of these "projects". Then he will go to another team and become a super bench player!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We need a point guard.  A real, honest-to-God floor general.  We have bigs up the ying-yang, we have the best pairing of wings in the league.  We have baseline defenders in RWill and Moses and outside threats from our bigs with Horford and Kornet.  All we really need is to replace Kemba's scoring (Fournier?  With more touches now that Kemba's gone?) and someone with experience who is good at passing out the sugar.


Bob


.

It just occurred to me that, by trading away our first rounder to OKC, we aren't likely to have as much player movement this offseason as some of us would like.

No first round pick means no fresh talent coming in, nobody being directly replaced or challenged.  No first round pick means if you are trading you are trading existing roster players, without much sweetener using draft picks, for what is hopefully/presumably a roster upgrade.  Which roster players have value other than the Js?  Thompson, Smart and RWill?  Nobody else, not even young talent like Nesmith, Pritchard and Romeo, will bring much.  

Would Brad trade Tristan?  Yep, but he's not going to get much.  TT is a 30 year old role player in today's NBA.

Would Brad trade Smart?  He loves Smart.  Brad was a defense-first coach, Kemba's lack of defense was allegedly the root of his tensions with Kemba, and Smart is an elite defender.  Would Brad trade, arguably, his best defensive player, especially now that he just freed up salary cap?

Would Brad trade RWill?  Maybe, especially if Moses is all that and a bag o'chips, but how much could he get for a player with his injury history?  It is possible that Brad got Moses specifically to replace RWill and so RWill is now trade available.  This is just an idea on my part, but they have a tremendous amount of overlapping skills, and weaknesses, and Moses is 6" taller.  They are in many ways as mutually redundant as Grant Williams and Semi Ojelaye are.

He could, and hopefully will, cut end-of-bench-deadenders like Edwards but that just frees up a roster spot, it doesn't get you the better player.  It's a start, we now have the full MLE thanks to the Kemba trade, but that's not any major trade.

We need a veteran floor general, from somewhere.  Can we get one via MLE?  Hopefully, but if not then putting together a trade package that gets us one of those might be tough.  


Bob


.

As far as floor generals, there's the Class A group of Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo...and that's it.

After that precipitous fall-off, probably skipping right passed Class B, who is left? Like Bobh says, I don't think we need a Class A, but we need something for sure.

db

I think we're at a point with this team where close to nothing is off the table. Maybe somewhere between 1 to 3 players they would try to keep out of trade packages and that's about it. Domino effect may become a very apt description.

At PG, with the current roster, it looks like they stick with Smart and then Pritchard. Right now there isn't much choice.

The Celtics have too much redundancy (e.g. RWIII and Moses, GW and Semi), have too many bigs in general, and too many shooting guards. They need something more than PP and MS at the point, and they need another long wing who can spell Tatum. There are almost certainly more moves coming.

Shamrock1000 wrote:The Celtics have too much redundancy (e.g. RWIII and Moses, GW and Semi), have too many bigs in general, and too many shooting guards.
They need something more than PP and MS at the point, and they need another long wing who can spell Tatum.
There are almost certainly more moves coming.

Yes, yes, yes.
Yes, yes.
Yes.

Hopefully, they figure it out by training camp.

Shamrock1000 wrote:The Celtics have too much redundancy (e.g. RWIII and Moses, GW and Semi), have too many bigs in general, and too many shooting guards. They need something more than PP and MS at the point, and they need another long wing who can spell Tatum. There are almost certainly more moves coming.

Of course you are right. Additional roster moves are likely to focus on bringing about a better positional balance to this team.

The most obvious imbalance is having too many centers and not enough quality PG's. So pick your 3 top centers and move the 3 that are not a good fit moving forward. Moving Walker had to be done so that other things could be done. As Brad goes through the interview process with several coaching candidates he will be getting a lot of feedback.

Bigs tend to have more value than wings, assuming comparable talent levels.  So trading one of our bigs for a guard should either get us more quality in the guard than we're giving up at big or we should be able to get a comparable quality guard plus picks.  Either way it's a favorable trading position for Brad.


Bob


.

bobheckler wrote:It just occurred to me that, by trading away our first rounder to OKC, we aren't likely to have as much player movement this offseason as some of us would like.

No first round pick means no fresh talent coming in, nobody being directly replaced or challenged.  No first round pick means if you are trading you are trading existing roster players, without much sweetener using draft picks, for what is hopefully/presumably a roster upgrade.  Which roster players have value other than the Js?  Thompson, Smart and RWill?  Nobody else, not even young talent like Nesmith, Pritchard and Romeo, will bring much.  

Would Brad trade Tristan?  Yep, but he's not going to get much.  TT is a 30 year old role player in today's NBA.

Would Brad trade Smart?  He loves Smart.  Brad was a defense-first coach, Kemba's lack of defense was allegedly the root of his tensions with Kemba, and Smart is an elite defender.  Would Brad trade, arguably, his best defensive player, especially now that he just freed up salary cap?

Would Brad trade RWill?  Maybe, especially if Moses is all that and a bag o'chips, but how much could he get for a player with his injury history?  It is possible that Brad got Moses specifically to replace RWill and so RWill is now trade available.  This is just an idea on my part, but they have a tremendous amount of overlapping skills, and weaknesses, and Moses is 6" taller.  They are in many ways as mutually redundant as Grant Williams and Semi Ojelaye are.

He could, and hopefully will, cut end-of-bench-deadenders like Edwards but that just frees up a roster spot, it doesn't get you the better player.  It's a start, we now have the full MLE thanks to the Kemba trade, but that's not any major trade.

We need a veteran floor general, from somewhere.  Can we get one via MLE?  Hopefully, but if not then putting together a trade package that gets us one of those might be tough.  


Bob


.

I for one have not seen enough of Moses to say that he and Rob have a tremendous amount of overlapping skills and weaknesses. Maybe you have. Ive seen a lot of talent in Rob. Ive seen a lot of things that Rob can do and do better than Moses. So if you have, Where’s the overlap besides both being tall and good rebounders? How are they as mutually redundant as G Will and Semi? If you come with Moses stats please come with the entire package as well. Rob has played against just about everyone. Just curious how you came up with this one.

dboss wrote:

Shamrock1000 wrote:The Celtics have too much redundancy (e.g. RWIII and Moses, GW and Semi), have too many bigs in general, and too many shooting guards. They need something more than PP and MS at the point, and they need another long wing who can spell Tatum. There are almost certainly more moves coming.

Of course you are right.  Additional roster moves are likely to focus on bringing about a better positional balance to this team.

The most obvious imbalance is having too many centers and not enough quality PG's. So pick your 3 top centers and move the 3 that are not a good fit moving forward.    Moving Walker had to be done so that other things could be done.  As Brad goes through the interview process with several coaching candidates he will be getting a lot of feedback.  

dboss, I think that during the interview process, Brad should focus on coaching skill set, some philosophy and personal compatibilities. By feedback do you mean Brad is going to ask these potential candidates a bunch of questions about the teams or other teams personnel?
If he does that he’s just going to get back a bunch of different answers. Bad idea. The team doesn’t need a committee of outsiders to contribute to a committee of insiders on personnel.  As the saying goes, “To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than 3 people, two of whom are absent.

Ktron wrote:

bobheckler wrote:It just occurred to me that, by trading away our first rounder to OKC, we aren't likely to have as much player movement this offseason as some of us would like.

No first round pick means no fresh talent coming in, nobody being directly replaced or challenged.  No first round pick means if you are trading you are trading existing roster players, without much sweetener using draft picks, for what is hopefully/presumably a roster upgrade.  Which roster players have value other than the Js?  Thompson, Smart and RWill?  Nobody else, not even young talent like Nesmith, Pritchard and Romeo, will bring much.  

Would Brad trade Tristan?  Yep, but he's not going to get much.  TT is a 30 year old role player in today's NBA.

Would Brad trade Smart?  He loves Smart.  Brad was a defense-first coach, Kemba's lack of defense was allegedly the root of his tensions with Kemba, and Smart is an elite defender.  Would Brad trade, arguably, his best defensive player, especially now that he just freed up salary cap?

Would Brad trade RWill?  Maybe, especially if Moses is all that and a bag o'chips, but how much could he get for a player with his injury history?  It is possible that Brad got Moses specifically to replace RWill and so RWill is now trade available.  This is just an idea on my part, but they have a tremendous amount of overlapping skills, and weaknesses, and Moses is 6" taller.  They are in many ways as mutually redundant as Grant Williams and Semi Ojelaye are.

He could, and hopefully will, cut end-of-bench-deadenders like Edwards but that just frees up a roster spot, it doesn't get you the better player.  It's a start, we now have the full MLE thanks to the Kemba trade, but that's not any major trade.

We need a veteran floor general, from somewhere.  Can we get one via MLE?  Hopefully, but if not then putting together a trade package that gets us one of those might be tough.  


Bob


.

I for one have not seen enough of Moses to say that he and Rob have a tremendous amount of overlapping skills and weaknesses. Maybe you have. Ive seen a lot of talent in Rob. Ive seen a lot of things that Rob can do and do better than Moses. So if you have, Where’s the overlap besides both being tall and good rebounders? How are they as mutually redundant as G Will and Semi? If you come with Moses stats please come with the entire package as well. Rob has played against just about everyone. Just curious how you came up with this one.

ktron,

1.  Both players' games are in the restricted area, no further than the paint extends.  RWill has developed a bit of a frito line jumper, but he uses it very infrequently.  Neither of them are offensive floor spacers.

2.  Both good rebounders, as you said.  Brown the better offensive rebounder, but not by huge amounts.

3.  Both good shot blockers, although RWill is better so far.  That might be a measure of the system.

4.  Both lousy frito shooters, although Brown took almost 50% more/minute last year than RWill.

5.  Both good baseline defenders.  Brown's DefRtg was 109, RWill's 104.  Once again, different systems.


Differences are that RWill is a much better passer than Brown.  Once again, that might be the system.  Brad liked to run his offense through his bigs, Horford and RWill touched the ball a lot, I don't know about OKC.

RWill has 1656 total NBA minutes and Brown has 953, almost all crammed into one season.

Another difference is that Brown is about to turn 22 while RWill is about to turn 24.


That's it.


Bob


.

bobheckler wrote:

Ktron wrote:

bobheckler wrote:It just occurred to me that, by trading away our first rounder to OKC, we aren't likely to have as much player movement this offseason as some of us would like.

No first round pick means no fresh talent coming in, nobody being directly replaced or challenged.  No first round pick means if you are trading you are trading existing roster players, without much sweetener using draft picks, for what is hopefully/presumably a roster upgrade.  Which roster players have value other than the Js?  Thompson, Smart and RWill?  Nobody else, not even young talent like Nesmith, Pritchard and Romeo, will bring much.  

Would Brad trade Tristan?  Yep, but he's not going to get much.  TT is a 30 year old role player in today's NBA.

Would Brad trade Smart?  He loves Smart.  Brad was a defense-first coach, Kemba's lack of defense was allegedly the root of his tensions with Kemba, and Smart is an elite defender.  Would Brad trade, arguably, his best defensive player, especially now that he just freed up salary cap?

Would Brad trade RWill?  Maybe, especially if Moses is all that and a bag o'chips, but how much could he get for a player with his injury history?  It is possible that Brad got Moses specifically to replace RWill and so RWill is now trade available.  This is just an idea on my part, but they have a tremendous amount of overlapping skills, and weaknesses, and Moses is 6" taller.  They are in many ways as mutually redundant as Grant Williams and Semi Ojelaye are.

He could, and hopefully will, cut end-of-bench-deadenders like Edwards but that just frees up a roster spot, it doesn't get you the better player.  It's a start, we now have the full MLE thanks to the Kemba trade, but that's not any major trade.

We need a veteran floor general, from somewhere.  Can we get one via MLE?  Hopefully, but if not then putting together a trade package that gets us one of those might be tough.  


Bob


.

I for one have not seen enough of Moses to say that he and Rob have a tremendous amount of overlapping skills and weaknesses. Maybe you have. Ive seen a lot of talent in Rob. Ive seen a lot of things that Rob can do and do better than Moses. So if you have, Where’s the overlap besides both being tall and good rebounders? How are they as mutually redundant as G Will and Semi? If you come with Moses stats please come with the entire package as well. Rob has played against just about everyone. Just curious how you came up with this one.

ktron,

1.  Both players' games are in the restricted area, no further than the paint extends.  RWill has developed a bit of a frito line jumper, but he uses it very infrequently.  Neither of them are offensive floor spacers.

2.  Both good rebounders, as you said.  Brown the better offensive rebounder, but not by huge amounts.

3.  Both good shot blockers, although RWill is better so far.  That might be a measure of the system.

4.  Both lousy frito shooters, although Brown took almost 50% more/minute last year than RWill.

5.  Both good baseline defenders.  Brown's DefRtg was 109, RWill's 104.  Once again, different systems.


Differences are that RWill is a much better passer than Brown.  Once again, that might be the system.  Brad liked to run his offense through his bigs, Horford and RWill touched the ball a lot, I don't know about OKC.

RWill has 1656 total NBA minutes and Brown has 953, almost all crammed into one season.

Another difference is that Brown is about to turn 22 while RWill is about to turn 24.


That's it.


Bob


.

Well damn. We got ourselves a set of twins! Thanks Bob. I hope they plan on sticking with them for now. It’ll be interesting to watch both play next season.

bobheckler wrote:Bigs tend to have more value than wings, assuming comparable talent levels.  So trading one of our bigs for a guard should either get us more quality in the guard than we're giving up at big or we should be able to get a comparable quality guard plus picks.  Either way it's a favorable trading position for Brad.


Bob


.

I believe Tristan Thompson at $9,720,900 next season is a good target for this. Take his salary, add a Semi O sign and trade (away) and you have a good start towards filling a need.

BTW, trading away a player using a sign and trade does not hard cap a team. Receiving a player does.

Hi folks, newbie here. Celts fan for a while and have tried other forums. Trying out this one. Basically, looking for a place to exchange some conversation with Celts fans.

I see Smart and RWill as the best trade capital for the Celts. If they sign Fournier then they can trade Smart as they have Langford and Nesmith to fill in for him.

My wish list has Kyle Lowry and Bradley Beal.

Lowry may be more gettable considering he is a FA. Perhaps a sign & trade for Smart and some salary match. This is least disruptive if you truly want to build around Tatum and Brown.

Beal has to ask out of Washington. Will Smart, RWill and Langford/Nesmith match the other options for the Wiz? Ben Simmons? CJ McCollum? And such? Salary match is a big problem here as Beal is set to make $34.5M. Even with Smart and Tristan, we don't add up.

Regarding trading partners, Golden State is another team that is in clear need of a roster overhaul. Curry becomes a free agent next year. They better put together a contender or he will leave. They will have draft capital and also, a big need to shed salary. Will they trade Draymond Green for Smart and TT. That will give them salary flexibility and they can follow up by trading Wiggins and some of their picks for another star (don't know who).

Would we want to do that trade with Golden State?

Welcome!!!

I have always felt that the place that would want Smart the most is GSW. Green is getting older, and is wearing on Kerr's nerves with his temper but then again Smart has an issue their also. So, that being said, I would hate to give Smart to anyone because he will come back here and kill us!!

prakash wrote:Hi folks, newbie here.  Celts fan for a while and have tried other forums.  Trying out this one.  Basically, looking for a place to exchange some conversation with Celts fans.

I see Smart and RWill as the best trade capital for the Celts.  If they sign Fournier then they can trade Smart as they have Langford and Nesmith to fill in for him.

My wish list has Kyle Lowry and Bradley Beal.

Lowry may be more gettable considering he is a FA.  Perhaps a sign & trade for Smart and some salary match.  This is least disruptive if you truly want to build around Tatum and Brown.

Beal has to ask out of Washington.  Will Smart, RWill and Langford/Nesmith match the other options for the Wiz?  Ben Simmons?  CJ McCollum?  And such?  Salary match is a big problem here as Beal is set to make $34.5M.  Even with Smart and Tristan, we don't add up.

Regarding trading partners, Golden State is another team that is in clear need of a roster overhaul.  Curry becomes a free agent next year.  They better put together a contender or he will leave.  They will have draft capital and also, a big need to shed salary.  Will they trade Draymond Green for Smart and TT.  That will give them salary flexibility and they can follow up by trading Wiggins and some of their picks for another star (don't know who).

Would we want to do that trade with Golden State?

prakash

Let me welcome you to this forum.  Overtime if you visit often enough you will get a better history (2009) about this platform.

A lot of stuff packed into you post.

I always like Lowry but at age 35 how much would the Celtics want to spend and based on what we have heard, a sign and trade will hard cap the team.  I do believe that PG is now our #1 need.  Is there another guy we could go after?

Washington would want a guy like Jaylen Brown to part with Beal.  If Beal were to go on the market a lot of teams would want him and Boston would also explore their options but I just do not see him coming here for the pkg that you mentioned.  

Ben has mental issues

CJ is a shooting guard and we do not need another shooting guard.

Draymond has salary of 24, 25 and player option of 27 million remaining.  Do the Celtics want to spend that much on him?  And where does he play?  PF/C.  Draymond has always been one of those glue guys.  Do you think GS is going into a full blown rebuild or are they rebuilding now with several high draft picks and the hope that Klay can return next season?  GS has a significant projected luxury tax bill for the upcoming season.  Too many max contracts so the notion that they may want to shed some salary makes sense and trading for 2 expiring contract coming up in Smart and TT would help.  I really do not see the Celtics as a salary dump partner for them in the case of Draymond.

Reexamining Fournier's stats over the last 82 games he played, he took 566 three point attempts and made 234 for a .413 average. That is simply too good to pass up.

Ben Simmons has got some major issues regarding shooting. He is, right now, the most overpaid defensive guard in the league as far as I am concerned. Watching him pass up shot after shot last night, miss free throw after free throw, this kid has a real issue. I will be interested to see just how they handle him. He should see a sports doctor, there is no doubt about that. Admitting that it is an issue is his first step. Doc would not handle that question last night at all.

He had to go home talking to himself. Even Embid thru him under the bus

Having Embid and Doc throw him under the bus means the team has tried and tried and I’m sure suggested a shooting coach a few times....and someone must have blown them off or lied and said he’s got it covered, don’t worry, so now his own tribe is calling him out. This can only end badly as his shooting woes bad to begin with have only gotten significantly worse and his offensive game has fallen apart.

But what options does Philly have? Simmons is on a MAX contract for what, three or 4 more years? Who wants to pay that kind of money for a defensive player only? I love it when Philly suffers, and suffer they will.

dboss wrote:

prakash wrote:Hi folks, newbie here.  Celts fan for a while and have tried other forums.  Trying out this one.  Basically, looking for a place to exchange some conversation with Celts fans.

I see Smart and RWill as the best trade capital for the Celts.  If they sign Fournier then they can trade Smart as they have Langford and Nesmith to fill in for him.

My wish list has Kyle Lowry and Bradley Beal.

Lowry may be more gettable considering he is a FA.  Perhaps a sign & trade for Smart and some salary match.  This is least disruptive if you truly want to build around Tatum and Brown.

Beal has to ask out of Washington.  Will Smart, RWill and Langford/Nesmith match the other options for the Wiz?  Ben Simmons?  CJ McCollum?  And such?  Salary match is a big problem here as Beal is set to make $34.5M.  Even with Smart and Tristan, we don't add up.

Regarding trading partners, Golden State is another team that is in clear need of a roster overhaul.  Curry becomes a free agent next year.  They better put together a contender or he will leave.  They will have draft capital and also, a big need to shed salary.  Will they trade Draymond Green for Smart and TT.  That will give them salary flexibility and they can follow up by trading Wiggins and some of their picks for another star (don't know who).

Would we want to do that trade with Golden State?

prakash

Let me welcome you to this forum.  Overtime if you visit often enough you will get a better history (2009) about this platform.

A lot of stuff packed into you post.

I always like Lowry but at age 35 how much would the Celtics want to spend and based on what we have heard, a sign and trade will hard cap the team.  I do believe that PG is now our #1 need.  Is there another guy we could go after?

Washington would want a guy like Jaylen Brown to part with Beal.  If Beal were to go on the market a lot of teams would want him and Boston would also explore their options but I just do not see him coming here for the pkg that you mentioned.  

Ben has mental issues

CJ is a shooting guard and we do not need another shooting guard.

Draymond has salary of 24, 25 and player option of 27 million remaining.  Do the Celtics want to spend that much on him?  And where does he play?  PF/C.  Draymond has always been one of those glue guys.  Do you think GS is going into a full blown rebuild or are they rebuilding now with several high draft picks and the hope that Klay can return next season?  GS has a significant projected luxury tax bill for the upcoming season.  Too many max contracts so the notion that they may want to shed some salary makes sense and trading for 2 expiring contract coming up in Smart and TT would help.  I really do not see the Celtics as a salary dump partner for them in the case of Draymond.  

Actually I should have been clearer. I meant, "Will the Celts package be seen as superior by Washington over Ben Simmons or CJ?" Even if so, salary match will be a problem. I also I thought that these two are obvious available "big name stars". Other team packages will likely be made up of prospects and draft picks. I don't think that trading bigger name stars will make sense. As an example, would we be interested in trading Jaylen Brown for Beal?

As for Draymond, he is a better version of Smart. The likelihood can be questioned but would you make that trade?

As for why GS "might" make that trade is for back court depth and a better 5. They can dump Looney and get some salary relief as well. And no, GS can't get into rebuild. They don't need to. They need to re-tool, just like us. A better option for them would be to trade Wiggins (salary) plus their high draft picks for another Star wing. The question is who would be available? I don't see many options there as for now.

No Brown for Beal trade for me. Brown is younger, and as far as I am concerned, has not stopped improving. He is a better defensive player than Beal. Also, Beal may be buddies with Jayson, but who gets the ball????? Both want to be “the guy”. Just not my kind of trade.

Someone already made the comparison with CJ and that was a “no” another shooting guard. We need a good ball handler who will hit the shots when they are open, but not look for “his” shot all the time. I think Portland is crazy to break up that backcourt, but maybe that is the only way they get some $$ for improvement elsewhere. Their biggest problem is that they are in the Western division and that is one strong division

Blazers have no wings, Carmelo is ancient and good coming off bench for a few, Covington has no reliable game; poorly constructed team.