The Celtics offseason began two weeks ago but you could say that it officially got underway this morning as new president of basketball operations Brad Stevens (in Danny Ainge's old job) made a pretty significant trade: Boston swapped point guard Kemba Walker, the 16th pick in the 2021 NBA Draft and a 2025 second-round pick to Oklahoma City for center Al Horford (remember him?!), center Moses Brown and a 2023 second-round pick. Wow, take a breath. More than simply an exchange of aging players and draft picks, this was about saving some money for the Celts and getting out from under Kemba's awful contract (he's owed roughly $73 million over the next two years). Of course, the C's also had to take on Horford's brutal deal (he's due to make $53 million with $41 million guaranteed in the next two years as well) to make it all work.
Before I get into Walker and Horford some more, let me be the first to say that Brown might actually be the most valuable player from this trade in only a year or two. He's 21 years old and he just wrapped up his second season in the NBA averaging 8.6 points per game, 8.9 rebounds per game and 1.1 blocks per game. No doubt, Stevens must have remembered when Brown absolutely torched the Celtics for 21 points and 23 rebounds back on March 27 in Oklahoma City. At 7-foot-2 and 245 pounds, Brown figures to get a legitimate shot at center or at least backup center which have both been somewhat of a black hole for years for the Celtics. As it stands right now, he'd be competing with the likes of Horford (a shell of his former shelf), Robert Williams (always hurt), Tristan Thompson (loves the night life), Luke Kornet (goofy white guy) and Tacko Fall (fan favorite side show) for minutes at center. Also, Brown was undrafted out of UCLA and he has only played for the tanking Thunder so being in (what hopefully is) a winning environment should bring out the best in him.
Even if you didn't go to UConn or at least root for the Huskies, you had to love Walker dating back to his college days. He used to be an electrifying guard but injuries really derailed his brief two year stay here in Boston. After missing a grand total of 45 games in eight years with the Hornets, Kemba was out for 16 games his first year with the C's and 29 this past season. He's still only 31 but he has a ton of mileage on his gimpy left knee that forced him to fittingly miss the last two games (Games 4 and 5 vs. Brooklyn) with Boston. In 2020-21, he still averaged 19.3 points per game and 4.9 assists per game but he's never been a great 3-point shooter (36% in his NBA career) and his on-court chemistry with Celtics stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown was always sort of lacking something. It sounds like he won't be with the rebuilding Thunder for too long though so hopefully he gets to play for a quality team to wrap up his great NBA career on a true contender. He seems like an awesome guy so we wish Kemba nothing but success in the future.
You have to laugh at the irony of one Celtics free agent flop (Kemba) essentially being replaced by another free agent who willfully chose to leave the team two years ago but since then he's bounced around from the Sixers to OKC and now he returns to the C's at the ripe old age of 35. Does Al have much left in the tank after 14 seasons in the NBA? Probably not, you'll remember that Oklahoma City paid him to sit out for much of last season (what a life!) since they were you know trying to lose as many games as possible. In the 28 games he did play in 2020-21, he averaged 14.2 points per game, 6.7 rebounds per game and 3.4 assists per game. More than anything, I think Horford's biggest role moving forward is to be the leader that this group so desperately lacked last season. It also cannot hurt that such a respected veteran around the league at least appears to be genuinely excited to return to Boston where he had played for three seasons from 2016/2017-2018/2019. The Celts need all the recruiting help that they can get when it comes to free agency because unfortunately they will always be fighting an uphill battle against much more attractive markets for NBA stars like Los Angeles, Miami or New York and Brooklyn just to name a few.
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