Celts Made Another Major Trade: Robert Williams & Malcolm Brogdon To Portland For Jrue Holiday

 

    With training camp starting this week, it was nice to see the Celtics finally show some urgency to win their first NBA title since 2008. After seeing the Bucks acquire superstar point guard Damian Lillard last week, Boston responded by trading center Robert Williams and point guard Malcolm Brogdon to Portland (along with a 2024 and 2029 first round pick) for point guard Jrue Holiday. We have always overrated Williams but for many reasons, I truly do not think that you will miss him all that much unless you love alley oop dunks and highlight reel blocked shots in the regular season. I liked Brogdon very much but Holiday is unquestionably better as a two-time NBA All-Star (including last season) and more importantly, an NBA champion with the Bucks in 2021.  

    Williams had always been such a tease as a Celtic, often flashing incredible athleticism and talent but his game never really developed offensively and he is one of the most injury prone players in professional sports. Truthfully, he is a bit of a dinosaur in the league since big men that do not shoot 3-pointers are almost totally extinct. Brogdon was only here for one season but he was a true pro and the Sixth Man of the Year but you knew something would happen when the C's tried to trade for him over the summer to the Clippers while they wanted him to get surgery on his elbow (that severely limited him in the playoffs) but he disagreed. I know that he was close with Jaylen Brown so hopefully this move does not piss off Jaylen too much. Likewise, Time Lord was tight with Jayson Tatum so same deal there. 

    More than anything, this aggressive move by the C's proves that Brad Stevens understands that they cannot wait around for the next championship to appear out of the mist. For too long, the franchise has acted like they are the Warriors or the Bulls in the 90s in terms of multiple titles in recent history when they truth is that all they have is two bitter losses in the NBA Finals (in 2011 vs. the Lakers and in 2022 vs. the Warriors) since capturing their 17th title 15 long years ago. As long as they have a healthy Tatum and Brown, they will always be in the mix in the Eastern Conference and for the Finals. You don't win championships because of role players and bench guys but Boston clearly needed to upgrade its roster that was way too thin behind their top two players.  

    Besides being a very solid player who averaged 19.3 points per game, 7.4 assists per game, 5.1 rebounds per game and 1.2 steals per game in 2022-23, Holiday is an adult. He is 33 years old and married to former USWNT star Lauren Holiday who has battled some serious health issues since she was forced to retire early. Jrue is a good but great shooter (38.4% on 3-pointers and 85.9% free throw percentage) who has famously struggled with his shot in the postseason but you can always count on his outstanding defense, leadership and winning mentality. He won't beat himself and force things searching for his points. This is all to say that both on the floor and in the community, I think that he should be an excellent fit (much like Brogdon was) for the Celtics and someone that is very easy to root for. 

C's Trade Marcus Smart To Grizzlies & Get Kristaps Porzingis From Wizards In Three Team Deal

 

        It has been a rather bizarre few days for the Boston Celtics but with the 2023 NBA Draft just completed a few hours ago, we can officially say that guard Marcus Smart is now on the Memphis Grizzlies while power forward/center Kristaps Porzingis is a Celtic. I won't bore you with all the details of the three-way (hey now!) deal between Boston, Memphis and Washington but the most important part is that the longest tenured Celtic is out of here, the former Knicks All-Star/savior Porzingis comes to his fourth NBA team (NY, Dallas, Washington & Boston) and then point guard Tyus Jones goes from Memphis to Washington along with forwards Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala who will join him in DC from Boston. On Wednesday, it looked like another Celtics guard-Malcolm Brogdon-would be included instead of Smart in a three-way deal involving the Clippers and not the Grizzlies to acquire Porzingis but it fell apart at the last moment (the teams faced a midnight deadline for Kristaps to opt-in to his player option for next season) since Brogdon's forearm apparently is in rough shape. Brad Stevens stuck with it though and ended up making a huge move that his club so desperately needed. 

    After going to five of the last seven Eastern Conference Finals (but only winning one of them!), it was clear that the C's needed a real shake up in terms of its roster. Star wings Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are both very good but something always seemed to trip up Boston before they could get that elusive first NBA title since 2008. For his Celtics career, Smart averaged 10.6 points per game, 4.6 assists per game and 1.6 steals per game. Part of why he became so overrated was that certain local announcers and media members would focus on what they called "winning plays," ignoring the fact that he also did a bunch of dumb stuff that constantly hurt his team both on and off the court. Along with being the longest tenured Celtic-he was the sixth overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft-Smart was the unofficial captain of the team and easily the most polarizing Boston athlete this side of former Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask. 

    Much like the sad state of politics in the United States these days, Celtics fans either loved Smart or hated him, there was no in between. Always a solid defensive player (he was on the All-Defensive first team three times), Smart was named the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year in 2022. For whatever reason (no Ime Udoka?), the Celts lost their way defensively this past season with Joe Mazzulla in his first year as head coach. Additionally, Smart's overinflated sense of self became comical over the last few years as he talked down to both Tatum & Brown publicly along with Mazzulla which while warranted is still a no-no. He also flops incessantly and whines constantly to the refs which really starts to wear on you when you have to watch it over and over again for nine years. Oh and he was never a great 3-point shooter to begin with but somehow the ball would always seem to find him late in games and he has the confidence of Stephen Curry so he did not hesitate to let it fly.  

    Straight out of Latvia, Porzingis took the league by storm shortly after being drafted fourth overall in 2015 by New York. He was an All-Star in 2018-ironically his last season as a Knick-but not surprisingly for a guy that is 7-foot-3 and only 240 pounds, he has battled numerous injuries since then that have caused him to bounce around to a few other middling clubs. There is no question that coming to Boston should motivate him immensely since he has only appeared in 10 career NBA playoff games (all with Dallas). For his NBA career, Kristaps has averaged 19.6 points per game, 7.9 rebounds per game and 1.8 blocks per game. Especially under Mazzulla, Boston became way too reliant on the 3-pointer and while Porzingis shoots plenty of 3s, at least he makes them at a better clip (36%) than Smart (32%). His health is by far the biggest question mark although he did appear in 65 games last season with the Wizards-his most since his second year as a Knick. He also averaged 23.2 points per game in 2022-23 which was a new career-high. 

    The bottom line is that Porzingis gives Tatum and Brown another guy that can carry the load offensively when either of them has a bad game or series (see Tatum in the 2022 NBA Finals or Brown in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals). The term Big 3 is so played out these days in basketball but at least on paper, this is by far the best running mate that they have had since they were too young when Kyrie Irving (yuck!) was here and Kemba Walker was about to go off a cliff when he was a Celtic. Kristaps will turn 28 in August so theoretically, he should be in his prime. After Smart gets over the shock of going to a new team, he will quickly realize that he is lucky to be in Memphis rather than on some rebuilding crap team like Washington. With Grizzlies star point guard Ja Morant suspended for the first 25 games of the season, Smart will be their starting point guard to begin the year on what was one of the best teams in the Western Conference last season. 

    This could be the rare trade that truly helps both teams. Porzingis gives the Celtics a uniquely skilled player that is much different from their other big guys-the ancient Al Horford and an injury-prone Robert Williams. Smart brings toughness and playoff experience to a Grizzlies team that showed this past postseason that they were not quite ready for prime time yet. Since they lost Game 7 to Miami, Boston had made its coaching staff way stronger by hiring Sam Cassell, Charles Lee, Amile Jefferson (Tatum's buddy from Duke) and former Celtics great Phil Pressey to be assistant coaches. However, those moves mean very little when they are compared to getting Kristaps and saying goodbye to their loudest/most divisive voice in Smart. We wish Marcus well in Memphis but it was time to make a real change and credit to Stevens for having the guts to get it done.

Everything Is Coming Up Celtics These Days As Al Horford Signs A Two-Year Extension With Them

 

    While the Patriots (6-6) stumble and try to stay somewhat relevant this winter, the Celtics (an NBA best 18-4) and Bruins (19-3-0, one point behind NJ-who has played two more games-for the top mark in the NHL) are both off to incredible starts to their respective seasons. That is actually one of the main reasons why I haven't written about either so far in these ridiculous campaigns: they have been mostly blowing everyone out so that gets pretty redundant and boring to discuss. Today at least brought some interesting off the court news for the C's as they signed veteran center Al Horford to a two-year contract extension worth $20 million. His numbers so far in 2022-23 are probably better than you realized: in 31 minutes per game, he's averaging 10.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 0.9 blocks. He is also shooting almost 50% on three-pointers (48.8%) which is way above his career average from downtown (36.6%). 

    With news of the Ime Udoka scandal breaking right before training camp started, you wondered how it would affect the team but so far first-year head coach Joe Mazzulla's transition has been seamless thanks to his absolutely loaded roster. By NBA standards, Al is already very old (he turned 36 during the NBA Finals last summer) and this deal will tie him to the C's through his 39th birthday in 2025. While that might seem a little crazy, if you have watched the Celts lately, you noticed that Horford is still a starting caliber player on an NBA title favorite. With fellow big man Robert Williams perpetually hurt and/or coming back from an injury, you need to have a legitimate backup plan for him since I doubt that he will ever play anything close to a full season. Enter Horford who was a Hawk for nine seasons (after being the No. 3 overall pick in the 2007 Draft) then he initially came here in free agency in 2016. After three good years, he briefly went to the Sixers followed by a short but miserable stay with the constantly rebuilding Thunder.

    When Brad Stevens reacquired him for next to nothing two summers ago, we all laughed thinking that Horford was completely washed up but he has proven everybody wrong by putting together a really nice return season with the Celtics culminating in his first ever NBA Finals apperance. He is too old to play in back-to-back games (like earlier this week) but who cares? Al provides stability and leadership to a team that still needs it despite the fact that Jayson Tatum has become one of the best players in the league and Jaylen Brown is an All-Star caliber player as well. With so many big personalities (and egos), every locker room needs a Horford-a calming presence on the floor and no doubt behind the scenes as well. Other than winning that elusive NBA title, he has done and seen almost everything when it comes to the game of basketball.

    Of course, this being the Celtics and Boston in general, this what looks to be absurd regular season for the C's won't really mean anything if they don't go back to the Finals and complete the job that they weren't quite ready to do last summer against Golden State. Few players ever get that storybook ending in pro sports but it seems well within Horford's grasp meaning that the Celtics could finally earn another banner and therefore he would retire on top. Until then, we should appreciate the maturity, classiness and sheer dependability of Horford who seems to be unique in many positive ways when it comes to the normally drama filled NBA. Al appears to genuinely like being a Celtic too and from what we can tell, he enjoys playing here which you also cannot put a price tag on.

The Celtics Were Very Active At The Trade Deadline But Will Any Of Their Moves Matter?

 

    The NBA Trade Deadline was this afternoon and the Celtics (31-25) were quite busy. In total, new GM Brad Stevens shipped seven guys out of town and only brought back two which means that they have five open roster spots to fill (they technically only need to add two more players for tomorrow's game vs. Denver). Boston acquired point guard Derrick White from San Antonio for guards Josh Richardson, Romeo Langford and a protected 2022 first-round pick. They also reacquired center Daniel Theis from Houston for centers Enes Kanter and Bruno Fernando plus guard Dennis Schroder. Finally, they dumped center Bol Bol (we hardly knew ya!) and guard P.J. Dozier to Orlando in exchange for a swap of conditional second-round picks while the C's also gave the Magic cash considerations. 

    When I look at who the Celts lost, Richardson (9.7 ppg) and Schroder (14.4 ppg) are the ones worth noting while everyone else is either a bust (Langford) or mostly useless (Kanter and Fernando). Admittedly, I don't know a ton about White since the Spurs (20-35) have become an awful team these last few seasons. However, he was part of Team USA at the 2019 FIBA World Cup along with Jayson Tatum so Boston's All-Star must have liked what he saw there with him. Head coach Ime Udoka also has to be very familiar with White since he was drafted by San Antonio in 2017 (29th overall) and has played there for his entire NBA career which is where Udoka started his coaching journey. Looking at his numbers, he seems like Marcus Smart Lite: 11.6 ppg for his career with 3.9 assists per game and 3.3 rebounds per game. He has decent size (6-foot-4 and 190 pounds) but he is not a good three-point shooter (.344 for his career). Thankfully, he is very solid at free throws (.836 for his career) so that shouldn't be an issue in close games. By most measures, he was having a career year for the lottery-bound Spurs: he's started 48 of 49 games and averaged 14.4 ppg, a career-best 5.6 assists per game, one steal per game and a career-best .869 from the free throw line. 

    If you are a Celtics fan, Theis needs no introduction because he was here for parts of four seasons before being traded to Chicago. Most recently, he was rotting away on the tanking Rockets (15-40) who are the worst team in the Western Conference. The C's have often been accused of falling in love with their own players and this is further proof of that. Still, Theis gives them some more quality depth at center/power forward behind budding star Robert Williams and veteran Al Horford who has been decent in his return to Boston but he can't have much left in his old legs. Based on their deals, we knew that Richardson and definitely Schroder weren't going to be Celtics for too long. Josh had actually come on lately off the bench and helped the C's on their season-high six game win streak that has brought them back from the dead. Predictably, Schroder has been more erratic and since he is going to be a free agent this summer, you could tell that he didn't care about anything but himself this season so good riddence to that clown. 

    Ultimately, all of these trades will be judged by how well White performs in Boston. Out of all the guys that were moved to and away from the Celtics today, he should be the best one of them all or at least very close to it. If he can mesh well with Tatum and Brown, he will be a Celtic for a long time. Likewise, if Udoka enjoys working with him then he can settle in and buy a house in the area rather than rent an apartment or condo. I assume that he'll be available tomorrow night (7:30, NBC Sports Boston) as the Celts host the Nuggets (30-24) at TD Garden. Much like the Patriots last season, Boston has taken advantage of a soft portion of their schedule and Denver will represesnt their toughest test since they finally got untracked. 

Giving Robert Williams A Four-Year Extension Worth $54 Million Scares The Hell Out Of Me

 

        Pro sports (particularly the NBA) are all about projecting future talent since so many guys enter the league not quite ready to make an immediate impact. Celtics center Robert Williams is a perfect example of this type of maddening player: he has All-NBA ability but for a variety of reasons (injury-prone, immature, lack of motivation, etc.), you wonder if he'll ever scratch the surface of his limitless potential on the basketball court. Quality big guys don't grow on trees though so I suppose that the C's had little choice but to reportedly sign him to a four-year contract extension to the tune of $54 million. This despite the fact that he's only appeared in 113 games in his first three seasons with Boston and even worse than that, he has made just 16 starts in that time span (with 13 of them coming last season). 

    Even casual observers or those that don't watch the Celtics often can nevertheless notice pretty quickly how much Williams stands out from the crowd: he's only listed at 6-foot-8 and 237 pounds (slightly undersized even for the modern center) and he thankfully does not shoot any 3-pointers (which strangely is kind of refreshing these days especially for this club) but his athleticism is still off the charts. Last season in 18.9 minutes per game, he averaged a career-high eight points per game, 6.9 rebounds per game and 1.8 blocks per game. His defensive presence on the court is no joke and while his offensive game is mostly limited to alley-oops and putbacks, the other Celtics do a nice job of finding him in good positions for easy baskets. Williams is a capable passer too but he really struggles at the free throw line (61.6% last season) and that has to improve ASAP.  

    Let's keep in mind that Williams will turn 24-years-old a few days before (on October 17) the season opener which means I am probably being a little too hard on him. He was not a lottery pick, not even close in fact. Given that he was the 27th overall selection out of noted basketball factory Texas A&M in 2018, he could already be deemed a success in the eyes of many local fans and national media alike. Williams has been a Celtic long enough to understand the passion of the team's fan-base which at times has a tendency to overrate Boston's players (something the front office recently has also been guilty of). If he is ever going to live up to this contract (and earn an even bigger one down the line), Williams has to prove that he can play for much of a regular season and still be available for the postseason-assuming that the middling Celtics quality for it. 

    The Celts recently brought back center Enes Kanter on a one-year deal but this extension signifies their belief in Williams both now and in the next few years. President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens must be a fan of Williams since he knows all the pluses and minuses about their mercurial center and yet he still had to keep him in green and white. You can see that his teammates love him (witness Jayson Tatum's thrilled quote tweet today about Williams' news) so that gives me hope that Robert can start to build a more consistent level of performance. Going into his fourth season in the league, it's not good enough to flash in a game and then not show anything for the next few games (or worse, get hurt right after that and miss a bunch of contests). If Boston is ever going to get back to being a true title contender anytime soon, you have to think that Williams would have a large role in that since he can do so many things that others simply cannot. 

So Much For Those Fake Trade Rumors, The Celtics Signed Marcus Smart To A Four-Year Extension

 

    In my lifetime as a Celtics fan, I cannot remember a more maddening player than Marcus Smart. The erratic guard can make some of the best defensive plays that you've ever seen and then later on that same possession, he chucks up one of the worst 3-pointers in NBA history. From the start, we have accepted the good with the bad from Marcus in hopes that eventually he would learn from all of the childish crap. Nope, instead he seems to have gotten more delusional over the years and who could blame him as the C's continue to prop him up for some reason and constantly stroke his fragile ego. Despite being the best (and only legitimate) trade asset that the team possessed, they made the strange decision to reportedly sign him this evening to a four-year contract extension (beginning in 2022-23) worth $77 million.

    For weeks, if not months, we've been fed countless lies about how much the Celtics wanted to trade Smart and with Brad Stevens in charge now (and not Marcus' biggest fan Danny Ainge), we were led to believe that perhaps the needed change (moving Smart elsewhere) was finally about to materialize. The timing of this makes you wonder though since almost all of the best free agents have been signed weeks ago and many big names have likewise been traded to other teams. You have to think that Stevens & Co. tried to pull the trigger on such a move but after many tries, they were forced to go back to Smart with their hats in their hands and say sorry, here's an absurd amount of money to make you feel better. 

    The main problem with Marcus is that he fancies himself as a superstar while the truth remains that he at best is a role player on a championship contender. He was the sixth overall pick out of Oklahoma State in the 2014 NBA Draft for the Celtics, meaning that he's played his entire professional career here. Due to Kemba Walker's gimpy knee, Smart was the starting point guard for much of last season (45 of 48 regular season games) and as a result, he averaged a career-high in 13.1 points per game and 5.7 assists per game. Those are both pretty middle of the road numbers in the league and keep in mind, his individual highlights have been back-to-back NBA All-Defensive first team spots in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Those are nice honors but nothing to grossly overpay a guy like him for. The constant hype from the franchise, the team broadcasters, some media members and many fans doesn't help in this case leaving Smart to become a very polarizing figure: if you like the Celtics, you either love him or he drives you absolutely crazy and you totally hate almost everything about his game. 

    Smart must truly think that he is either Ray Allen or Stephen Curry with the amount of 3-pointers that he takes (5.9 per game last season and a career-high 6.6 the year before that) given that his 3-point percentage is terrible: 33% last season and 32% for his career. He has a very fiery personality which is quite unlike Jayson Tatum-the quiet superstar-or Jaylen Brown-the thoughtful All-Star. For these reasons, Smart has had infamous run-ins with many teammates, coaches and even himself (memorably punching a mirror a few years back on a road trip in LA). At this point in his career (7 seasons in) and age (27), he is not a kid anymore and while I wish he would just grow up, I doubt it'll occur when the Celts are still rewarding him with laughable money like this. I shudder to think how he'll function with his new teammate Dennis Schroder who is similarly nuts. Yikes, you want to hope that things will improve for Boston next season and beyond but a move like this makes you question everything about their plans for the near future.

Last Season Dennis Schroder Bet Big On Himself & That Didn't Turn Out So Well, Now He's A Celtic

    We have reached that sad dead zone in NBA free agency where almost all of the top players have long been scooped up and teams are left to fight over the crumbs or in this case, flawed guys that have shown flashes here or there but not enough to be more coveted. Enter guard Dennis Schroder: you might remember him as the bozo that for some unknown reason (was it a terrible agent or his irrational self-worth?) turned down a four-year, $84 million extension last spring with the Lakers. He didn't have a bad 2020-21 by any measure: in 61 starts for LA, he averaged 15.4 points per game, 5.8 assists per game and 1.1 steals per game. Apparently, that didn't impress anyone though (or maybe he's just a complete prick?) since he was still available until this evening when the Celtics reportedly agreed to a one-year contract with him for the mid-level exception ($5.9 million). 

    Boston will be the mercurial German's fourth NBA team (Atlanta and Oklahoma City being the others) in only nine seasons and with any luck, this will be the NBA equivalent of a one-night stand: quite enjoyable for both parties but ultimately nothing more lasting than that. Schroder will want to have a monster season individually with the C's so that when he goes back to free agency next summer, he will get paid much closer to that boatload of money that he laughably left on the table for the Lakers. Likewise, the Celtics desperately needed a starting point guard and this way, they aren't forced to shoehorn Marcus Smart into that spot every game or better yet, they can finally trade him. Haha yeah right, I'll believe that when I see it even with Danny Ainge out of the picture

    It has been an interesting ride in the NBA for Dennis The Menace (I can only assume that fantastic nickname hasn't caught on more because it's too dated?). He was a first-round pick-17th overall-for the Hawks in 2013 and after basically a redshirt year in his rookie season, he averaged 10 points per game his second season and that continued to go up his next three years in A-Town before they flipped him to the Thunder in a massive three-team trade that also involved the Sixers. After two pretty solid seasons in rebuilding OKC, he got to play with LeBron James for one fleeting campaign in LA. There are a couple notable Celtics connections to Schroder: as a Hawk, he had some epic playoff battles with the Celts early in his NBA career. Furthermore, he and former Boston point guard Rajon Rondo are mortal enemies that seem to legitimately hate each other and they always get into a hilarious shoving and shouting match every time that their numerous teams meet.

    The bottom line is that this should be an enjoyable hookup for both Schroder and Boston since nobody can deny his talent: his career-highs are 19.4 points per game (2017-18 w/ATL), 6.3 assists per game (the previous season with the Hawks) and those 1.1 steals per game (twice). You wish that he was a better shooter (just 33.7% career on 3-pointers) which no doubt makes Smart smile but at least he's a good free throw shooter (83.1% for his career). Dennis is listed at 6-foot-3 but only 172 pounds so new Celtics head coach Ime Udoka will surely need to be creative at times to protect him defensively and let the much bigger and stronger Smart take on the league's larger guards. I never thought in my life that I'd cheer for this joker but as long as he doesn't act like too much of a jackass, this is a solid move by Brad Stevens so late in free agency. Realistically, you couldn't have expected a much better player than him and we all like Payton Pritchard but he should never be more than a backup guard at this level.  

The Most Interesting Guy In The NBA (Enes Kanter) Returns To The Celtics On A One-Year Deal

 

    On day three of free agency in the NBA, I think that most realistic Celtics fans (granted that's an oxymoron) like myself have come to accept that they have absolutely no intention of making any big moves this summer. Instead, it's all about freeing up money for next offseason where they can hopefully take a run at Jayson Tatum's best friend Bradley Beal among other available stars. Sigh. Until then, last time that I checked they still have a season to play in 2021-2022 so at least the C's threw us a little bit of a bone this afternoon as Brad Stevens & Co. reportedly agreed to a one-year contract for $2.7 million (the veteran's minimum for a guy that's played 10+ seasons in the league) with center Enes Kanter. 

    You might remember him from his brief time in Boston two seasons ago before he spent last season with Portland (for the second time in his NBA career). Kanter is from Turkey and his feud with his homeland's crooked government has resulted in numerous death threats to both him and some of his family members but you have to respect that unlike most people these days, he's not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. In fact, he got barred from traveling to Canada (so no road games against the Raptors) but that didn't stop him from doing stuff like going to a Black Lives Matter rally in Boston when he was with the C's. Many other famous people should take note of how he rightly uses his platform as a professional athlete to speak out against the numerous injustices in the world. 

    On the court, Kanter fills an obvious void for a team that lacks size and not surprisingly often struggles to rebound as a result. Even though he is 29-years-old and a journeyman (this is the 5th different NBA team that he's played for), Kanter is one of the best rebounders in the league. Last season with the Blazers, he averaged 11.2 points per game and 11.0 rebounds per game-tied for the most in his career and the fourth time that he's averaged double-digit boards and double-digit points in the same season. For his career, he's averaged 11.5 points per game and 7.9 rebounds per game while shooting 54.8% from the field and 77.6% on free throws. It is a little surprising that he wanted to come back here since Boston in 2019-20 was one of the worst seasons in his NBA life: 8.1 points per game and 7.4 rebounds per game in just 16.9 minutes per game. The only two worse years were his first two in the league with Utah when he was 19 and 20-years-old so he obviously gets a pass for that. 

    You would figure that Robert Williams will be the starting center for the Celts next season but all he's proven in the NBA is that he gets hurt all the time between his flashes of brilliance. With Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic missing most of last season with injuries, Kanter ended up playing way more in his Portland return than probably he or the team had expected him to. He proved during that time that he can still be a starter in spurts as he used to be with Utah, Oklahoma City and New York. He even set a career-high with a 30-rebound performance (12 offensive and 18 defensive boards!) on April 10 in a win against the Pistons. Follow him on social media and you will soon discover that Kanter is one of the most likable people in all of sports; that might not mean much for Boston's win-loss record next season but at least he will make things a little more fun as the C's try to get back on the right track.

The Celtics Pulled Off A Sneaky Good Deal By Flipping Moses Brown For Josh Richardson

 

    While we wait for the three team trade between Boston, Atlanta and Sacramento to hopefully go through sometime soon, the Celtics did make another notable move over the weekend by trading center Moses Brown (we hardly knew ya!) to the Mavericks for guard Josh Richardson. It beats me if Brown is any good since he was here for a little over a month (dealt from Oklahoma City in the Al Horford/Kemba Walker trade) and finished his glorious Celtics career with a grand total of zero games played. Richardson on the other hand is a much more known commodity since he's played in the NBA for six seasons: four with Miami, one with Philadelphia and one with Dallas. In five of those six years including the last five in a row, he's averaged at least 10.2 points per game which doesn't sound like much but it's nothing to sniff at. 

    In many ways, Richardson has already exceeded any outside expectations for what he would do in the NBA since he was a second-round pick (40th overall) by the Heat in 2015 out of the University of Tennessee. His career averages are pretty solid across the board: 12.3 points per game, 1.1 steals per game, 42.7% field goal percentage, 35.8% 3-pointer percentage and 83.2% free throw percentage. He's definitely used to being a starter in the league since he has started in 299 of 373 possible games and averaged 30.6 minutes per game so it'll be interesting to see what role he carves out for the C's. His best season in a pro was in 2018-19-his last in Miami-when he averaged a career-high 16.6 points per game, 4.1 assists per game, 1.1 steals per game and shot 86.1% on free throws as he started all 73 games that he appeared in.

    Brad Stevens and the Celts still have plenty of work to do with free agency officially opening in the NBA on Monday night at 6 pm. Free agent swingman Evan Fournier-who is currently tearing it up at the Olympics with France-is the main internal question facing Boston: do they bring him back after they traded for him last season or do they let him walk? The aforementioned three-way trade would reportedly culminate with them acquiring former legendary Providence College point guard Kris Dunn and center Bruno Fernando from the Hawks while center Tristan Thompson will get sent to basketball Siberia aka the Kings. I'll save my thoughts on that move until it actually occurs (or sadly doesn't). Until then, let's hope that by whatever means necessary, Stevens & Co. can pick up some more quality players because the Celtics still need plenty of them to improve on their lackluster seventh-place finish in the Eastern Conference last season.

According To ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, The Next Head Coach Of The Celtics Will Be Ime Udoka

 

    If you know anything about the NBA, whatever Woj says is basically gospel so while the Celtics haven't confirmed this big news yet, I think that you can take it to the bank. First off, you are probably wondering who the hell is Ime Udoka? Well he was an NBA journeyman player turned assistant coach who has worked for San Antonio and Philadelphia before his most recent gig with Brooklyn. While he lacks the name brand of a Chauncey Billups (another finalist along with Darvin Ham for this job), he clearly has the resume of someone that has been around the league for a long time in multiple roles. Most importantly, he has the approval of Boston's best players-Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown-who he worked with at the 2019 FIBA World Cup on Team USA as an assistant coach. Marcus Smart was also on that team but unlike the Celtics, I'm not going to pretend like he is some linchpin of this club.  

    Without ever hearing it directly, I think it is safe to assume that one of the main reasons that Brad Stevens burned out as the Celtics head coach is that he probably failed to connect with many of his players. Right off the bat, Udoka checks many of the boxes that Stevens never can: he's Nigerian-American and he played for parts of seven seasons in the NBA with the Lakers, Knicks, Blazers, Spurs and Kings. He is also on the younger side (43) for a head coach like Stevens so that should also help him in terms of relating to current NBA stars some of whom are basically half his age. Off the court, he's obviously doing something right since his longtime partner is actress Nia Long-of Friday and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air fame.

    Stevens has a brilliant basketball mind but every coach-particularly those at the highest level and in a player-driven league like the NBA-has a shelf life. Boston has more than enough talent to finish better than seventh-place in the Eastern Conference like they did in the shameful 2020-21 regular season. It is all about maximizing their time with Tatum and Brown because once those current contracts end, who knows if they will still want to stay here for much longer? While the value of an NBA head coach on the surface is pretty low these days, one of their main purposes is to be liked (or at least tolerated) by the team's star players. If you have them on your side, then you have a shot at getting the most out of them. If not, you run the risk of losing your job very quickly since a coach is always easier to part with than a top talent in a league that is mostly built on accumulating it.

    Finally, in 2021 you simply cannot overlook the fact that in a league filled with players that are predominantly not white, it makes sense to have a coach that looks like most of the players. That is not to say that white head coaches can't be successful anymore but I am happy to see the Celts recognize that Udoka was a solid candidate (along with two other African-Americans) based on his own merits and it was long overdue to go in a different direction in terms of the race of the head coach. This is a franchise with a long history of great black head coaches: from Bill Russell to KC Jones and in more recent years Doc Rivers. Hopefully in the not too distant future, Ime Udoka will be remembered as one of the main factors in a positive culture shift within the C's when they desperately needed it most.

In Brad Stevens' First Move In His New Role With The Celtics, He Flips Kemba Walker For Al Horford

 

    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.

The Next Day After Bowing Out Of The Playoffs, The Celtics Made Some Major Personnel Moves

 

    Haha wow, that didn't take long did it? Mere hours after the short playoff stint ended for the Celtics, they were right back in the news this morning with the bombshell news that GM/President of Basketball Operations is retiring from the team while head coach Brad Stevens is being shifted over to that position. The C's hate firing people publicly so this lightning fast reaction to such a miserable season is curious. Ainge has had a bunch of heart issues so it makes sense that he needs a less busy schedule and the team is paying Stevens so much money in the near future that they might as well keep him around in some role. 

    NBA head coaches are mostly useless, their day-to-day purpose is basically to get out of the way for the star players and coach up the lesser talents while you pray that the top guys can tolerate you. Sounds fun huh? Nobody could argue that Stevens is one of the top basketball minds in the world but after eight seasons here, I'm sure he is a little tired of all the NBA drama after coming from a relatively low-key college environment at Butler. With that said, who Boston chooses is their next head coach is a very important decision. To connect with their two best players-Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown-it would make perfect sense to hire a young African-American that preferably played in the NBA in recent years. Getting a retread like former Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce or Lakers assistant (and former Bucks head coach) Jason Kidd-who have already been rumored to come here-would be a mistake. I feel like a guy such as Chauncey Billups-current Clippers assistant coach-is the ideal candidate. He was a great player, won an NBA championship and is tough-minded so he wouldn't shy away from criticizing Tatum or Brown when they needed some harsh words. 

        As for Ainge, he did not officially retire from the NBA so don't be surprised at all if he pops up somewhere else. Obviously the Utah Jazz are a slam dunk choice for him since he's from Utah, went to BYU and is a Mormon. There was even talk today that he bought a property in Utah in the last few months. Ainge had a great run with the Celtics as a player and then as a GM (the only guy to win titles in both jobs) but it was clear, that he might be too old and out of touch not to mention his drafts have been mostly awful outside of Brown and Tatum. Every job has an expiration date and the Celts need some new voices and ideas. Clearly, they are going nowhere fast right now and while having the best players is what the league is all about, it also helps to have somebody that attracts the best free agents. Stay tuned, if today is any indication, it's going to be a wild summer for the Celtics. 

Can Anything Go Right For the Celtics These Days?

When the sobering news came out on Friday night that Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo had broken his left hand, it felt like a cruel joke to a team that currently has no good luck whatsoever. It was dutifully reported by Celtics reporters that he slipped in the shower at his house, haha yeah OK. Regardless of how it happened (as long as it wasn't a domestic issue, who cares?), it casts an even deeper depression over what already promised to be another Lottery-bound season for the Green and White.

Training camp opens on Monday with their first preseason game scheduled for a week after that vs. Philadelphia. PS did you know there are eight preseason games, why exactly? Their regular season opener is October 29 vs. Brooklyn (who no longer has Paul Pierce) at TD Garden.

The ripple effects of this injury to Boston's best player are large: Rondo had surgery today but he's expected to miss between six and eight weeks so he could be out until Thanksgiving. Can the Celtics just skip this sure-to-be miserable campaign? Ugh, what a mess. I'm sure plenty of know-it-alls will fault the C's for not trading him last season (or earlier) when they had a chance. They stubbornly stuck by him as they try to rebuild one of the NBA's marquee franchises that has become completely irrelevant the last few years.

Rondo was misleadingly durable his first few seasons but I guess it makes sense that injuries are starting to pile up now (elbow, ACL, hand) since he's tiny by the NBA's cartoonish standards. He missed 95 games in the past two seasons so that total will only increase. This also means that Phil Pressey and rookie Marcus Smart (Rondo's understudy) will get much more playing time from day one which is slightly horrifying especially if your name is Brad Stevens and you'd like to win in the NBA at some point.

There just is no positive way to spin this for the Celtics. To make matters worse for all parties involved, Rondo is an unrestricted free agent after 2014-15 so his value will be even lower and I doubt there would be a real market for him. So neither he nor the team can really cash in on his unique talents. As if it hadn't already begun, I guess it's officially time to start the countdown for Tankapalooza Part 2. Haha Boston is bound to win the draft lottery at some point, right? Actually, don't answer that.

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Now I've Seen Everything: Jordan Crawford Named Eastern Conference Player of the Week

No single player better epitomizes Boston's (10-12) unexpectedly good (relatively speaking in the wasteland that is the Atlantic Division) start in 2013-14 than Jordan Crawford. When he was acquired last season from Washington, he seemed like a terrible fit: a me-first guy on a team of mostly unselfish players. That's why then head coach Doc Rivers buried him on the bench.

It's been a completely different story for Crawford this season, with Rajon Rondo still out recovering from knee surgery and Brad Stevens in charge, Crawford has been the de-facto point guard since Avery Bradley is an awful ball-handler and can't be trusted with the most important job on a basketball team. To everyone's surprise, Crawford is playing better than he ever has in his four years in the NBA. Today he was named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week while Portland power forward LaMarcus Aldridge received the honors for the Western Conference.

In three games last week (all Celtics wins), Crawford had 25 points and five assists against the Bucks on Tuesday, 22 points and eight assists against the Nuggets on Friday and 23 points and seven assists in Boston's blowout win at New York yesterday afternoon. He's also shooting 3-pointers at a very high clip lately. He had four vs. Milwaukee, two vs. Denver and six vs. New York.

What remains to be seen is what the C's do with Crawford once Rondo returns, then again maybe that won't be for a while (a man can dream, right?). Regardless, Crawford has proven to be a solid NBA player and now he suddenly is valuable either to Boston's future or they can trade him for something decent in return.

Boston is at Brooklyn (6-14) tomorrow night (7:30, CSN) to face the ghost of Kevin Garnett with bozo rookie head coach Jason Kidd intentionally spilling drinks on the court.

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Boston's Tank for Wiggins Campaign Hits Its First Pothole of the Season

You might have noticed that I hadn't written a word about the Celtics since they started their sure to be wretched season a week ago. That wasn't my intention but simply a product of having so many conflicts and not enough hours in the day to watch everything. I had DVR'd a couple of the previous contests but didn't end up watching them, that changed tonight as I saw the Celts (1-4 overall, 1-1 home) pick up their first win of the season, 97-87 over the Jazz (0-5 overall, 0-3 away) at TD Garden.

Head coach Brad Stevens notched his first NBA win, ironically when one of his former star players at Butler-Gordon Heyward-dropped a game-high 28 points with nine rebounds and five assists for Utah. He'll be a free agent this summer, do I smell a reunion? Brandon Bass led Boston with 20 points and Jeff Green added 18.

Enes Kanter had 22 points and eight rebounds, old man Richard Jefferson put up 13 points and five steals while Derrick Favors had 10 points, 13 rebounds and three blocks for the Jazz. Utah's bench only managed 14 total points, the same amount that Boston rookie Kelly Olynyk (8 rebounds) picked up. Jared Sullinger also thrived off the bench for the C's with 12 points and five rebounds.

As everyone knows, for Boston 2013-14 is all about losing as much as they possibly can in hopes of getting a high lottery pick in what should be a loaded draft. When you look at their fatally flawed roster and painfully thin bench, you realize that the Jazz could be one of the Celtics' biggest rivals in terms of racking up the most losses.

By design, the Celts got up by 25 points (70-45) in the third quarter before they tried everything in their power to gag it away. The Jazz cut it to six in the fourth (89-83) but they couldn't come all the way back. Looking beyond the main guys, Avery Bradley (8 points, 6 rebounds) and Gerald Wallace (9 points, 9 rebounds) each played well in the win.

The Jazz actually led 26-23 after the first quarter but Utah scored only eight points (eight points!) in the second quarter to trail 50-34 at halftime. In a few of the four losses, the Celtics held big leads only to fall apart but this margin was too wide and the opposition too terrible to slip on another banana peel tonight.

Boston outscored Utah 34-28 in the third quarter before going to sleep in the fourth and watching the Jazz take it to them 25-13 but it was much too late. Other than the bench scoring (44-14), the two main reasons that the Celts won was that they hit six more 3-pointers (7-1) and dished out eight more assists (22-14).

Up next, the C's travel to Orlando on Friday (7, CSN) to take on the surprising Magic (3-2) who were supposed to be one of the main tanking squads. I guess they didn't get the memo that winning isn't the important thing for a team like them. Boston has a back-to-back as they are in Miami on Saturday.

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Apparently Dana "Bing, Bang, Boom" Barros Wasn't Available

I can appreciate the fact that the Celtics are doing everything they can to distract their fans from the impending doom of the 2013-14 season. Tonight, their latest newsworthy item is they have added former C's legend (at least according to broadcaster/crazy old man Tommy Heinsohn) Walter McCarty to be an assistant coach under new head coach Brad Stevens.

We can't chalk this up as totally a PR move since Walta does have some coaching experience: at Louisville (2007-08) with Rick Pitino (his head coach at Kentucky) and the Pacers (2010-11). He reportedly beat out another fan favorite-James Posey-for this last coveted spot on the bench. The funny part about McCarty being hired is that he's three years older (39) than Stevens. The other assistants are Ron Adams (longtime NBA assistant), Micah Shrewsberry (Stevens' assistant at Butler) along with Jay Larranaga and Jamie Young (holdovers from Doc Rivers' staff).

In a weird way, it'll be nice to see a familiar face in all those huddles while the Celts are getting pummeled by teams across the NBA. Walter stayed close with the franchise, he was often spotted sitting in a courtside seat the last few seasons so he should have some good ideas about the current roster. If nothing else, this will allow us to dig out all those old Walta jerseys and t-shirt jerseys with his name on them and pretend that they have value again, that is assuming that they ever did in the first place.

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Who's Ready To Lose A Bunch of Games? Celtics Unveil Their 2013-14 Schedule

It's a strange feeling when you look at the Celtics' 2013-14 schedule which just came out today. Naturally you want to get excited about certain games and matchups but then you remember that in order for the C's to return to relevance (only 6 national TV games this season), they need to pile up losses like the Bobcats. Sorry Brad Stevens, you know that I love you.

Perhaps nothing says more about where Boston is viewed to be now in the NBA spectrum than their opening two games: October 30 at Toronto and November 1 vs. Milwaukee. Could you get two more bland contests than that? Everyone wants to know when the C's will play the Nets (with Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce) and Clippers (with Doc Rivers coaching) and the NBA made the curious decision to have the first meetings on back-to-back nights: December 10 in Brooklyn and the next night in Boston (vs. LA) which kicks off a five-game homestand.

Other games of note include what is sure to be a serious beating handed to them by the two-time defending champs-the Heat-on November 9 in Miami and the first game against the Knicks is December 8 in NYC. Boston doesn't get to play on Christmas this season (which probably isn't a bad thing) but they do host the Hawks on New Year's Eve afternoon!

The Celtics open 2014 in Chicago on January 2 as six of their first seven games are on the road. In that stretch, they go to Oklahoma City (January 5) to face Jeff Green's old team (reaching for straws here)-the start of a five-game trip-then visit Doc in LA on January 8. Celtics-Lakers Volume 1 is January 17 at TD Garden, I wonder if Kobe Bryant will be playing?

One of the only must-see games of the season comes on January 26 as the Nets make their first trip to the Garden. Expect an epic amount of ballwashing for KG and Pierce, not that they don't deserve it. Celtics-Spurs happens on November 20 in San Antonio and February 12 in Boston. March ends with home-and-homes against the Raptors and Bulls.

The regular season ends on April 16 as the Celts will host the Wizards in a game that I feel confident in saying should mean very little for either squad besides maybe posturing for the 2014 NBA Draft lottery.

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Brad Stevens Continues To Surround Himself With Guys From The Butler University

The Celtics are not going to win that many games next season but the good news is that they promise to be way more interesting than they have a right to be. Boston head coach Brad Stevens continued to mine his Butler pipeline as news surfaced today that he hired his former guard Ronald Nored (who played on both Final Four squads) to a player development role with the C's and Maine Red Claws (their D-League team).

If you're scoring at home, Nored (who's 23) becomes the third Butler connection in Boston next season. Statistics guru Drew Cannon (Nick's younger brother?) and assistant coach Micah Shrewsberry (great name) were also brought over from the Hoosier State.

After a solid college career as a smart and tough overachiever in the Stevens mold, Nored spent last season as an assistant coach at South Alabama. To bring a guy this young and inexperienced (in the conventional way) to the NBA shows how much Brad must love him. Keep in mind this is a guy that he recruited then had play for him at Butler all four seasons. In short, he must know him inside and out.

All this makes me wonder if I should apply for some made up position with the C's. If only I had something that tied me to Butler then I'd be a shoe in. For real though, Boston's staff is sure to be the youngest in the NBA in 2013-2014 with Stevens, Cannon and Nored along with longtime NBA assistant Ron Adams and holdovers from Doc Rivers' staff last season in Jay Larranaga and Jamie Young.

UPDATE 8/2: The Celtics released Shavlik Randolph so now they have the regular season limit of 15 players on the roster.

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Your Next Head Coach of the Boston Celtics: Brad Stevens?!

There is no bigger proponent or fan of Twitter than me but I will say that this fantastic tool (that I spend way too much time on every day) has taken one thing away from my obsession with sports: surprises. Whether it be player moves, coaching hires or anything else involving my favorite teams, it has been almost impossible to pull a fast one on me since I first logged on to Twitter a few years ago. I have to say that today's huge news shocked me: Brad Stevens has been named the new head coach (17th all-time) of the Boston Celtics. Through all the rumors since Doc Rivers left, I had never heard Stevens' name mentioned even once. For instance, the Boston Globe had a story today listing 13 possible candidates and he wasn't one of them.

Yes the same guy that led Butler to the NCAA Tournament championship game in back-to-back years (2010 and 2011) where they lost to Duke and UConn respectively. As a college hoops fanatic, I love it way more than the flawed NBA, I am bummed out because in his six years with the Bulldogs I came to love Stevens and his style of coaching. Who couldn't root for this young guy (36, youngest head coach in NBA) with marginally talented players at a small school in Indiana that kept making insane runs in the NCAA Tournament?

Butler has always been into basketball but Stevens put them on the map by going 166-49 and 12-5 in the NCAA Tournament with the Bulldogs. Nothing better illustrates that then looking at how they've upgraded conferences three years in a row: from the Horizon League to the Atlantic-10 and two days ago they began life in the new look Big East. They were always one of those teams that nobody wanted to play in March/April. How that translates to the NBA is impossible to say. We all know how badly Rick Pitino (with the Celts) and John Calipari (Nets) fell on their faces when they came to the NBA. Then they went back to the college game and reached the top of their professions. In college you are a teacher more than a coach whereas in the NBA you are just trying to reach the stars on your team and hoping that they're on your side.

On the surface Stevens seems like the perfect guy for the Celts since they are already underway on a serious rebuilding/tanking effort at least for the next season. I'm really pleased that Danny Ainge didn't go with a nameless assistant coach or one of the veteran NBA coaches that had been fired recently (Lionel Hollins or George Karl). This is a fresh start and a big name (for basketball fans, not NBA people) that the team can build around. Yes I realize that the NBA is all about the players but having Stevens who is so energetic, smart, well-spoken and normal (thank you Midwest) will help them stay sane between all the losses that are sure to pile up.

All I know is that the next few seasons (he's reportedly getting a six-year deal worth $22 million dollars at Friday's introductory press conference) for the Celtics are about to be way more interesting than any of us could have reasonably expected. By thinking outside of the box and doing some FBI level work behind close doors and away from the media/cameras, Ainge has hit a home run in my humble opinion. This is a great moment for the Celtics as they now employ one of the best minds in basketball (any level) from around the globe.

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