Offseason Grades - Boston Celtics

[bondom34]

Posting this one late night so its up tomorrow morning, next up with a guest, the Boston Celtics:

SmartWentCrazy's Grade:

Boston Celtics transactions

Front Office
Replaced Danny Ainge with Brad Stevens, replaced Stevens as coach with Ime Udoka.

I have been wanting the team to move on from Stevens for quite some time— his offensive system has been downright terrible for a few years now, where people are parked in the corners and the wings/PG are tasked with running a high PnR and ultimately taking way too many mid range Jumpers with little ball movement or cutting.

Ainge, too, has been quite bad over the last several years and it was pretty clear that it was time for the team to move on. He did a ton to elevate the Celtics from tanking to playoff contender quickly but he squandered so many resources the past few years needlessly because he was afraid to ever overpay.

However, while I think it was wise for the team to move on from both, the process of replacing Ainge with Stevens felt needlessly rushed and that they never really interviewed anyone else which seems quite unwise to me.

Draft

Drafted Juhann Begarin at #45.

He’s a project that has interesting physical tools. Not much to be happy or sad about when youre picking this late.

Trades


- traded Kemba Walker, 2021 1st (#16) and 2025 2nd for Al Horford, Moses Brown and 2023 2nd.
- traded Tristan Thompson for Kris Dunn, Bruno Fernando and 2023 2nd in three-team deal.
- traded Moses Brown for Josh Richardson (using TPE).

I was quite happy with the Kemba trade— the cost of the 16th pick is definitely steep— but, given that the Thunder bought out Kemba so quickly I’m guessing this was the only real trade out there and the Celtics absolutely needed to move on.

I liked the Richardson trade, though extending him was curious. The team just needs actual NBA talent on its bench and this will only help.

The Tristan deal was meh to me. I wish they just kept Delon Wright instead of flipping him to Atlanta, but they needed to move on from Tristan after trading Kemba for Horford.

Free Agency
- signed Enes Kanter, 1/min.
- extended Marcus Smart, 4/$77M
- signed Dennis Schroeder 1/$5.9M
- extended Josh Richardson, 1/$12M
-extended Robert Williams, 4/$54M

Signing Shroeder was a great move and the Celtics got lucky there. Signing Smart was fine, its not really team or player friendly but I’m happy the team locked him up long term. The Richardson deal confuses me but its not really a hurtful contract either— guessing the team backchannel promised him this as an enticement to opt in. Kanter at the minimum is fine.

I personally loved the Robert Williams extension. Its really 4/48 and the remaining 6M will only kick in if he plays 69+ games. Its a gamble, sure, but I think its a smart one for the team to engage in. He’s 6’9 with a 7’6 wingspan and nuclear athleticism. He has sneaky passing vision, flashed the ability to switch and can be really disruptive defensively. It may not work out, but, if he’s able to stay heathy this deal could end up looking really well in two years.


Offseason Thoughts

Overall, I thought it was a fine offseason— nothing special but nothing terrible either. Some will dislike letting Fournier walk, but he just didn't have a clue defensively last year and its clear that the team is trying to make defense their identity.

Grade

C+ to B-.

2022 Prediction

I think the team has a sneaky chance to get a ton of fraud wins next year with defense and effort. They absolutely will not be contenders, but they’ll be fun, try hard and rack up wins during the middle of winter and other teams stop caring as much. Fournier’s loss will be overstated record wise— he played a little more than a dozen regular season games last year and all were after he got COVID and needed an inhaler.

The Celtica were far and away the team most impacted by COVID last year, which feels like it probably wont happen again. With better injury luck [Kemba, Smart, RWIII and Brown all missed extended time at various stretches last year, Tatum and RWIII got COVID], they should go over their projected 46 win over/under. I’d guess 48 to 51 wins.


Offseason in gif form



K_Chile22's Grade:

Boston Celtics transactions

Front Office
Replaced Danny Ainge with Brad Stevens, replaced Stevens as coach with Ime Udoka.

Draft
Drafted Juhann Begarin at #45.

Trades
- traded Kemba Walker, 2021 1st (#16) and 2025 2nd for Al Horford, Moses Brown and 2023 2nd.
- traded Tristan Thompson for Kris Dunn, Bruno Fernando and 2023 2nd in three-team deal.
- traded Moses Brown for Josh Richardson (using TPE).

Free Agency
- signed Enes Kanter, 1/min.
- extended Marcus Smart, 4/$77M
- extended Josh Richardson, 1/$12M
-extended Robert Williams, 4/$54M

Offseason Thoughts:

Direction seems clear: Try to trade for a star in a few years. All three extensions keep salary spots alive past this season. Like the Williams (after seeing incentives) and Smart deals well enough, JRich just seems like keeping salary filler around, which is fine.
I think the Horford trade is fine, think he's got gas left in the tank and the kemba thing seemed to have ran it's course, giving up the 16th pick is rough for that swap but they need to start focusing on the present finally.
I don't get how the kings traded Wright for Thompson, but the Celtics ended up with a bunch of salary flotsam instead of wright who could help them. Not a huge deal but seems like a weird decision.


Grade:
C+

2022 Prediction:

Fighting to avoid the play-in game, 6th-9th seed

Offseason in gif form:


Bondom34's Grade:

Boston Celtics transactions

Front Office
Replaced Danny Ainge with Brad Stevens, replaced Stevens as coach with Ime Udoka.

Draft
Drafted Juhann Begarin at #45.

Trades
- traded Kemba Walker, 2021 1st (#15) and 2025 2nd for Al Horford, Moses Brown and 2023 2nd.
- traded Tristan Thompson for Kris Dunn, Bruno Fernando and 2023 2nd in three-team deal.
- traded Moses Brown for Josh Richardson (using TPE).

Free Agency
- signed Enes Kanter, 1/min.
- extended Marcus Smart, 4/$77M
- Signed Dennis Schroeder 1/$5.9M
- extended Josh Richardson, 1/$12M
-extended Robert Williams, 4/$54M

Offseason Thoughts
Well now what am I going to do with all of the Ainge jokes?

OK, it was Brad Stevens's first offseason as general manager and by and it felt like a bunch of moves I may not love but don't hate and absolutely see the idea of, so I came out feeling at least OK on, even if at times it felt like they were going all in on some nostalgia for the Celtics of a few years ago.

Starting out early by hiring Ime Udoka...honestly I can't even really grade this as I don't know enough about him other than seeing the name in coaching rumors in the past. Trading Walker and 16 for Horford, which helped both financially and in terms of health on court could be good even if Kemba was a really helpful offensive player. I think I'm probably higher on Walker than consensus but the problem wasn't production when on court it was that he often couldn't get on court to begin with. Felt like a pretty fair deal on both sides. Dumping Thompson for some depth was fine as well and nothing I really feel too strong on.

On to some of the "bigger" moves swapping in Richardson for the remainder of the Hayward TPE and extending him feels to me more like a potential future trade chip/salary matching than anything but seems approximately fair value so works. Locking in Smart on a decent contract also made a bunch of sense just in terms of building some trust and keeping a major contributor around and Kanter for the min is whatever. Their last free agency move seemed like the most controversial but seeing Williams only having $48M on that deal other than unlikely bonuses from reporting looks to my eyes like a contract for a center that at worst isn't crippling and at best is a very valuable contract for a player who might be a quality starter if healthy (in a year if they move on from Horford he may be needed as well). Finally adding Schroeder at that price can't really be called much other than team friendly.

Overall an offseason that wasn't groundbreaking but after last year's issues with COVID and injuries I tend to be higher on Boston bouncing back and not shaking up too much made some sense. I'm less sure they really improved due to this offseason but they kept flexibility in the future. Nothing great, nothing bad.

Grade
B- (Full disclosure I had this as a straight B but bumped it down a touch after seeing others , I'm higher on Boston than most this year but not sure its due to these moves) Still a fine offseason but reading others I may have been too lenient toward separating the difference. I'm not sure there was anything they did that was straight up bad, but I'm also not sure there was anything amazing either.

2022 Prediction
4th in the east

Offseason in gif form

[bondom34]

...

Tagging the guest reviewer as well, and thanks for doing this!

[bondom34]

Also in the like 10 minutes since posting this I've edited because I honestly can't decide if I feel like this is a B or B- sometimes, I'm high on Boston but don't know if they did anything here that bumps it up over a B-, but nothing to knock it below that either. Seems they're all in for next offseason for better or worse.

[5paceman]

B

I like the moves to get Horford and Kanter back and move Kemba. Didn't seem like they had many options beyond trading Brown and nobody else they are willing to part with is that attractive to other teams. Richardson and Schroeder were good pickups. The Smart and Williams extensions were reasonable.

[shangrila]

I'd go B-. Nothing special but nothing to crucify them for either.

[DroseReturnChi]

i was going to give them a fat F but dennis made me turn to C.

[cl2117]

I'm gonna go with a B+

I think realistically the moves warrant a B-/B, but I think the fact that it feels like they've locked in on a short-term direction warrants the upgrade.

I'm a huge Ainge/Stevens supporter, but even I was getting to the stage where I thought some change was needed. Brad felt like he had lost the locker room to an extent. Just didn't feel like he was able to break through to the players and became noise that they were tuning out. Bringing in Udoka and moving Brad to POBO is a really solid transition. I like Brad's basketball mind, I think he'll do well in the new role and Udoka similarly seems to be a smart guy with a strong resume and schemes that will translate well to this roster.

Outside of the front office moves, the rest felt like 1 step backwards and 1 step forwards. Despite being back in the same spot in terms of talent the direction feels a lot better than last season. There is a core locked in for at least two years, some really tradeable contracts and balance in terms of roster construction/scheme that I'm excited about.

Trades:
Kemba deal- B+
I've got to eat some crow on the Kemba deal, which I thought was far too steep a price given that Horford's bad contract was coming back the other way but with how quickly OKC gave up on him it looks like that was indeed an OK price to move off that deal.

TT deal- B
I was originally just 'meh' on the TT deal since Wright felt like a great fit for the backcourt, but once they landed Schroder that criticism no longer seems valid.

Richardson deal- B+
Loved the Richardson deal and I'm ok with the extension. His skillset fits in perfectly being able to play on ball and very switchable defense. He and Smart will be a really disruptive duo. I also like that Udoka has experience with JRich from his Philly stint that I'm hoping helps him get his mojo back more easily.

Free Agency:
Schroder singing: A+: can't knock the value. Fell in our laps, gotta be happy about it especially after losing Fournier
Kanter singing- A: love the big fella, think he fits in really nicely and is a steal at that price point)
Smart extension- B+: like this both for the on the court value but also what it does for extending the shelf life of our assets
Timelord extension: A-: I'm a huge Timelord-stan, think the potential is through the roof and this money is more than reasonable
Richardson extension: B: it's a little pricey, but it's not going to end up being a bad deal, gives them more trade fodder

Draft:
Begarin- B: draft and stash in the mid-second round, it is what it is

2022 Prediction:

I think they overachieve in the regular season and land 4th/5th seed with something north of 45 wins. Unless Tatum/Brown make another leap I see them getting muscled out of the playoffs by a top 3 team, but I feel like with the focus on defense/switchability they'll be a really tough out.

I know the word treadmill gets tossed around a lot, but this summer was the first in a while where it started to feel applicable to the C's. There was so much action/movement without feeling like we moved forward or backwards in any meaningful way in terms of overall talent. That being said this year just feels different with the front office shake up and a bit more of a team identity. I'm cautiously optimistic, but also very aware that it might be a deja vu year.

[SmartWentCrazy]

I think the Celtics are in prime position to win a ton of fraud games like the Knicks did last year. Their health [both COVID and injury wise] should improve dramatically and their team is much deeper now relative to last year [Shroeder and Horford are two of the better bench PGs/Cs in the league]. They’re not a contender, but defense and depth can win you a ton of regular season games.

The team and fans should embrace the fraud— as mentioned, they have a ton of tradable contracts and winning as many games as possible will only up their appeal to any potential trade targets.

[SmartWentCrazy]

Also in the like 10 minutes since posting this I've edited because I honestly can't decide if I feel like this is a B or B- sometimes, I'm high on Boston but don't know if they did anything here that bumps it up over a B-, but nothing to knock it below that either. Seems they're all in for next offseason for better or worse.

I think I was too harsh, to be honest. It was a good offseason overall and they added actual NBA players to their bench. With health hopefully no longer being outlier poor, they should win a lot more games than last year.

[Texas Chuck]

I wish I could share some of the optimism here, but I do not see a 50 win team in what is becoming a more competitive conference. Chicago is better, Toronto will be better, Charlotte and Indiana should be better, Miami will be better. Knicks probably drop back a bit, Washington might too and Orlando, Detroit, and Cleveland have a lot to prove. But on paper I can't see Boston as a top 5 team in the East.

Most of their moves seem fine on the surface though jumping on Richardson that early using up a TPE, committing to tax, and extending him confuses me. He should help the depth, but as a primary move? Seemed odd. Especially since they then had to get really fortunate to find a veteran PG who could start for a year.

I imagine they won't be a lot of fun to play against on a nightly basis so I do agree a bit with SWC about stealing a few wins, but feels like a roster with as many questions as answers and I expected Brad to have been so tired of trying to coach a roster with so much dead weight at the back that he would have jumped at the chance to fix that, but then I look up and see Dunn, Fernando, Edwards, and Parker. And while its probably worth giving some of the other young guys another year, how much can they count on from Langford and Nesmith and Pritchard and Williams? That's nearly half your roster.

Would have liked to have seem them key in on a couple of those young guys and try and move the others out for more vets their new coach can trust. I think there are going to be too many nights where he looks down his bench and just kinda goes guess I'll try this guy but I hate it.

[Prokorov]

I think the moves they made were... ok... but i think that fact that they made a seismic shift was an enormously positive move:

-Ainge out
-Stevens form coach to GM
-Ime in, defensive minded, and having a black coach in general
-Dumped kemba/fournier (alot of volume)

Maybe they dont have enough offense and still havent found that playmaking piece to go with tatum/brown but they brought in some defenders who dont need the ball and schroeder gives them a legit NBA player off the bench. maybe it doesnt work this year but they were on a slow downward trajectory towards mediocrity and one of the J's bouncing at first oppotinity

C+ for the moves
A+ for the pivot
B overall

[Prokorov]

I wish I could share some of the optimism here, but I do not see a 50 win team in what is becoming a more competitive conference. Chicago is better, Toronto will be better, Charlotte and Indiana should be better, Miami will be better. Knicks probably drop back a bit, Washington might too and Orlando, Detroit, and Cleveland have a lot to prove. But on paper I can't see Boston as a top 5 team in the East.

I don't know if I agree with this. I'm not sure why the Bulls will difinitively be better. they werent better when they added vucevic. im not sure moving glue guys like Thad for another high volume scorer like derozan moves the needle a ton from a wins perspective. If the bulls get better, its cause lavine takes another big leap. I dont really see them as for sure better. i think they could disappoint just as easy as improve.

Charlotte maybe gets better. they have alot of promising youth. Does heyward stay healthy? I dont see what they did that makes them improve moreso then boston, who was already ahead of them. Again, maybe one of their young guys takes a leap plus year 2 of lamello. but i dont see some team that is poised to leapfrog anyone. Pacers? i dont see what improves there. Levert continues to prove he is nowhere close to the hype and can never stay healthy.

Toronto i can see maybe improve, they came on strong later in the year. they still wont have a home this season.

Boston has the best player and maybe 2nd best player of the pool of all those teams. added depth (they lacked nba players on the bench) and have defenders that usually help grind out what above was accurately referred to as "fraud wins"

maybe its short of 50 wins, but i think bostons floor is at/bear some of those other teams medians/ceilings

[Texas Chuck]

I wish I could share some of the optimism here, but I do not see a 50 win team in what is becoming a more competitive conference. Chicago is better, Toronto will be better, Charlotte and Indiana should be better, Miami will be better. Knicks probably drop back a bit, Washington might too and Orlando, Detroit, and Cleveland have a lot to prove. But on paper I can't see Boston as a top 5 team in the East.

I don't know if I agree with this. I'm not sure why the Bulls will difinitively be better. they werent better when they added vucevic. im not sure moving glue guys like Thad for another high volume scorer like derozan moves the needle a ton from a wins perspective. If the bulls get better, its cause lavine takes another big leap. I dont really see them as for sure better. i think they could disappoint just as easy as improve.

Charlotte maybe gets better. they have alot of promising youth. Does heyward stay healthy? I dont see what they did that makes them improve moreso then boston, who was already ahead of them. Again, maybe one of their young guys takes a leap plus year 2 of lamello. but i dont see some team that is poised to leapfrog anyone. Pacers? i dont see what improves there. Levert continues to prove he is nowhere close to the hype and can never stay healthy.

Toronto i can see maybe improve, they came on strong later in the year. they still wont have a home this season.

Boston has the best player and maybe 2nd best player of the pool of all those teams. added depth (they lacked nba players on the bench) and have defenders that usually help grind out what above was accurately referred to as "fraud wins"

maybe its short of 50 wins, but i think bostons floor is at/bear some of those other teams medians/ceilings

Yeah sorry I should have been clearer. I'm not saying all those teams are necessarily better than Boston, just better than they were last year making wins harder to come by.

Those of us who root for Western teams have long lived in a world where you only have a couple gimme wins in your conference schedule whereas in the East for a long time now, there have always been 5-6 just dreadful teams for the good teams to pad their records on. That won't be the case to start the season next year, it will be much more like the West where even the "bad" teams can beat you.

[Prokorov]

I wish I could share some of the optimism here, but I do not see a 50 win team in what is becoming a more competitive conference. Chicago is better, Toronto will be better, Charlotte and Indiana should be better, Miami will be better. Knicks probably drop back a bit, Washington might too and Orlando, Detroit, and Cleveland have a lot to prove. But on paper I can't see Boston as a top 5 team in the East.

I don't know if I agree with this. I'm not sure why the Bulls will difinitively be better. they werent better when they added vucevic. im not sure moving glue guys like Thad for another high volume scorer like derozan moves the needle a ton from a wins perspective. If the bulls get better, its cause lavine takes another big leap. I dont really see them as for sure better. i think they could disappoint just as easy as improve.

Charlotte maybe gets better. they have alot of promising youth. Does heyward stay healthy? I dont see what they did that makes them improve moreso then boston, who was already ahead of them. Again, maybe one of their young guys takes a leap plus year 2 of lamello. but i dont see some team that is poised to leapfrog anyone. Pacers? i dont see what improves there. Levert continues to prove he is nowhere close to the hype and can never stay healthy.

Toronto i can see maybe improve, they came on strong later in the year. they still wont have a home this season.

Boston has the best player and maybe 2nd best player of the pool of all those teams. added depth (they lacked nba players on the bench) and have defenders that usually help grind out what above was accurately referred to as "fraud wins"

maybe its short of 50 wins, but i think bostons floor is at/bear some of those other teams medians/ceilings

Yeah sorry I should have been clearer. I'm not saying all those teams are necessarily better than Boston, just better than they were last year making wins harder to come by.

Those of us who root for Western teams have long lived in a world where you only have a couple gimme wins in your conference schedule whereas in the East for a long time now, there have always been 5-6 just dreadful teams for the good teams to pad their records on. That won't be the case to start the season next year, it will be much more like the West where even the "bad" teams can beat you.

Ah ok, that makes more sense. yeah your not getting 10-12 layup wins a year vs. awful teams at home like years past. even the "bad teams" arent that bad. outside of maybe detroit orlando everyone one is competitive to solid. and grant/cade are good enough to beat anyone if they overlook them. its not 6 tank commanders like it used to be

[HornetJail]

I'm giving Boston a C and that feels generous. Stevens seems hell bent on reliving the glory days of 2018, but this squad isn't going anywhere. I liked the Time Lord extension and to a certain degree, the 1 year flyer on Schroeder, 2 year flyer on Richardson, and the decision not to overpay Fournier, but that's it. Rest of the offseason went about as bad as I could've expected for them.

[SmartWentCrazy]

I wish I could share some of the optimism here, but I do not see a 50 win team in what is becoming a more competitive conference. Chicago is better, Toronto will be better, Charlotte and Indiana should be better, Miami will be better. Knicks probably drop back a bit, Washington might too and Orlando, Detroit, and Cleveland have a lot to prove. But on paper I can't see Boston as a top 5 team in the East.

Most of their moves seem fine on the surface though jumping on Richardson that early using up a TPE, committing to tax, and extending him confuses me. He should help the depth, but as a primary move? Seemed odd. Especially since they then had to get really fortunate to find a veteran PG who could start for a year.

I imagine they won't be a lot of fun to play against on a nightly basis so I do agree a bit with SWC about stealing a few wins, but feels like a roster with as many questions as answers and I expected Brad to have been so tired of trying to coach a roster with so much dead weight at the back that he would have jumped at the chance to fix that, but then I look up and see Dunn, Fernando, Edwards, and Parker. And while its probably worth giving some of the other young guys another year, how much can they count on from Langford and Nesmith and Pritchard and Williams? That's nearly half your roster.

Would have liked to have seem them key in on a couple of those young guys and try and move the others out for more vets their new coach can trust. I think there are going to be too many nights where he looks down his bench and just kinda goes guess I'll try this guy but I hate it.

While I hear you, I think your baseline for the Celtics is being artificially deflated by how dramatically they were hit by COVID relative to the rest of the league.

Read on Twitter

They lost nearly 50 more games due to the protocols than the Mavericks, the next highest team. It was outlier bad relative to the rest of the league. To make matters worse, their best player got it and publicly detailed how bad it was and how he struggled to breathe. Further, they had bad injury luck as well— Kemba, Smart and Brown all missed significant time due to injury. This placed and increased emphasis on their depth and they probably had the worst bench of any playoff team in the league last year.

I’d be shocked if they had such poor heath luck next year. Their increased depth will also further help them.

I dont see them as a .500 team that made marginal improvements. I see them as a team with a 40-32 [45 win equivalent] implied record based on scoring differential that had poor luck and poor health last year that made decent sized improvements to their bench. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I believe that is the basis for the disagreement.

[Texas Chuck]

While I hear you, I think your baseline for the Celtics is being artificially deflated by how dramatically they were hit by COVID relative to the rest of the league.

I don't. I have a pretty low baseline for the Mavs too who also got hit hard by COVID but never hard enough to have games skipped. They played games for 3 weeks missing 5 of their 7 best players. Obviously it negatively impacted their record last year, but when evaluating their chances for this coming season I'm not looking at their record from last year. I'm looking at their current roster and how I expect them to compare to other teams. Same with Boston.

When reviewing last season absolutely I look at what happened to Washington or Boston or Dallas and understand how it impacted their win total. But last year is last year. I'm familiar with the core players and feel like I have a reasonable handle on what to expect from all the veterans and most of the young players. Sure its possible that Langford or Nesmith or Pritchard will take a major unexpected leap, but I also try and factor in that possibility to my median outcomes for the team.

[Mamba4Goat]

I felt worse pre-Schroeder signing but now I have Boston as a middling playoff team. Would I be shocked if they’re a home court advantage team? No. Would I be shocked if they’re a play-in team and lose? No.

My biggest qualm is Smart’s extension giving them a small, easily traded obstacle for 2022 max cap space.

[hugepatsfan]

I'm giving Boston a C and that feels generous. Stevens seems hell bent on reliving the glory days of 2018, but this squad isn't going anywhere. I liked the Time Lord extension and to a certain degree, the 1 year flyer on Schroeder, 2 year flyer on Richardson, and the decision not to overpay Fournier, but that's it. Rest of the offseason went about as bad as I could've expected for them.

You listed like 80% of their moves in what you liked haha. I think the only things you left out were the Smart extension and the Kemba trade. And to your point on "reliving the glory days" I assume you mean bringing back Horford but looking at the layout of the league nd how OKC had to just buy Kemba out, seems pretty clear that was their only option for a divorce that just had to happen.

[loserX]

My gif would have been kicking a can down a road

The important move was the change at the top: the Celtics were good but never really had a clear path to get better. How much of that can be blamed on Ainge's activity (or inactivity) can be debated, but it was clearly time for some new vision. So I like what they did there.

The Kemba/Horford trade made sense on a number of fronts. Everything else...I get, kind of. The moves in isolation are fine. Fournier is gone and replaced by Richardson: lesser but cheaper. Schroeder is okay as a fill-in as long as he plays for the team and not for his contract. Locking up Smart is fine.

But it still feels like this team is putting an awful lot of eggs in the "just wait 'til next year" basket, same as they did under Ainge. Stevens obviously deserves more than one summer in the big chair so we'll see what happens, but if they go another year+ without adding a star I'll be very interested to see what Plan B is. Tatum and Brown are too good to waste.