Trade/Free Agency Thread 2023-24, part 10 and Counting . . .

[31to6]

Read on Twitter

Danny can't quit Romeo

What happened? How did he go from starting 21 games last year to training camp deal only?

Romeo Langford stinks. When has Langford ever been good?

high school legend in whatever **** small town he's from
I want all of my Romeo Langford invested time back

[Dogen]

Stevens' failure to go after Usman Garuba is malpractice.

lol

It's been 9 days since he got waived and there's been no rumors about any of the 30 teams in the league going after him.

The only teams rumored to have any interest are in Europe.

Read on Twitter

He's been traded 2x and waived once in the same offseason. Been in the league for 2 years and struggled to crack the rotation for the worst team in the league.

No matter. He's 20 years old and talented.

Yes, this seems like a quintessential 'buy low' scenario. Maybe he's a bust, but he's young, gifted and seems to have a good head on his shoulders. He wouldn't necessarily be getting (m)any minutes with the Celtics this year; he's Rob insurance. Good investment for the money. I'd rather take the young talent now, unless there is a convincing retread vet out there. The usual suspects don't impress.

At the very least, Garuba is trade ballast later in the season. Maybe there's something going on with him, but to the eye test he still looks like a mid-to-late first round pick, now with a couple of years under his belt.

[Celts17Pride]

If the Celtics feel like Usman Garuba has potential then they should be passing up on Blake Griffin and sign Garuba to a multiple year minimum deal like Sam Hauser and let Garuba work with Al Horford for the next few years. Horford is 37 years old, he is not going to be around forever. Maybe Garuba can provide energy this year and take over for Big Al in a few years.

It's quite possible the Celtics don't like Garuba at all. I don't see other teams beating down Garuba's door.

[GoCeltics123]

If the Celtics feel like Usman Garuba has potential then they should be passing up on Blake Griffin and sign Garuba to a multiple year minimum deal like Sam Hauser and let Garuba work with Al Horford for the next few years. Horford is 37 years old, he is not going to be around forever. Maybe Garuba can provide energy this year and take over for Big Al in a few years.

It's quite possible the Celtics don't like Garuba at all. I don't see other teams beating down Garuba's door.

Yeah, if Garuba is at a point where zero NBA teams want him at all, that should say somethiing.

I very much doubt the Celtics want him, he's shown nothing in the league

[MeanGeraldGreen]

If the Celtics feel like Usman Garuba has potential then they should be passing up on Blake Griffin and sign Garuba to a multiple year minimum deal like Sam Hauser and let Garuba work with Al Horford for the next few years. Horford is 37 years old, he is not going to be around forever. Maybe Garuba can provide energy this year and take over for Big Al in a few years.

It's quite possible the Celtics don't like Garuba at all. I don't see other teams beating down Garuba's door.

Yeah, if Garuba is at a point where zero NBA teams want him at all, that should say somethiing.

I very much doubt the Celtics want him, he's shown nothing in the league

Nope. The Celtics not wanting someone that nobody else wants is malpractice.

Banish Brad to the land of *** ******** and *************, with the rest of the heathens.

[Curmudgeon]

Garuba will be a very solid NBA player down the road. As I said earlier he's a cheap Grant Williams replacement: guards 3 positions, can play small ball center, shoots the three. You'll see.

[bigfoot_cryptozoology]

Garuba will be a very solid NBA player down the road. As I said earlier he's a cheap Grant Williams replacement: guards 3 positions, can play small ball center, shoots the three. You'll see.

It might be more that, they can't give him the playing time and/or contract he wants, because he seems like someone worth
taking a chance on, and should contribute more than Blake.

Or, maybe they are just waiting for OKC to move or release someone better? Poku, if he's healthy would be an interesting
addition.

[Hal14]

Garuba will be a very solid NBA player down the road. As I said earlier he's a cheap Grant Williams replacement: guards 3 positions, can play small ball center, shoots the three. You'll see.

The bold part seems to be a reach, given:

a) He's attempted less than 1 three per game in each of his 2 NBA seasons. That's VERY low volume. Based on that alone, your statement in bold appears to be false. 0.8 3PA his 1st season, 0.8 3PA his 2nd season and so far in 3 games at FIBA world cup, he's averaging 0.3 3PA per game - and has missed all of those attempts.

b) FT% is often a good indicator of future shooting projection and the type of touch a guy has on his shot. Garuba only shot 61.7% FT last season and is a 63% career FT shooter. Guys who shoot that poorly from the line typically do not turn out to be league average 3 pt shooters in the NBA. It's also concerning that his FT% got worse from year 1 in the NBA to year 2

c) He shot just 25% from 3 as a rookie

Let's not compare him to Grant Williams, who was getting crunch time minutes in playoff games as a rookie. And has been one of the best, most consistent outside shooters in the league for 2 years in a row now. Garuba struggled to crack the rotation on the worst team in the league, for each of his first 2 seasons.

[Curmudgeon]

When Grant Williams was Garuba's age GWill was at Tennessee shooting one trey per game.

[Hal14]

When Grant Williams was Garuba's age GWill was at Tennessee shooting one trey per game.

Ok, but he didn't get to be an above average shooter until he was 23. The Celtics are trying to win a championship now - they don't want to sign a guy and hope that 2 or 3 yrs from now he'll be able to shoot.

You said Garuba "shoots the 3" which to me implies that right now, at this moment he is a good, reliable, consistent shooter from 3. That is not the case, for reasons i mentioned above.

Lastly, Grant had an outlier development path. He went from non-shooter in college, shooting only 25% from 3 as a rookie (including missing his first 25 threes) to then be a top 5 shooter in the entire league just 2 seasons later is insane. Idk if we've ever seen such rapid shooting improvement in NBA history. If we have, it's only happened like 5 or 10 times ever. So it's not very realistic to expect Garuba to do the same thing. And even then, Grant needed 2+ years of development to get his shot there.

Part of the reason why Grant was able to improve his shot so much, is because he was getting good, consistent playing time so he was in the game a lot, getting reps, getting lots of shots up which helped his shooting development much more than if he ahd been sitting on the bench the whole time. If garuba comes to Boston, he is going to get very low, inconsistent minutes with 3 bigs ahead of him (maybe 4 if he can't get minutes over Kornet).

[GoGreen]

Lots of love for Garuba around here. I liked him out the draft but truth is he just might not be that good and might never be that good.

No one out there I'm all too interested in tbh. Think there will be some interesting moves to be made once more players are able to be traded.

[GoCeltics123]

Kinda surprised we haven't heard Javonte Green's name pop up at all during this offseason really. I know he had knee surgery and all, but he was legit good for the Bulls for a few seasons.

I know a lot of these guys are waiting on Dame and Harden trades, but we've seen a few impatient enough to work out with the Celtics.

Kelly Oubre I'm not surprised by, yeah he has talent but the dude was doing too small celebrations to the Celtics last year when his team was down 30 points. Kinda says it all there

[prov1ml]

Read on Twitter

[Hal14]

Read on Twitter

Alright, let's go! Finally. haha, so much speculating and chatter about who our deep bench wing, 14th man signing would be.

Now, we finally know!

I've posted quite a bit about Svi at this point. Some good, and some bad.

He wasn't my top choice for this spot. But honestly, I think that between Svi, Terence Davis, Danny Green, Lamar Stevens, TJ warren, Austin Rivers, Diallo, Javonte. I mean, we could sit here all day and debate who is better than who between these guys.

They all have pros and cons. At this point in all of their careers, there really isn't a whole lot of separation between these 8 guys. And whoever we ended up signing for this spot, is likely not going to make or break our season. If they do, then something went horribly wrong with other guys on the roster who we're counting on to deliver more than Svi.

It really comes down to which 1 of those 8 guys actually wants to come here. Which one wants to be in Boston, with "this group" (as Al would say haha), which one would be cool with signing for the limited $ and limited role that we have to offer.

And how well does Brad think that guy would fit here.

I kind of wish we got someone who is a better defender. Stevens, Rivers, Davis. Possibly even Danny Green coming off the torn ACL and possibly Warren can defend better than Svi. Perhaps with this move, we will be planning on playing some more zone defense? We saw it a little bit in summer league. And Porzingis might fit better in a zone D than a switching man to man. And zone D forces opponents to play less PnR, which takes them out of their gameplan since many teams rely so heavily on PnR in their half court offense.

Svi is a little slow footed defensively and has short arms. So he might not even be great defending in a zone.

I think the biggest thing I am excited about with the Svi signing is his playmaking. He's not necessarily a guy who has put up big assist numbers, but he's a good connective passer. Out of the 8 FA wings I listed above, he's probably the best passer/play maker in the group. He even played some PG last season in Charlotte a little bit and also played a little bit of PG at the 2022 EuroBasket tournament for Ukraine.

And that playmaking/passing is much needed on this Celtics team, since we lost our starting PG and top assist % guy (Smart), did not add any guards to the team yet this offseason who are expected to be in the rotation, and we now have 3 high scoring, high usage (25% or higher), low assist (under 25%) guys in tatum, Brown and KP. So there was certainly a need for some more passing/playmaking so we could have better ball movement.

[Curmudgeon]

Well, he can shoot. Second coming of Luigi Datome. I would rather have Garuba.

[bigfoot_cryptozoology]

Read on Twitter

[Celts17Pride]

Read on Twitter

I would sign Lamar Stevens to round out the roster. Thank you Blake Griffin for last year, enjoy your retirement.

[Hal14]

Roster reset.

21 training camp roster spots...

[Dogen]

Well, he can shoot. Second coming of Luigi Datome. I would rather have Garuba.

Why not both?

Svi was my first choice, but it seemed like that ship had sailed and he was going to stay in Greece. Garuba may be similar.

Brad all silent and mysterious, then BOOM! Svi can contribute right away as a bench shooter.

Garuba's time will come, maybe in Celtic green? He does fit into the Grant shaped void and can spot Rob too. I'm betting he will turn the corner soon. He's young but has enough experience to get some RS minutes.

[Dogen]

Read on Twitter

I would sign Lamar Stevens to round out the roster. Thank you Blake Griffin for last year, enjoy your retirement.

Since the team had Lamar, Robinson III, King, Warren in already at wing, and then went with Svi, my guess is the last spot will be a big. Who knows though. If they just re-sign Blake at this point, I'm happy. We got a shooter, and good compliment to our bench since the recent guys were more defensive in Brissette, Banton, and Walsh.