Trade/Free Agency Thread 2023-24, part 12 is my favorite thread. Out of a dozen...

[shackles10]

WALL OF SHAME
ConstableGeneva (212)
Celts17Pride (135)
Hal14 (128)
bigfoot_cryptozoology (122)
MeanGeraldGreen (116)
31to6 (91)
GoCeltics123 (90)
Dogen (81)
165bows (66)
steefP2 (57)
shackles10 (46)
Darthlukey (41)
Fierce1 (40)
Shak_Celts (36)
playa-hater (35)
hugepatsfan (34)
zoyathedestroya (32)
Larry_Russell (31)
BK_2020 (28)
Scarletfire81 (27)

Previously on "As the Celtics World Turns": https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2320543&start=2000

[Larry_Russell]

Still contributing even at this age.

Like Horford.

[31to6]

Starters: Pritchard/Bullock/Hauser/Bullock/Kornet
Bench: Jrue/Banton/Bullock/Tatum/Porzingis
Deep bench: White/Bullock/Brown/Bullock/Al

I think this keeps everyone fresh for the playoffs, while mixing it up a bit

[bigfoot_cryptozoology]

Read on Twitter

[shackles10]

I think you forgot Grimes and included half the roster we need to trade for him on accident. *Bing Bong*

[Parliament10]

Previously on "As the Celtics World Turns": https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2320543&start=2000

Hahaha!!!

Good One.

[MaxwellSmart]

Brad said that Holiday beat him to the facility today, so I guess he's really excited about being a Celtic.

[The Corey's]

Celtics in 4

[31to6]

Brad said that Holiday beat him to the facility today, so I guess he's really excited about being a Celtic.

Brad's checked out and smoking that bomb kush

[Hal14]

I tried editing this post but the old thread got locked so it wouldn't let me do it..

I'd replace Banton and Svi with Austin Rivers and Reggie Bullock if I could.

Rivers has been a FA all offseason. Don't you think that if there was enough mutual interest between him and the Celtics, we would've signed him by now? We could've signed him instead of Svi, Stevens, Brissett and Banton..

As for Bullock, I suppose we could sign him. But what does he offer that is unique, that we don't already have covered with the other players on the roster? He's a 6'6", maybe 6'7" wing who can shoot but doesn't really do anything else. Journeyman who has bounced around the league, doesn't seem to stick anywhere.

What does he offer that Hauser or Svi doesn't offer? At least Hauser has 2 years under his belt with the celtics, building chemistry with our guys, learning our systems and schemes, he's a good cutter, doesn't let the ball stick to him. Is rapidly improving as a defender. 5th on the team last season in net rating, we were 22-3 in games where he played 20+ MPG.

Svi offers something unique as he's not just a wing shooter but also a really solid, underrated passer/playmaker.

And as for Banton, he might not be a proven shooter, but we have plenty of shooting on this team. Banton offers something unique as a 6'9" PG who can legit run an offense, bring the ball up the floor and initiate the offense - even against tough defensive pressure, can easily create separation off the dribble and get by his man, pressure the rim, throw lobs, sees the floor well, make cross court skip passes off a live dribble, etc. That's a unique skill set at 6'9", and only 23 yrs old - combined with intriguing defensive potential - nice combination defensively of shot blocking and creating turnovers out on the perimeter. He's a nice upside developmental piece for the end of the roster.

For the Bullock piece (added after I started my last reply).

I did the math in another post, but I suspect we still need 27-42 minutes for the playoff rotation even if the top 6 are all healthy. And for most games, you're probably going to want 42 and only push them to the max where you need just 27. So I'm looking at it as we need 2 more guys to emerge for the playoff rotation to bring us up to 8 players, and maybe in must win games (elimination games) we can cut to 7 if we need to.

I don't disagree with you on Hauser at all. I have him marked as someone who will develop into one of those two open playoff rotation rolls.

On Svi, my concern is if he has the foot speed to stick defensively. It's nice what he can do offensively, but if he is a weakness defensively he'll get played off the court. Similarly, I like Banton as a developmental guy as well. But again, we've seen guys who can't shoot be rendered useless in the playoffs unless the rest of their game is SO GREAT to justify it. That's a lot of development for Banton to do.

The main draw of Bullock for me is that he's just got a body of work of being solid enough on both ends to log playoff minutes. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. But just a floor that's good enough - on both ends - to stick in the rotation. We only have 6 guys I can say that for, so there's a shortage. It'd be nice to have one guy with that type of floor. If someone develops further and boxes him out of a job then all the better. But nice to have a floor of someone who's moderately dependable based on track record.

Unfortunately, have to cut the team down to 15 so there would have to be a tough decision. But I think another like Bullock to just pencil in and feel ok about would help a lot.

All fair points. And to Bullock's credit, I'm taking a closer look at his stats and see that in the 2022 playoffs he played in 18 games, 39 MPG, 10 PPG and 40% from 3 on 7 attempts per game. Gosh, those are pretty impressive numbers for a role player.

As for Svi's defense, I admit it is a little bit shaky. But I don't think it's *that" bad. I think it can get better when he's actually on a good team, with good defenders around him - good defenders who can cover up any mistakes he makes, too.

With that being said, I don't think Svi will be in the playoff rotation. I think he could be a decent reg season minutes eater, though. I think Hauser is the 7th man, and then 8th man you really only need like 10 or 12 MPG in the playoffs. At this point, I am thinking that is either Pritchard or Stevens. Perhaps it's both of them, with 1 of them as the 8th man and the other one is the 9th man - if we want shooting, you put in Pritchard...if you want more size, more defense - you put in Stevens.

With that being said, playoffs are over 6 months away from now. There's plenty of time to figure this out. Right now, we have 15 good players..lots of guys to eat reg season minutes, and battle each other out, have some healthy competitions for playing time.

[playa-hater]

playa-hater wrote:
A No vote from me on Bullock I don't want another similar Tier player to Hauser-Stevens-J Walsh-Brisset-SVI. Bullock would only serve to crowd that position and confuse an easy to confuse coach.

If there is a way to upgrade the backup "wing" position in a clear upgrade then I am all in.

I personally would be quite surprised if at least one player doesn't emerge from that group. I am guessing/hoping it will be Hauser.


HUGEPATSFAN "If Pritchard can't be more defensively viable than he was when he was in the playoff rotation 2 years ago, then I think you're going to need two guys, not just 1 from that group to emerge. We have a clear top 6 and here's my estimates for how many minutes we could push them to in a playoff rotation:

Tatum - 38-40 minutes
Brown - 37-40 minutes
Holiday - 36-38 minutes
Porzingis - 31-33 minutes
White - 32-34 minutes
Horford - 24-28 minutes

On the high end of all those ranges, you still have 27 minutes to fill. On the low end, you have 42. My guess is that the "normal" playoff rotation you'd have those guys on the lower end of the range and need the "others" to cover 42 minutes. In elimination or especially must-win scenarios (like being down 2 games to 1 in a series), then you can push them to the high end and only need 27 minutes.

My guesstimation is that Pritchard will prove to be too short to stick defensively. He really struggled 2 years ago when teams could ISO him on their star. You see that a lot with guys in the playoffs. He was ok in some matchups, but he wasn't reliable series to series.

I think they're going to end up just staggering Holiday and White so even if they start next to each other, you always have one of them in with the "2nd unit" at PG. You'll always have one of them on the court. That will tip the math so you need two rotation spots filled from the group you listed. I am very confident Hauser can be one of them, but would still need a second.

I think you're mistaken to say Bullock is the same tier as the other guys you listed (besides Hauser). Those are all fringe minimum signings on partial guarantees. Bullock has been a starter and high minutes player for playoff and playoff caliber teams the last 3 years.

We have a clear top 6. I believe Hauser is a clear #7 above the rest of the roster and Bullock would be right there with him in that tier above the rest of the roster. So I do view it as a clear and material upgrade vs. the rest of our roster, and gives you a clear 8 man playoff rotation I think you can rely on"

While I'm not in total agreement with you on Bullock, you have presented a compelling rebuttal. I guess I see Bullock on the same Tier as the others in the regular season but experience may notch him up come playoffs.

[BK_2020]

Pritchard hasn't been good on offense either.

[playa-hater]

Pritchard hasn't been good on offense either.

And how many players are when playing sporadically or not at all behind 4 at or near All-star level players at the same position. JB, White, Brogdon and Smart.

[shackles10]

playa-hater wrote:
A No vote from me on Bullock I don't want another similar Tier player to Hauser-Stevens-J Walsh-Brisset-SVI. Bullock would only serve to crowd that position and confuse an easy to confuse coach.

If there is a way to upgrade the backup "wing" position in a clear upgrade then I am all in.

I personally would be quite surprised if at least one player doesn't emerge from that group. I am guessing/hoping it will be Hauser.


HUGEPATSFAN "If Pritchard can't be more defensively viable than he was when he was in the playoff rotation 2 years ago, then I think you're going to need two guys, not just 1 from that group to emerge. We have a clear top 6 and here's my estimates for how many minutes we could push them to in a playoff rotation:

Tatum - 38-40 minutes
Brown - 37-40 minutes
Holiday - 36-38 minutes
Porzingis - 31-33 minutes
White - 32-34 minutes
Horford - 24-28 minutes

On the high end of all those ranges, you still have 27 minutes to fill. On the low end, you have 42. My guess is that the "normal" playoff rotation you'd have those guys on the lower end of the range and need the "others" to cover 42 minutes. In elimination or especially must-win scenarios (like being down 2 games to 1 in a series), then you can push them to the high end and only need 27 minutes.

My guesstimation is that Pritchard will prove to be too short to stick defensively. He really struggled 2 years ago when teams could ISO him on their star. You see that a lot with guys in the playoffs. He was ok in some matchups, but he wasn't reliable series to series.

I think they're going to end up just staggering Holiday and White so even if they start next to each other, you always have one of them in with the "2nd unit" at PG. You'll always have one of them on the court. That will tip the math so you need two rotation spots filled from the group you listed. I am very confident Hauser can be one of them, but would still need a second.

I think you're mistaken to say Bullock is the same tier as the other guys you listed (besides Hauser). Those are all fringe minimum signings on partial guarantees. Bullock has been a starter and high minutes player for playoff and playoff caliber teams the last 3 years.

We have a clear top 6. I believe Hauser is a clear #7 above the rest of the roster and Bullock would be right there with him in that tier above the rest of the roster. So I do view it as a clear and material upgrade vs. the rest of our roster, and gives you a clear 8 man playoff rotation I think you can rely on"

While I'm not in total agreement with you on Bullock, you have presented a compelling rebuttal. I guess I see Bullock on the same Tier as the others in the regular season but experience may notch him up come playoffs.

If we had games where we needed to fill those 42 minutes because of foul trouble or matchups then it's probably not our best plan to only have 2 guys who can come in and split them. Hopefully 3 guys can be counted on so while we won't play 9 every night in the playoffs we still have 9 we could and it wouldn't be the end of the world. Hauser, Stevens, and Brissett are just so similar in size it'd be nice to have an actual big or know we could count on PP and not get picked on defensively all of his minutes with constant picks.

[Hal14]

In the previous thread, Constable said about Gabriel:

"He's not even on the training camp roster. No official announcement from the team that he's signed either."

That's just because the announcement by Woj and Shams about Gabriel joining the Celtics wasn't until yesterday (a Sunday when many people in the Celtics org have the day off) at 3pm. They probably already had the training camp roster printed out, before the announcement was made.

Today is just media day. I believe the actual training camp doesn't start till tomorrow. I'm sure Gabriel will be there in camp..even if he isn't there on day 1 (cause he has to sign, get a physical and do other paperwork and stuff), he'll be there - we can keep adding guys to the training camp roster throughout camp. It's not like the training camp roster that got posted this morning is the final one.

The reports said Gabriel will compete for a roster spot in camp. I expect that to happen, unless both Woj and Shams are wrong..

I'm not calling out Constable. Just keeping the conversation going from the previous thread, since I can't reply in the old thread anymore..

[bigfoot_cryptozoology]

Read on Twitter

Boston already added free agent big man Wenyen Gabriel after the Jrue Holiday deal but the team still has plenty of flexibility across the back end of the roster with five players on partially or non-guaranteed deals entering training camp. That should give Stevens an opportunity to adjust on the fly quickly if a player becomes available on waivers or via trade that interests the team during the preseason.


The Celtics frontcourt is full of players with injury (Kristaps Porzingis) and age (Al Horford) question marks, which is a reality that Stevens acknowledged in his remarks about the roster.

“We are obviously mindful of, you know, if you have an injury or two where our biggest needs might be,” Stevens said. “But, I’m encouraged by what we have and how they’ve worked and everything else, you know, and been really encouraged by Kristaps first couple of weeks here. He’s played and worked out every day for two weeks and so we’re looking forward to getting started.”

[BK_2020]

Pritchard hasn't been good on offense either.

And how many players are when playing sporadically or not at all behind 4 at or near All-star level players at the same position. JB, White, Brogdon and Smart.

There are plenty of bench players who can get the job done on offense with bench minutes. Pritchard is not one of them.

[steefP2]

We can and should use the grant tpe to get muscala back. Legal since porzingis trade happened last league season technically

[playa-hater]

We can and should use the grant tpe to get muscala back. Legal since porzingis trade happened last league season technically

I like the Moose, I think Stevens likes the Moose. Joe didn't seem to like him as much. But I do that easy. A 7fter who can shoot 3s and is liked by his teammates.

[neno]

Not sure of availability but dwight Powell of Dallas fits onto tpe
Good vet depth