The NBA’s 2023-24 trade season is here in full force, and with it come myriad trade proposals for every team in the league, even the ball club that currently owns the best record in the Association so far this season, the Boston Celtics.
Some proposals tend to focus on the obvious issues a team has — in the case of the Celtics, some need for rotation wings and big men — but miss the mark on what a ball club like the Celtics can realistically accomplish given their current roster construction and status as a second apron team in the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement. As Boston team president Brad Stevens noted, the club’s $6.2 million traded player exception is likely the biggest tool the team has to make moves ahead of the deadline, making trades for players making more than that unlikely at best.
Such a situation makes trading for Detroit Pistons wing Alec Burks, or Washington Wizards point guard Delon Wright as fraught of a target as former Celtics center Kelly Olynyk.
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All three were the subject of a recent article dialed in on what Boston might pursue before the Feb. 8 deadline arrives by Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley, and while he nailed the sort of archetypes Boston would be looking to add, the means of doing so are unlikely given their salaries.
Burks, “a feisty on-ball defender who can create shots,” for example, should indeed be “one of the first to go” if the Pistons look to collect some assets after a historically bad start the season.
But the 32-year-old is making $10.4 million this season, making a trade for him that does not require one of the team’s top six players a fraught exercise mid-season.
Celtics reportedly have interest in Toronto Raptors forward https://t.co/NjiRpU82V5 pic.twitter.com/8FyUVNuyY9
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) January 7, 2024
We have already spoken on why it is unlikely to see Olynyk back in Boston for similar reasons, but even if one were open to trading away backup guard Payton Pritchard to make such a deal work, in the case of Wright, it makes no sense to move on from the Oregon native.
Pritchard is the better player at this stage of his career and with Wright making $8.1 million this season, a buyout is the most reasonable path for such a player to end up on Boston’s roster this season.
That’s the case for all three proposed targets — and frankly, many others out there as well. The Celtics could indeed make a meaningful move at the deadline, but expect it to be within the roughly $6.5 million in salary the traded player exception Boston has available can fit.
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— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) January 7, 2024
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