NBA Trade Rumors: Boston Celtics Ready To Make The Big Splash?

NBA Trade Rumors: With a myriad of assets, we look at a few options the Boston Celtics have of making one more big splash this summer

They have as high a probability of backfiring as they do of being a savvy move by *insert your favorite team’s GM/front office here*. What am I talking about? Trades!

There have been some pretty big trades that have gone down in the Association the past few years alone. There was the three-team trade that brought J.R. Swish and Shumpman to the Land in 2015, both becoming key pieces in the Cavs’ rotation (although, Dan Gilbert and Co. maybe feel a little different about J.R. Swish right now).

On draft night, there was the monster trade that sent Serge Iblocka to Orlando for Ersan Ilyasova, Victor Oladipo, and the rights to Domantas Sabonis.

Prior to draft night, Derrick Rose was sent to New York along with Justin Holiday in exchange for Jerian Grant, Robin Lopez, and Jose Calderon.

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My personal favorite trade of the offseason was the three-teamer between the Hawks, Jazz, and Pacers that sent George Hill to the Jazz, Jeff Teague to the Pacers, and (what eventually became) the rights to Taurean Prince to Atlanta.

If you start to do some research of your own and just Google NBA trades in the past five years, you’ll be surprised to learn and see how some big name players got to their current teams or where they’ve been.

While it’s very fun to come up with hypothetical trades in your free time (guilty as charged), I’m going to focus on one team in particular.

Without further ado…

The Boston Celtics

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If the title didn’t give it away, my beloved Celtics are the team I’m honing in on.

I had to, alright? I’m a C’s fan and want to give NBA fans in general something else to think about as we all expectantly wait for Danny boy to pull off a huge trade before summer ends.

If you’ve been paying some attention to the flurry of moves this offseason, the C’s seem to be involved in just about every trade rumor, but the only trades they’ve done were the ones consolidating their surplus of draft picks on draft night.

The notable names they’ve been linked to: Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook, Jahlil Okafor

Blake Griffin, I think, is a very fun personality, but a bit overrated. Not totally overrated; he just garners more hyped up than he deserves. He’s a fine player and a point forward who can shoot the 3, but he’s (reportedly) still not anywhere near 100 percent health-wise and the last thing the Boston Celtics need is to trade future assets for an injury-prone player.

Russell Westbrook is a very angry player and one of my favorite players to watch. He’s even more motivated with his bud KD departing for #DubNation and has a very high probability of shattering a backboard or two next season.

With all due respect to Isaiah Thomas, he would be a huge upgrade at the point guard position; especially on the defensive end. He’d be a good get for Boston, but that’d be at the expense of moving IT to the bench or losing him in the trade, so we’ll put this idea aside for now.

Now Jahlil Okafor makes the most sense out of this trio to go for despite popular opinion.

He’s a dominant low-post scorer, which is something the Celtics still don’t have even after signing Al Horford. If Ainge traded for Okafor, the Celtics could play Horford at the 4 and even kick him out to the arc and let Okafor go to work down low, but that negates Horford’s ability to showcase his underrated defense and leaves the defensive sieve (okay, not really, but he isn’t that great at it) that is Okafor to go up against the NBA’s top bigs.

While I think the Horford signing allows for a much better defensive frontcourt paired with fan-favorite Amir Johnson, it could get better.

So that’s why I think this is a good trade:

The Celtics would have to probably include one or both of the Nets picks to make this deal work, but Doc Rivers loves Avery Bradley and still has a defensive presence in Johnson to give Chris Paul to throw oops to and keep Lob City alive and well.

Bradley can spell the aging J.J. Redick, or take over his starting spot to create an interesting bench backcourt with multiple-time winner of the 6th Man of the Year Award Jamal Crawford.

The Celtics establish a very solid big 3 in IT, Horford, and Jordan and suddenly the Celtics have a much better chance of advancing deep into the postseason. They can put Smart at the 2 and hand the keys to the second unit to summer-league standout Terry Rozier.

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The recent signing of Gerald Green and No. 3 overall selection Jaylen Brown help offset Bradley’s departure. Both have more than capable defensive ability/potential to at least attempt to recreate what Bradley brought on that end. It’s a win-win all around.

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