The Celtics have stayed quiet on the trade front for the better part of the last few seasons but a big reason for that is the work they put in earlier this decade. As we wait for the NBA season to return, we will be taking a closer look at some of the more memorable seasons and transactions over Celtics' history. A fun place to begin is the 2014-15 campaign which nearly set a record for the franchise with 11 separate trades and 22 different players suiting up for Boston over the course of the season. Let’s dive into those deals individually (some more meaningful than others) and look at how they shaped the squad that set the stage for today’s group.
Part 1: Inside the busiest year of trades in Celtics history: Part 1
Part 2: Inside the busiest season of trades in Celtics history: The Rajon Rondo blockbuster
January 2015
The Setup: The Celtics were in year two of the Brad Stevens era with low expectations and were on pace to match underwhelming preseason expectations yet again at the halfway mark. The selling off of assets had begun already with the dealing of Rajon Rondo in December and a team full of young players and veterans likely to be dealt had struggled in the midst of a 12-23 start. Jeff Green was at the forefront of the underachieving team, averaging a team-high 17.4 ppg with some very underwhelming percentages (43% FG, 30% 3pt). At age 28, he was seen as being in his prime still though and had another year of team control beyond this season at reasonable money ($9.2 million). While he was clearly miscast as a top scoring option in Boston, Danny Ainge went to work trying to sell him as a capable supporting piece for a playoff team in exchange for some future assets to help the C’s overturn the roster and stockpile assets for the rebuild.
The Trade
Celtics received:
• Tayshaun Prince (from MEM)
• Austin Rivers (from NO)
• protected future first-round pick from Grizzlies (top 8 in 2019, top 6 in 2020, unprotected in 2021)
Grizzlies received
• Jeff Green (from BOS)
• Russ Smith (from NO)
Pelicans received
—Quincy Pondexter (from MEM)
—2015 second-round pick from Grizzlies
Why the Grizzlies did it: This was prime grit and grind Grizzlies with Mike Conley and Marc Gasol in their prime and Zach Randolph with plenty left in the tank. Despite those talents, they were still a middle of the road offensive team and they believed they could upgrade at the small forward spot from the 34-year-old Tayshaun Prince. Prince was a savvy vet but wasn’t a shot creator on his own and struggled to get to the line. General manager Chris Wallace saw Green as an upgrade on Prince and paid a first-round pick down the line to help give his team the final piece to make a deep playoff run. Green as a first option was miscast in Boston clearly but as a fourth scoring option in Memphis? The Grizzlies felt like it was a move that put them over the top.
Why the Pelicans did it: They were a minor part of this deal, essentially a dumping ground for a contract that the Grizzlies didn’t want in an injured Quincy Pondexter. They managed to dump Austin Rivers in the deal as well to Boston and snag a second-round pick for the disappointing lottery pick who had failed to develop any real consistency in his first three seasons. In essence, it was a cost-cutting move that netted them a second-round pick.
Why the Celtics did it: This was classic calculus for the Celtics during the 2014-15 season, opting to sell high on players they didn’t see as part of the future while also taking on additional salary in order to position themselves to stockpile more assets down the line.
Green’s initial extension (four years, $36 million) in 2012 was arguably one of his worst big signing bets Danny Ainge made as Celtics president as he really never developed into the type of player that the world envisioned him to be. Luckily for Boston, by the time they were starting to give up on him, there were still a few teams around the league that bought into his empty numbers and the fact that he could be starting caliber asset on a contender. The Grizzlies happily gave up a first-round pick down the line for a prime Green addition but the C’s did well to secure an asset down the line from Memphis when the team’s core would be in their twilights. At the time, Prince was not an asset but was a solid overpaid veteran that clearly wouldn’t disrupt the locker room.
Rivers was taken as part of the deal so the C’s were willing to take his money off the Grizzlies’ hands in order to help structure the deal and potentially gain another asset. They managed to find a landing spot for him in LA immediately after his dad came to the rescue with a second-round pick as part of the offer.
The Long-Term Impact
From a Grizzlies standpoint, this deal was a disappointment, to say the least. Green put up respectable numbers in the final three months of the regular season, giving Memphis a productive fourth option (13.1 ppg) despite his underwhelming shooting splits. However, his production fell off a cliff in the postseason when they needed him the most. He shot just 33 percent from the field and averaged only 8.9 ppg in that span, serving as a clear weak link for a Memphis team that had a 2-1 lead over Golden State but fell 4-2 to the eventual champs. The argument can be made that the Grizzlies may have been better off with the battle-tested Prince during this run anyway as Green was certainly not worthy of a first-round pick addition. They picked on the wrong horse to upgrade with and paid for it dearly. Green was again traded at the trade deadline one year later for a heavily protected first-round pick to Doc Rivers and the Grizzlies.
For the Celtics, this was the beginning of Brad Stevens fully making his imprint on a team that was essentially his from scratch with holdovers like Rondo and Green from the Big Three era out the door.
Boston struggled through a tough schedule for the rest of January, dropping to 16-30 at one point with a team full of new pieces and no clear scoring hierarchy. However, the group started to turn the corner in February, closing out the year with a 20-9 run that was propelled by some other trades (i.e. Isaiah Thomas) and snuck them into a playoff spot. It was a far shift from the tanking path that the team had seemingly set itself towards by all of its moves in December and January but Stevens, according to sources, pushed back against more deals at the trade deadline that would further dismantle the squad for limited returns, stunting any progress that he had made in the past month.
Dumping Green when his value probably wasn’t going to get any higher holds value to this day as the Celtics remain on the likely arrival of a mid first-round pick from the Grizzlies in 2020. It can be debated whether the C’s held onto this pick for too long (its stock has dropped considerably in the last year after the breakout play of Ja Morant) but that ‘mistake’ can largely be blamed on bad lottery luck (Memphis rising to No. 2 during the last lottery) than anything the C’s did wrong. They got the best return possible for a player they didn’t want anymore in Green and managed to leverage a couple of other picks/useful players out of the deal in spinoff deals in the coming weeks. In a year full of wheeling and dealing, this was some of Ainge’s finest work.
Other January trades in 2014-15 season
Celtics traded Austin Rivers to the LA Clippers for Shavlik Randolph, Chris Douglas-Roberts and a second-round pick
Analysis: In hindsight, it’s a little surprising perhaps that the C’s didn’t give the 23-year-old Rivers a look at the time but they clearly didn’t want to take away any minutes from their developing backcourt in Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart and Evan Turner for a guy who was on an expiring deal. Instead, the C’s agreed to send Rivers to his dad for what turned into a fairly worthless second-round pick (No. 56) from the Clippers. Douglas-Roberts was waived immediately after the deal was made while Randolph was gone just weeks later.
Next up: The Isaiah Thomas trade deadline surprise
