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
Part 3: Inside the busiest season of trades in Celtics history: Selling high on Jeff Green
February 2015
The Setup: The Celtics had finally found a little bit of rhythm heading into the All-Star Break, winning four of their last five games before the trade deadline to improve to 20-31 on the year. A season full of roster shuffling from dealing away top players in Jeff Green and Rajon Rondo had allowed Brad Stevens to started to place his stamp on the team a bit more and get added buy-in from the rest of the roster. With that said, there were two very different ways the Celtics could have gone at the trade deadline. One involved moving more veteran pieces like Evan Turner and Brandon Bass for whatever future returns the team could manage.
A source familiar with the situation said Stevens fought hard against these types of moves ahead of the deadline, however. After dealing with a bunch of mismatched parts on a rebuilding squad over his first 1.5 years in Boston, he wanted a chance to shape something, especially with this group starting to show some promise in early February. That type of progress pushed the Celtics front office in a surprising direction at the deadline, where they weren’t looking to avoid improving in the present, despite a record (20-31) that presented a good case for tanking.
The Trade:
Celtics received:
• Isaiah Thomas
Suns received:
—Marcus Thornton
—2016 Cavs first round pick
Why’d the Suns do it: This was a classic case of having too many cooks in a kitchen (or in this instance, the backcourt) for Suns GM Ryan McDonough. The former C’s front office member had just been hired to turn around a Phoenix franchise and he put together an overachieving squad in 2013-14 that nearly shocked the world and made the postseason behind the stellar play of Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe. McDonough elected to add another starting-level point guard in Isaiah Thomas on a bargain contract in the 2014 offseason and that was a move that created turmoil in Phoenix. There weren't enough minutes and shot chances to go around to satisfy all three point guards so in hopes of eliminating the tension and grabbing an asset along the way, McDonough gave away the low man on the totem pole in Thomas. Phoenix was 29-25 at the time of the deal, in position for a playoff run. They figured they still would be good enough to get in even without Thomas while picking up a late first-round pick in the process. According to multiple sources, they called the Celtics just minutes before the deadline hit to let them know they were taking the deal.
Why’d the Celtics do it: The calculus was fairly easy for Boston here. Thornton was an expiring contract who had no future in green so he was simply used here to match the money. The Celtics already had at least two other first-round picks for both the 2015 and 2016 drafts and there wasn’t going to be enough open roster spots for the C’s to keep all of those selections. In targeting Thomas, they found a team with a distressed asset, primarily just do to the roster structure in Phoenix. In Boston, there was a clear need for a top scorer or two following the departures of Rondo and Green, making Thomas a nice fit for what the team thought at the time would be a sixth man scoring option. With Thomas having three years left on the deal at the time of the trade, this was dealing one future asset for another as the cost control involved with Isaiah’s deal (far below market value) would allow the team the ability to let him produce and turn himself into a greater asset that could be flipped again down the line. Having the chance to land a potential 20-point per game scorer for taking on a salary dump in the summer (taking on Thornton and Zeller gave them Cavs first-round pick used in the deal), was about as good as it gets when it comes to leveraging assets.
The Long-Term Impact
This was a disastrous deal in the short-term and long-term for Phoenix. Thornton gave them absolutely nothing in the final two months of his contract while the Suns fell out of playoff contention, leaving them with just the No. 27 overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft to show for a guy in Thomas that became a top-5 MVP candidate two years later. The point guard would have never risen to that level in Phoenix but it’s evident that the Suns sold incredibly low on him given his contract and scoring level in a move that haunted McDonough for years before he was let go two seasons ago.
The impact of the Thomas move is layered in both the short and long term for Boston. In the interim, the 5-foot-9 guard served as a catalyst to a surprise trip to the postseason for the Celtics in 2014-15 as Boston closed out the year with a 20-10 stretch upon his arrival. That type of progress paved the way for the Celtics to return to a respected team in the Eastern Conference ahead of schedule in the middle of the last decade, appealing to the likes of Al Horford and Gordon Hayward as the C’s turned from a lottery team to a core on the rise.
The Thomas trade also set the stage for other players' values to be improved with a true No. 1 scoring option in play for Boston. While Thomas saw his value diminish highly due to injuries by the time he was dealt in a blockbuster deal for Kyrie Irving, he allowed several of his teammates to put together the best seasons of their career while feasting on the open shots he created. That particularly came in handy for Boston with the likes of Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley helping to secure meaningful returns in trades for Irving and Marcus Morris respectively, which came in large part due to Thomas’ play around them.
While Thomas himself was probably the least appealing part of the Kyrie Irving trade from Cleveland’s perspective, the hope that he could rebound from a hip injury back in 2017 was enough for Boston to outbid the pack for Irving when combined with Crowder and an unprotected pick from Brooklyn.
Other February trades in 2014-15 season
Celtics traded Tayshaun Prince to the Detroit Pistons for Jonas Jerebko and Gigi Datome
Analysis: Dumping Prince (an expiring contract) for the pair trimmed about $1.45 million from Boston’s total payroll this year and give the Celtics’ brass a free look at both youngsters for the final 31 games of the season. Jerebko thrived the most out of the pair, turning his strong play off the bench at power forward into a two-year deal in the summer of 2015. Datome headed back overseas after the season and has never returned to the NBA since.
Next up: A draft night that almost featured a huge trade mistake for Ainge