With the NBA Draft just four days away, decision week is here for the Celtics front office to finalize the best plan of attack to improve the team’s contender status for both the short and long-term. While a wide array of options will undoubtedly be explored on draft night including consolidating draft picks by moving up or trading pick(s) for future selections, Danny Ainge confirmed last week that he was on the hunt for help before the draft.
“We’re still trying to make some deals before the draft to improve our team,” Ainge said. “We have our list of players we’ll try to pursue in free agency. But as you know, we don’t know who everyone’s going to draft. We don’t know who else is interested in the free agents we might have. We don’t know exactly, depending on what deals we’re able to do and not do, the amount of money we can offer free agents. So there’s a lot of unknown factors. Draft day, the 19th and the 20th are gonna be crazy. We’ll be resting up and ready for that battle.”
We started looking at some potential Eastern Conference trade targets for the Celtics earlier this month and now we turn our attention to the Western Conference. For this purpose, we are going to assume that Boston top players (Tatum, Brown, Walker, Smart) aren’t available in most trade talks on draft night (Smart is probably the only exception). Additionally, Gordon Hayward is not eligible to be moved at the draft unless he opts into his $34.1 million player option beforehand, something he is not required to do (option deadline day will be after the draft). For this exercise, we are going to assume that Hayward waits to make that choice (unless otherwise specified).
Putting those restrictions in place leaves the Celtics with a very limited salary pool to work from while pursuing potential veteran trades since no one else on the roster next season will make more than $5 million. The Celtics will only be able to take back 125 percent of salary they send out in any deal so adding a high-priced players will be challenging without moving a part of their core.
2020-21 Celtics salaries (Non-core)
Enes Kanter ($5 million – player option)
Daniel Theis ($5 million – non-guaranteed)
Romeo Langford ($3.6 million)
Vincent Poirier ($2.6 million)
Grant Williams ($2.5 million)
Robert Williams ($2.0 million)
Semi Ojeleye ($1.8 million - non-guaranteed)
Carsen Edwards ($1.5 million)
Javonte Green ($1.5 million non-guaranteed)
Factor those salary limitations and there quickly becomes a pretty limited pool of veterans available to inquire on. That pool gets even smaller when any appealing names on playoff teams likely won’t be available for the most Celtics draft assets (these teams aren’t going to be looking to take a step back trade useful rotation pieces for multiple rookies)
So are there any veterans on bad or mediocre teams out there that could be worth cashing in some draft picks for? Let’s search out West for more names the Celtics could kick the tires on and whether they would be fits in Green.