Brad Stevens didn't wait long to make his first big move as GM.
The Boston Celtics have agreed to trade Kemba Walker and their 2021 first-round pick to the Thunder for a package that includes former Celtic Al Horford, the team announced.
The entire deal:
Celtics receive
Al Horford
Moses Brown (7-foot-2 center)
2023 second-round pick
Thunder receive
Kemba Walker
2021 first-round pick (16th overall)
2025 second-round pick
BSJ ANALYSIS
It didn’t take Brad Stevens long to pull off his first major move of the offseason (technically, this is still the season because the trade is being done before the end of the playoffs).
Kemba Walker and the 16th pick in this year’s draft go to Oklahoma City in exchange for Al Horford and Moses Brown. The teams are also swapping future second-rounders.
It’s a big deal that involves big names and big money. It also feels like just the beginning of something, so let’s break it down.
The biggest positive of the deal is Moses Brown. Boston gave up the 16th overall pick in the draft, so getting Brown in the trade basically feels like the Celtics drafted him in that spot. Brown is another athletic big who put up 21 points and 23 rebounds against the Celtics back in March. He had seven 15+ rebound games this season and he can get up there to grab lobs, so he and Robert Williams should provide a constant barrage of alley-oop highlights.
Brown is on a very cheap deal, so he can provide some depth at center for the next three years all at less than $2 million per year. It’s about $1 million less per year than the actual 16th pick would have made in the stretch.
Hey, money is money, and the Celtics will save $20 million with Horford instead of Walker. But it’s not just the $20 million, it’s the amount of added tax dollars where the real savings are. Remember, the NBA taxes teams in tiers, so shaving $9 million off next season’s tax bill could also mean avoiding somewhere between $12.5 and $16.25 million in taxes. So the real out-of-pocket savings there is significant.
While Brown adds depth, Horford adds questions. The first is, which center is getting moved now? Boston now has Horford, Brown, Williams, and Tristan Thompson. One of those guys has to go.
Horford makes $27 million next season and $26.5 the following, though only $14.5 million is guaranteed. I’m sure the Celtics didn’t get him just to play him one season and waive him, so they either got him to replace Thompson and be the type of veteran leader Boston needs, or they are going to try to flip him somewhere during the summer?
For what it’s worth, Stevens doesn’t seem to be hinting at Horford leaving anytime soon.
“Al played a critical role both on and off the court during his time in Boston, and we’re excited to welcome he and his family back to the Celtics,” he said in a statement. “His ability to elevate teammates with his experience and leadership make for a great addition.”
Horford was good in Oklahoma City, and with two years left on his deal, it’s a nice chunk of cap space falling off the books in time for the 2023 free-agent frenzy. The knee issue they managed while in Boston is still a problem, so he’s not going to take on too much of a workload, which might actually work well for the Celtics in a Williams/Brown/Horford trio. Williams and Brown handling the bulk of the work with Horford getting situational minutes is acceptable, even though Horford is overpriced in that role. His real value might just be the 2023 cap space.
In the meantime, he reunites with Williams, who holds Horford in very high regard. Williams has gushed about Horford’s leadership multiple times over the past couple of years. Getting two more years of Horford mentoring Williams holds some value as well, and could be seen as an investment in nurturing their frontcourt of the future.
Thompson, meanwhile, might be popular with some of the players, but that might be where it ends in Boston. His “regular season doesn’t matter” stance did Stevens no favors as he tried to coax something out of his ragged team this season. Adding two centers to the roster could be the harbinger of Thompson’s departure. The only question there is whether they’d have to attach an asset to him to move him, which is not ideal. I’d rather start calling teams within his salary range and see if they have a potential reclamation project they want to dump in exchange for one season of Thompson.
So the Celtics end up getting an intriguing young center for Walker while saving money in the short term and still preserving cap space in the long run. It still leaves holes in the roster that will have to be filled either via trade or through free agency. It could also mean the Celtics can now afford to bring Evan Fournier back.
However it plays out, it’s obvious there is more coming from Brad Stevens.
As for Walker, there is little doubt the Thunder are going to talk to him and try to figure out a good destination for him. I do not expect him to play a minute of basketball for the Thunder, but I will be watching closely to see what OKC pulls off.
Remember, Thunder boss Sam Presti was able to get a first-round pick for Horford when the Philadelphia 76ers decided to move off him. They now picked up another while trading him away, even though it cost them Brown, they have three picks in one of the most highly regarded drafts of our time. Two of those picks could be in the top five, so the Thunder could suddenly piece together a new super team through the draft.
Also remember that Brown was a two-way player who wowed the G-League bubble and flourished with playing time in OKC. Presti picked him up off the scrap heap and turned him into a player worth trading for.
Presti catches some flak for not having won a championship, but he did get close once with a team he put together through the draft. He tore it down and is rebuilding again, possibly putting a team together that could be a serious contender a few years from now if things break right. Not only do they have the picks to find their future stars in this year’s draft, they have 18 first-round picks over the next seven drafts. They can turn a bunch of those into the enticing pieces to trade for a veteran star to lead their young group.
Watch out for the Thunder. It’s a slower grind because of the smaller market, but moves like this one for Walker show the value in planning. They’ll turn Walker into something valuable for them, and there’s a chance we’ll say “well why couldn’t we have just made that trade?”