According to Shams Charania of ESPN, the Boston Celtics have signed Mitchell Robinson and Mike Conley Jr. in free agency.
Robinson signed a three-year, $47.4 million deal with Boston. It will almost certainly take up the Celtics' entire non-taxpayer MLE. He got a player option in the third year.
Meanwhile, no contract details were reported with Conley's one-year signing, so it is presumably a minimum contract.
Last year, Robinson was an integral part of the New York Knicks' NBA Championship run. They managed his health issues throughout the year, prioritizing his long-term availability.
The 7-footer appeared in 60 games for the Knicks last year, playing 19.6 minutes per contest. He averaged 5.7 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks while shooting 72.3% from the field.
As for Conley, he played in 54 games for the Minnesota Timberwolves last year (18.4 minutes per game). He averaged 4.5 points, 1.7 rebounds, and 2.9 assists while shooting 33.5% from the field and 33.7% from deep range on 3.1 3-pointers per contest.
BSJ Analysis
Robinson is as good as it was going to get in free agency for the Celtics. They didn't have the space to make any signings larger than the roughly $15 million MLE, and they needed big-man depth to play alongside Neemias Queta and Luka Garza.
Enter Robinson.
Obviously, he's not the type of player who is going to play heavy minutes, but the Celtics don't necessarily need that. Queta will almost certainly still be Boston's starting center. The Celtics are clearly confident in his ability to continue to grow into that role and improve. However, in last year's playoffs, Queta got in foul trouble. So did Garza. Nikola Vucevic really couldn't stay on the floor. The Celtics were left with some serious question marks at the center position.
Adding Robinson gives them another body. Another player to soak up playoff minutes. And Robinson's offensive rebounding is elite. He grabbed 4.2 O-boards in his 19.6 minutes. That's 7.7 offensive rebounds per 36 minutes.
For a Celtics team that loves to maximize possession numbers, that's going to be a great tool.
He's not going to play a ton of minutes, which is a downside, but this signing makes a ton of sense, especially given the center market in free agency.
Then, there's Conley.
Robinson is going to be a full-time rotation guy. Probably Boston's go-to backup center.
Conley will probably be more of a deep-bench piece.
He'll probably back up Payton Pritchard, and maybe even play behind Ron Harper Jr. at times.
The shooting numbers from last year look scary, but in each of his five seasons before that, he shot 38% or better from deep range (and at least 40% in each of them, and all on at least four attempts per game).
Plus, he has 19 years of experience running NBA offenses. That will be very valuable to the Celtics.
Boston went into the summer in need of extra offensive organization, and Conley gives them that (even if at the smallest level, on what is likely a minimum contract).