Leaving the last season has been a major success. The regular season didn’t start as they might’ve expected, but they flipped the regular season around to finish strong and had an absolute stunner playoff run. They took down many future Hall of Famers on their path to making the NBA Finals and pushing the Golden State Warriors to six games.
1. Kevin Durant trade shocks NBA
This trade is more so a fun one, but should almost instantly favor the Celtics for the NBA Championship. The Nets and Celtics have a long history of making trades that have highly favored the Celtics, so what’s one more? If the Celtics, with TPEs and current players such as Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown, made the trade, it would cost a haul, but ultimately be worth it for their 19th title. It would be an absolute blockbuster trade, but remember – the Celtics were a favorite to land KD in 2016 when he was a free agent, and the Celtics could make the money work. The Nets don’t have leverage in this situation, which helps the Celtics' case in making a trade proposal for KD.
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2. John Collins brings in another scoring threat
The Hawks are rumored to have Collins, once again, on the trade market. It feels like each of the last few deadlines and free agencies have included Collins being available. They’re rumored now to potentially trade for Dejounte Murray, showing that they’re ready to make moves to win. A Collins trade would fill a solid hole and naturally beef up their offense in the starting lineup. A trade package would likely involve Grant Williams and company, alongside some draft capital and TPEs to make money work, but isn’t impossible to work together.
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3. Malcolm Brogdon
Brogdon is one of the most realistic, obtainable players on this list. For some draft capital and young talent, the Pacers will very likely give up Brogdon as they move towards the next step in their rebuild. They can afford to be cheap with a trade since they’re ready to make a move to completely deconstruct their roster for the next season, benefiting them in that way and allowing the Celtics to strengthen their roster, having Brogdon come in and play alongside Tatum and Brown, and compete to attempt to make the NBA Finals once again.
4. Terrence Ross deepens roster for C’s
Ross has been proven to be what the Celtics lacked in their finals run. A scorer off the bench who can knock down the three-ball at a high clip. Ross is an ideal fit alongside Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, but can also contribute if both the stars are off the floor as a shot creator. Money, again, is no issue as it would be covered using TPEs. All in all, they need to dig deep in their pockets to deepen the roster.
5. Duncan Robinson adds spacing
As the Celtics experienced many times in their playoff run, sometimes a series can be swung by a game decided heavily on three-pointers going down. They have an elite defense and adding Robinson, who specializes in three-point shooting, not defense, shouldn’t hinder their play style too incredibly much. Having the shooting at their disposal would be far from a bad thing. The Heat don’t have the leverage to trade Robinson for a high price, and the Celtics have enough TPE’s to make the salary work. A trade would likely include some future picks of lower value and a role player or two in return.
