Boston Celtics
“You have two max players, two max usage; those are the things you have to make a decision on.”
Brad Stevens and the Celtics are bracing for the start of a new season, with training camp set to begin next week.
A retooling Boston roster is entering a new stretch of uncertainty, especially after Boston traded away franchise star Jaylen Brown in a stunning deal with the Philadelphia 76ers in July.
The move — which saw Boston acquired Paul George, two first-round picks, and two second-round picks — has drawn a severe reaction from many Celtics fans, given Brown’s resume over 10 years in this market, a seemingly lackluster return, and the optics of Boston apparently strengthening an Atlantic Division foe.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s “The Starting Lineup” show with Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine on Friday, Stevens expanded on the decision to move on from a foundational player in Brown.
“This is the part where I’m glad I’m 50 and not 30,” Stevens said. “I’ve been, fortunately or unfortunately, under the public eye for a long time and you’re just kinda used to the reaction, good or bad. And at the end of the day, you just have to do what you think is the best thing for the organization. And it’s not always gonna be the popular thing. And it may be right, it may be wrong, who knows, right?”
For all of the talk of the Celtics removing another supermax contract from their books after signing Jayson Tatum to a five-year, $315 million contract in July 2024, Stevens acknowledged that the decision to move Brown wasn’t just rooted in money and contractual commitments.
Even if the Celtics might have had reservations about re-upping Brown on an extension on top of his current deal (through 2028-29), Boston is on the hook for the remaining two years of George’s contract — which accounts for a $54 million and $56 million annual cap hit over the next two years, respectively.
But, Stevens stressed on SiriusXM that Boston also wanted to augment its overall approach this offseason, noting that having two primary scoring threats who both want the ball in their hands wasn’t sustainable.
”At the end of the day, the biggest thing is that when evaluating how the team played in the past couple of Playoffs, we have to build the depth to stay competitive as we can to build for a long, sustainable run; it was inevitable,” Stevens said. “For us, it was a really hard decision.
“There were a lot of things that went into it. You have two max players, two max usage; those are the things you have to make a decision on. … Jaylen’s a great player, but I like the team we have.”
Putting the ball primarily in the hands of Tatum as the team’s top scorer and playmaking conduit could boost Boston’s offensive efficiency, so long as contributors like George, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard also pull on the rope.
Boston will also need younger players like Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scheierman to emerge as regular rotation players.
Considering the Celtics’ current financial commitments — especially in the restrictive CBA environment now in place across the NBA — Stevens admitted that the Celtics can’t rely on free agency to try and push this roster back into legitimate title contention over the next few years.
“We don’t have the ability to pay free agents,” Stevens admitted. “We’re gonna have to bring in some guys on two-ways and bring in some guys as minimums and hope they hit. And huge kudos to the players and their work ethic and a huge kudos to our coaching staff and our player development staff. It built a really deep group.
“And that’s what you need to be to win in this day and age. We think that’s really important. We do think that we have a lot of strengths and we’ll evaluate the team early on, but we’re gonna be pushing like we always push. And now we have a few more assets in the cupboard to work with.”
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