The Boston Celtics won’t upgrade their roster easily in the coming days and weeks, but doing so still is possible.
CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn floated an interesting idea Tuesday for how the Celtics can turn their “best-case scenario” for the NBA trade deadline into reality. Boston is thought to be in the market for a not-too-expensive, yet serviceable, big man, but such players are hard to find and even tougher to pry from other teams.
“… Ideally, the Celtics would find a center who could give them roughly 30 minutes of high-level defense, rebounding and finishing, with Theis garnering the rest of the playing time as the backup,” Quinn wrote.
“The Celtics have the assets to acquire such a player, but matching salary poses a real challenge.”
Quinn speculates the Celtics might be able to land their prized target via creative deal-making.
“Boston’s true path to a difference-maker would come through multiple deals,” Quinn continues. “(Cody) Zeller might not be a big enough upgrade, but Tristan Thompson would. The Celtics don’t have the salary to get him now, but they have a path to finding it. The Traded Player Exception works by ensuring that the incoming and outgoing salaries involved in a deal fall within a certain percentage of each other. However, no rule prevents teams from making trades specifically for the purpose of acquiring higher-salaried players that they could then trade again.
“Boston could theoretically exploit this flawed system to trade for someone in Zeller’s price range, and then flip that player along with a pick or two for Thompson. The only downside is that such players cannot be aggregated with the salaries of other players in trades, but if Danny Ainge were to sequence the deals properly, doing so wouldn’t be necessary.”
Rumors linked the Celtics with Houston Rockets center Clint Capela and his Oklahoma City Thunder counterpart Steven Adams a few months ago, but the way the season has unfolded has created doubt over whether disrupting the roster for either big man is wise at all. Some even urge Boston to stand pat at the trade deadline and attempt to make a deep run in the NBA playoffs with its current roster.
However, with Quinn’s idea in mind, NBA salary-cap enthusiasts can start crunching numbers now and produce a new list of potential Celtics trade targets ahead of the Feb. 6 deadline.
