Latest Trade Deadline Blueprint For Celtics Might Disappoint Fans

The Boston Celtics took so many hits to their 2024 championship roster this past offseason. Due to cap constraints, president of basketball ops Brad Stevens was forced to trade Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. Those same constraints also prevented Stevens from offering beefy enough contracts to Al Horford and Luke Kornet, each of whom took more money from other teams.

Add in the Achilles injury to Jayson Tatum, and the Celts lost an entire five key rotation players from their title-winning core. And that number might become six before the trade deadline with Sam Hauser continuing to emerge in trade rumors.

While Stevens has already worked wonders to save the Celtics a bunch of money, there’s one more move that would put a cherry on top. If Stevens was able to shed $12.1 million in salary before the February 5 deadline, Boston would duck under the luxury tax and avoid further penalties.

This is why Hauser’s name continues to surface in trade buzz. He’s making $10 million, meaning that offloading him to someone else (say, for draft capital) would get Stevens mighty close to the desired number. Stevens could also keep Hauser and use Anfernee Simons’ $27.7 million expiring salary in a trade to shed the needed salary.

Even though the Celtics are a winning team very much in contention in the East, one of the above two paths might still benefit Boston’s big-picture outlook, as noted by Bleacher Report’s Grant Hughes on Thursday.

“The Boston Celtics can finish what they started over the summer,” Hughes wrote. “By shedding roughly $12 million in salary to duck the luxury tax and reset the repeater clock, they’ll avoid heftier penalties as they get Jayson Tatum back and, theoretically, return to contention next year.”

“This season’s surprising competency makes the decision to offload money more difficult,” Hughes continued. “Teams that currently sit among their conference’s top four don’t tend to be sellers. But the Celtics can shed the necessary cash with relatively little trouble. Sam Hauser’s $10 million salary gets them almost all the way there, and the more drastic option of dumping Anfernee Simons’ expiring $27.7 million is still on the table.”

“Boston probably can’t improve the roster while also trimming cash, but early-season success stories like Neemias Queta, Josh Minott and Hugo Gonzalez suggest this is a franchise that can find and replace depth pieces better than most,” Hughes added.

As of Thursday, the Celtics sat at 23-13 on the season, 4.5 games back of the East-leading Detroit Pistons and a half-game behind the second-place New York Knicks.

Boston will host the Toronto Raptors at TD Garden on Friday, followed by the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday in a difficult back-to-back.