Did The Celtics' Offseason Moves Improve Them As Contenders?
The Celtics fell just short of the NBA Finals last season. The front office shook things up to make sure it won’t happen again.
(co-byline: Michael Charles / The Messenger)
After falling just short of a historic 0-3 comeback against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals last season, it was clear the Boston Celtics needed to make changes before they could have a shot at raising banner No. 18 to the Garden rafters.
For Jayson Tatum, that meant training this offseason to become an All-NBA defender. For the team at large, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens made three big roster moves in the hopes of making the Celtics contenders again. He traded Marcus Smart, brought in Kristaps Porzingis, and made sure Jaylen Brown got paid big-time.
Will the moves work? Let’s dig in.
Marcus Smart: Out
The Celtics drafted Marcus Smart with the sixth overall pick in the 2014 draft, and for nine seasons he endeared himself to fans with hustle, defense, and leadership. His fiery passion was the heart of the Celtics, who always seemed to be at their best with number 36 on the floor. He’d gone to five Eastern Conference Finals since 2016, made it to the NBA Finals in 2022, and was supposed to some day retire in green and white, a Celtic for life.
The team, however, sent Smart to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for two first-round picks and Kristaps Porzingis from the Washington Wizards in a three-team deal. Boston’s new direction became clear: It was retooling the lineup around Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Smart was the 2022 NBA defensive player of the year, and he’d quietly evolved into Boston’s best passer. He averaged more than 5.7 assists per game over the last three seasons, including a career high 6.3 assists per game last season. His departure places the onus on Tatum and Brown to be playmakers — and they’ll also have to account for Smart’s intangibles as the team’s vocal leader, communicating on the court and holding teammates accountable.
Smart finished his time in Boston with a team net rating of +5.0 points per 100 while on the court, +1.8 points better than the team’s mark when he sat. But give Stevens credit for making the trade when he did. Last season, Boston was worse with Smart on the floor for the first time since 2019.
Trading Smart may be more tolerable than expected—especially with the ascension of Derrick White. Despite Smart’s defensive prowess, swapping White into his place last season improved the team’s defensive rating by 8.9 points per 100 with a +10.2 net rating swing overall. Beyond defense, White shot 4.7 percentage points better overall and 4.5 percentage points better from deep than Smart on a similar number of attempts per game.
Kristaps Porzingis: In
Far removed from the peak of his “Unicorn” hype when he first entered the NBA with the New York Knicks, Kristaps Porzingis quietly had the best season of his career with the Washington Wizards in 2022-2023. He paired a career-high 23.3 points per game with his most efficient shooting season (a 62.7% True Shooting percentage and 38.5% accuracy from three).
Porzingis, who’s had two ACL injuries in his career, made his body the primary focus. Aiming to improve his endurance and lateral mobility, he slimmed down to 235 pounds and played in 65 games, his healthiest season since his rookie year.
At a towering 7-foot-3, he might be the best shooting center in the league (even if Karl Anthony-Towns begs to differ). With deep range, a high release, and a quick trigger, Porzingis is most dangerous on the perimeter, where he shot 38.5% from deep on 5.5 attempts per game in 2023. He’s also coming off the most efficient year of his career in the post, averaging four post-up touches per game and shooting 61% in those situations. In the minutes Porzingis logs at center, Boston’s spacing should improve dramatically and create more driving lanes.
Trades, of course, don’t equate to automatic upgrades. As much as Porzingis brings a new style of play (see chart above), he’ll have to develop the right chemistry to fit in.
In his stop before Washington, Porzingis struggled to find chemistry as he returned from injury with the Dallas Mavericks. He never found offensive cohesion with the ball-dominant Luka Doncic, and he also seemed to play a step slow defensively. In Washington, that problem seemed to be alleviated slightly playing alongside Kyle Kuzma and Bradley Beal, especially considering that Beal only played 50 games.
Now that Porzingis is firmly the third option behind Tatum and Brown, he might once again be relegated to being a 7-foot-3 spot-up shooter, which wouldn’t maximize his value or impact.
There are also potential issues on defense.
Robert Williams III, the Celtics’ 6-foot-9 center-forward, was a pivotal part of the defense last season as an elite shot-blocker. Similar to Porzingis on D, he is a player that teams target with ball screens on the perimeter and he can also be exploited in the midrange because he plays so deep in drop coverage. Pairing these two together consistently would likely hurt Boston’s defense more than it enhances it, especially without Smart to cover any gaps.
Beyond X’s and O’s strategy, the 28-year-old Porzingis needs to stay healthy. Initially scheduled to suit up for Latvia in the FIBA World Cup this summer, Boston’s new acquisition was ruled out of the tournament due to plantar fasciitis. He is expected to be ready for the beginning of training camp in early October, but that type of injury can linger for some players.
Big Bag for Brown
The most jaw-dropping move of Boston’s offseason came on July 25, when Jaylen Brown inked the richest deal in NBA history, totaling $303.7 million over five years.
The third overall pick in 2016, Brown is coming off the best year of his career. He made the All-NBA second team while averaging 26.6 points, 3.3 assists, and 6.9 rebounds per game. Alongside Tatum, who made first team All-NBA, the Celtics won 57 games and had a top-five offense and top-five defense.
Brown’s detractors will point to a poor performance in Game 7 against the Heat (8-of-23 shooting, 1-of-9 from beyond the arc, eight turnovers) or refer to his struggles going left (Zoolander jokes have indeed been made), but this is simply the nature of the NBA: If you want to keep your top-tier talent, you have to pay top-tier prices — and that’s what Boston did to lock up the two-time All-Star and soon-to-be 27-year-old through the 2028-29 season.
Every player has flaws; Brown has a track record of addressing his and playing to the level of his contract.
His rookie extension once appeared steep. He signed for four years and $115 million at age 22, coming off a season in which he averaged 13.0 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.4 assists in a significantly smaller role. But he grew his game, becoming more proficient attacking the basket and creating his own shot off the dribble, especially from deep.
Fast forward to 2021-22, the second season of that deal. He helped lead Boston to the NBA Finals, where he was the team’s leading scorer, averaging 23.5 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game on 54.4% true shooting.
A year later, coming off an All-NBA season as the 42nd-highest paid player in the league, he quickly became a steal for the Celtics. As measured by Wins Above Replacement, Brown has outperformed his peers in the same range of salary-cap hits every season since his rookie year. Now that Boston has invested in Brown once again, he’ll have to take another step forward to keep that trend alive.
“I look at life as the stages and degrees,” Brown told reporters after signing his most recent contract extension. “Everything that I kind of went through throughout my career has kind of prepared me for each stage.”
“I don't shy away from pressure,” he added. “I know what the demand is, I know what the expectation level is and I know the work that is required.”
With Tatum’s own supermax extension on the horizon, the Celtics chose continuity with their homegrown duo and extended their runway to pursue a title.
The million-dollar question — or, in this case, the $100-million-dollar-plus question — is, Can the Celtics win Banner 18? The Eastern Conference is wide-open, and beyond that, this group has the talent to be the NBA’s last team standing.
The only missing piece this season?
It simply comes down to getting the job done.
Filed under: NBA