Jrue And Porzingis Are Gone, But Another Shoe needs to Drop
Reacting to the Boston Celtics Kristaps Porzingis trade
Today was supposed to be an Anfernee Simons film study. But that was before Brad Stevens chose to do his best Brittany Spears impression. Yesterday, at just before midnight UK time, and around 7 pm Eastern Time, Stevens struck a three-team deal to send Kristaps Porzingis to the Atlanta Hawks.
The full trade looks like this:
Celtics Get: Georges Niang and a future second-round pick
Brooklyn Nets Get: Terance Mann and the 22nd pick in the 2025 NBA draft from the Hawks.
Atlanta Hawks Get: Kristaps Porzingis and a second-round pick
In making this deal, Brad Stevens accomplished his goal of getting the Boston Celtics under the second apron. According to Keith Smith, Boston is now $4.5 million below the threshold. That means the Celtics can continue to make moves, but are now free to aggregate salaries, such as a 2-for-1 type of trade.
Looking online, it would appear the reaction to losing Porzingis is split. One half of the fanbase seems content with getting under the second apron, and slashing a payroll that made no sense for a roster that’s not expected to contend next season.
The other half feels like Atlanta made out like bandits in the deal. I’ve even seen some referring to this trade as Brad Stevens’ first true fumble in the market.
I sit on the first side of that argument. Porzingis has rarely been healthy when it mattered. He’s earning $30.7 million for the upcoming season. And, he was on an expiring contract. For all of the positive impact he provides when on the court, keeping him around made little sense.
So, while there’s an argument that the Celtics could have potentially gotten a better return if they had waited things out, this move makes total sense. Not only did Boston slash another Brinks Truck of cash off the luxury tax bill, but it also gave itself the flexibility to begin retooling the roster.
Let’s examine what Boston can do now that it’s a first-apron team and refresh ourselves on the restrictions it’s operating under.
What it can do
Package multiple players in an outgoing deal — they can send out 2 to get 1, etc.
Begin the process of retrieving their currently frozen 2032 first-round pick
Send out cash in trades to help sweeten a deal
The new reality of the 1st Apron
Boston still won’t have access to the Mid-Level Exception
Can't use the Bi-Annual Exception
Still can’t sign-and-trade players if the deal keeps them over the 1st apron — remember acquiring a player via a sign-and-trade hard caps you for that season
Must keep outgoing salary to 100%, as opposed to the 125% of non-apron teams
Still cannot sign players off waivers if they were earning more than the MLE before being waived.
Are still unable to use Traded Player Exceptions from a previous season.
As Yossi Gozlan noted on X, the Celtics are now $15.1 million above the luxury tax threshold. So, if Stevens aims to avoid the luxury tax entirely, he’s only one or two trades away from doing so.
In terms of cap control, Stevens is producing a master class. Just a few weeks back, I was on my soapbox, pontificating about why the Celtics should absolutely refuse to attach draft picks to Jrue Holiday or Porzingis in any deal unless they were getting fair value in return.
Now, we’re looking at Simons, Niang, and some traded picks (both incoming and outgoing). Not bad work.
Still, that’s not going to appease a fanbase that had sold itself on the dawn of a dynasty.
We were supposed to be gearing up for another parade. Not tearing everything down to the studs and rebuilding.
Still, that’s precisely where we find ourselves. And, with tonight being the first round of the NBA Draft, there’s a good chance more change could be heading our way.
We’re surfing on a tsunami right now.
Stevens could easily make some draft-day moves. Just yesterday, Steve Bulpett reported that Boston could look to jump into the lottery in search of acquiring Kasparas Jakucionis.
“It remains to be seen whether Boston can get up where they’d need to be to draft him, but there are definitely teams up high that are looking to trade back,” a front office source told Bulpett. “The question is how far back those teams are willing to go and what Boston is willing to offer to get them to do it.
Of course, Stevens is also no stranger to trading back in the draft, having done so on multiple occasions, most notably the flurry of trades he made before selecting Jordan Walsh in 2023.
Or, as Shams Charania has been hinting about for a couple of weeks now, Stevens could explore a colossal deal that shakes the fabric of the NBA. That type of trade would involve Jaylen Brown. Or, for a smaller tremor around the league, potentially Derrick White.
“There are multiple teams that have significant interest in Jaylen Brown,” Charania said on a June 24 episode of “The Stephen A. Smith Show.” “And you think about, for sure, the contract is steep. I understand it. But listen, there are teams, especially in today's NBA, especially in the Eastern Conference, and now what we're seeing in the Western Conference, too, is an arms race in the West. So even if you're a team that's meddling in the playoffs, you're trying to get there, you're trying to make a swing. And I think what we're going to see now in both conferences is a lot of activity.”
Stevens moves in silence. Nobody had any intel (that I saw floating around) on the Holiday to Portland deal. And the scuttlebutt surrounding the Hawks and Porzingis only surfaced yesterday.
Still, it’s fair to assume that a package for Brown would be monumental. We’re talking a star-level talent, a young high-upside player and a bevvy of future picks…OR, an elite young talent, super-high value picks, and high-level role players.
So, if we use the San Antonio Spurs as a hypothetical trade partner, a desirable return would be something based around Stephon Castle, the 2nd-overall pick, Keldon Johnson and any potential filler needed.
That might be too much to ask for, though…
Chris Mannix doesn’t believe Brown could command such a package…
“I think if you’re Boston, you’re not going to ask for a Stephon Castle. You’re not going to get a Stephon Castle in a potential Jaylen Brown deal,” Mannix recently said on NBC Sports Boston. “You would get the No. 2 pick back in return. You would get the Devin Vassells, the Keldon Johnsons, future first-round capital.”
For me, Castle — or a player with his upside- would absolutely need to be part of a package. Although the value of Dylan Harper could be enough to sway Stevens, who knows?
Anyway…
My hope is that we get at least one fun draft prospect to sink our teeth into over the summer. Maybe that will help sweeten the sour taste that losing Holiday and Porzingis has created.
Something tells me that there’s still another shoe — or two — that needs to drop with the Celtics restructuring. Whether that happens tonight, next week, next month or closer to February remains a mystery.
OH! And if you want some draft coverage heading into tonight, check out this preview we did with Garrett Johnson, looking at prospects in the 28-32 range.
We’re going to have a bunch of film studies to work through in the coming days and/or weeks. I’m looking forward to diving into those. But for now, all we can do is wait to see if the dust settles, or if another whirlwind is around the corner.
I love this trade for everyone involved. Rare to see a win-win-win. Boston gets the financial relief they needed without paying for it (heck, they might even get some use out of Niang!), Atlanta gets a low-risk, high-reward swing and loses a bad contract, and Brooklyn buys another first-rounder.
It's a bummer to lose a talented player in KP, but this was as graceful a way to do it as exists
I don’t think Boston has any intentions of trading Brown, White or Pritchard. If they did, would have made sense to do that before KP and Holiday. Still, if someone blows their socks off, have to consider. But odds of that seem relatively low. I think tonight will chart the course. If Boston pulls a couple draft night trades and moves up to snag promising rookies, they’ll go into a sort of soft tank mode. Play the youngsters a lot. Find a way for Brown and White to only appear in about 50 games tops. Turn their own pick into a top 10 next year and hope for some lottery luck. Regroup in ‘26 when Tatum is back at full strength. But if they’re stuck at 28 and hold onto Simons, Hauser, etc., maybe more likely to stay the course. See what Simons can do and how Walsh, Scheierman develop.