HOW Did They Let The Celtics Do This…

HOW Did They Let The Celtics Do This…

the Boston Celtics are in their second NBA Finals in the last three years was it the easiest path ever potentially to get to the finals probably but still they’re a very good team 20 losses on the season between the regular and the postseason going into the NBA Finals is not an easy thing to do and so I think it’s important to think about how exactly the Celtics got here how did they put together a roster that was capable of obviously winning the title this season it’s especially interesting because the roster looks pretty different from the group that they brought to the finals in 2022 not to mention of course the coaching situation is different but let’s begin with the things that aren’t different we have of course Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown this is the foundation of this era of Celtics basketball uh whether it was the Kyrie teams they brought in Gordon Hayward they’ve had all these different versions of the team uh but since they’ve brought these two guys in they’ve been the foundation now Tatum was picked back in 2017 and of course this was an interesting situation for him uh because he actually went third overall to Philadelphia but of course before the draft the picks switched back and forth Boston ended up at three they traded back from one that was the Marquel fultz pick Philly moved up to one to select fults and the only reason Philadelphia had that pick in the first place is because of a deal that they did with the Kings earlier on which granted them a pick swap in the 2017 draft and so they swapped from five up to three and Sacramento ended up with a fifth pick in that draft the rest of the details for the trade are that the Celtics also got an extra first round pick to move back from one to three to select Tatum that extra first round pick ends up becoming Romeo Langford so ultimately it’s basically Tatum for fults and of course tat has been arguably the best player in the entire draft class and arguably a top 10 player in the league right now now for Jaylen Brown he was also selected third overall but this time in the 2016 draft and of course the Celtics had that draft pick as a result of the crazy trade that they made with the Nets that involved Kevin Garnett Paul Pierce that is somehow over a decade old at this point my Brooklyn Nets traded all those draft picks away and some of them ended up becoming really valuable including the third overall pick in 2016 which becomes jayen brown but the rest of the pieces on the roster were all just built around that and it’s really interesting how they were able to get them and one of the most consequential was a piece that didn’t really seem like a huge deal at the time and that’s Derrick White they traded for him at the 2022 trade deadline that’s the year that Boston made the finals under Ma udoka and at that point at the trade deadline the Celtics had started to figure some things out they were really guarding well they were scoring well and they didn’t start the year particularly well but they really started to figure things out and as I said end up finishing the year extremely well end up making the finals and they needed a little bit more help in the back court they needed another guard they could put out there they really didn’t have a ton of great guard depth and so they go out and get Derrik white from the Spurs and what it cost them was essentially some salaries Romeo Langford and then their first round pick that season as well as a future pick swap in 2028 and that 2022 first ends up becoming Blake Wesley not a huge deal for San Antonio right now we’ll see what the pick swap ends up becoming but I remember at the time I made a video and I was like Dereck White’s good I’m just a little bit confused about the draft compensation exchange to year like Derrick White being worth one and a half first round picks at the time seemed like an overpay for me and I understood what Boston wanted to do but I was concerned about what the roster was going to look like moving forward because at the time they started to play better but they certainly weren’t you know a title contending team at that point that happened after they traded for white and they started to really play well they were playing well up to the trade but it wasn’t uh you know they struggled so much at the beginning of the year relative to expectations that it wasn’t some kind of crazy uh leap that made me think that the white trade was going to be the piece that put them over the top and it didn’t necessarily put them over the top although obviously they came within two games of winning the title in 2022 before falling to the Warriors but it was at least a piece that set them on a path to build the team that they have now and white has been at times even with this current group the third best player on the team he’s great defensively leads guards and blocks shoots really well can create for them as well and it’s just this awesome in between piece that a lot of contenders would love to have but then we get to a couple of the big ones right Chris STS porzingis and Drew holiday are are linked in a couple of different ways here for Boston of course they’re brought in in the same offseason in 20123 but some of the pieces involved are actually linked as well I’m going to begin with porzingis and then we’ll get to so initially Boston had a deal in place to get Chris Abs porzingis from Washington but initially the third team in that deal was actually the Clippers the Clippers were going to send a first round pick to Washington KP was going to go to Boston and Malcolm Brogden was going to end up on the Clippers and for Washington at the time that was fine by them because they weren’t going to keep KP he needed a new contract it was a sign in trade situation they sent him to Boston the the Clippers felt like they needed another guard they had a pick to spare might have been actually the first pick in the second round essentially it was draft compensation that the Clippers were giving up and they were like okay Malcolm brogen’s good the problem was they got concerned with brogen’s Medicals late on later on in the process and this was a reported trade it was tweeted out and everything and then it was actually rescinded keep that in mind when we get to the Dre holiday part because Malcolm bragon is going to become important here in a second but what ends up happening the trade that actually goes through is the third team of the deal the Clippers get replaced by Memphis they end up with Marcus Smart that’s who Boston sends out Boston ends up getting KP and Washington gets some extra stuff as well and so they still end up with porzingis but they had to get rid of Marcus Smart in order to do it although they did get some extra compensation which then brings us to the Drew Holiday trade because at the time of the first porzingis trade Drew holiday was not available at least not on the level that he would be after the Dame trade right like Milwaukee trades away Drew holiday for Damen Lillard after the first KP trade and pieces of that deal end up in the the Drew Holiday trade from Portland so we know the story there right like Dame ends up going to Milwaukee Drew ends up in Portland it’s clear they want to trade him it’s clear that he has value he was arguably the centerpiece of the deal they felt like they could get extra value in the Dame trade by then you know swapping out Drew elare and so Boston ends up calling them up and they say hey we’ve got the contracts of Malcolm brogon we’ve got Robin Williams who could be an interesting big for you and we’ve got a first that we got in this Grizzlies trade as a 2024 first- round pick from the Warriors can we have drew holiday and so that’s the deal that ends up going through and so you have all these pieces swapping around but essentially Boston ends up with Drew holiday and christs porzingis in exchange for Marcus Smart Malcolm Brogden and Robert Williams that’s pretty wild that they were able to do that all inone SE allinone offseason I should say and it completely transformed their roster like the 2022 team was really good OKO was a better Coach uh than Joe moula is right now and that team had their strengths but this team is built in a way that you had the best fiveman unit in the entire league and it’s a lineup that makes sense there’s no confusion about who’s going to start and who’s going to come off the bench and being able to get holiday and porzingis is a essential to the Celtics success this season in terms of the other you know kind of key players on the roster another interesting player to to keep an eye on here of course would be Al Horford he initially signed with Boston in free agency in 2016 had a couple of really good years there of course was a part of the Kyrie Gordon Hayward teams and then ends up going to Philadelphia in 2019 via free agency remember he was supposed to be like the Quasi back up to Joel embiid also play alongside Joel embiid Philly spent a ton of money on him that didn’t work at all a year later he gets dumped to Oklahoma City as a salary dump and basically doesn’t play for the Thunder and then Boston comes back around and they’re like hey we’ll take the Al Horford contract we know that he’ll be good for us and and we have a contract of our own and Kemba Walker that we would like to dump so they sent Kemba in a first to OKC to get Al horard back on the team after he left the team in 2019 free agency now to be fair to Boston that first round pick didn’t end up becoming aler shenon now OKC didn’t end up with shenon they ended up with I think that was Usman Jen that they traded up for and then traded out of the shenon spot shenon of course ending up in Houston but it’s interesting how Al was a guy that was really good for Boston they lost him they didn’t want to pay him that much money then he still ends up back with them and has been awesome especially with KP hert for a good part of the playoffs in terms of some other guys like pton Pritcher was picked in the first round uh in 2020 Sam Hower was a two-way player that they converted but it’s interesting to look at you know things we can learn from how Boston put this team together right like they built the foundation Jaylen Brown Jason Tatum they had those two guys and they knew that they had skilled sides they had wings they could guard and could score and they just needed to build everything else out around that so they brought in Derek white they had Marcus Smart they had success with those teams Robert Williams was really good defensively and the final piece for them was another Elite guard that they could swap in and out the responsibilities of of being the main Defender with Derrick White and Drew holiday those are some two of the best guard Defenders of the entire league having more versatility there as well as someone that they know can start an end games for them there’s no question what the best fiveman unit is and then they needed more of an offensive punch in the front Court they needed someone that could punish switches because as good as brown and Tatum are they’re not fantastic in the post they’re not guys that are going to be great when teams are switching and so a lot of times that’s how teams would decide to guard Boston because of all their all their three-point shooting but you can’t switch on christops porzingis the year before in Washington when when Boston traded for him his postup efficiency skyrocketed from his previous levels really worked on his postup game and Boston saw that they said this is the perfect guy that can space that can guard and can punish myth matches and he’s been one of the bo best best post up players in the entire league by the advaned Numbers this season has been a perfect fit in Boston so the things we can learn from them is one they they absolutely nailed the the the trades obviously to trade back for Tatum and get the picks from Brooklyn to get uh Jaylen brown but every piece since then has been how do we complement these two guys these are our foundation how do we find Value where other teams aren’t they took the injury risk on KP they took the risk on Drew holiday’s offensive uh you know performance kind of falling off of the prior few seasons they took the risk on Derrik white someone that wasn’t seen as overwhelmingly valuable at the time and I thought it was a little bit of an overpay at the time and they just all fit perfectly together and then of course the bench they put together as well and it it it’s created this team that in certain ways has dominated this NBA season remain to be seen if that’ll be the case in the finals but that’s how Boston was able to put this team together

The Boston Celtics have put together a nearly perfect NBA team with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, and Jrue Holiday to get to the 2024 NBA Finals… how did they do it?

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