4 Boston Celtic Players Have Been Suspended Because Of Drug Test
This season, two Eastern Conference contenders hope to add to their squad, but it appears that they won’t do it until after the 2024 trade deadline.
The Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks are anticipated to be active in the buyout market, but Brian Windhorst of ESPN reported on Wednesday that they are unlikely to make any big transactions.
It was mentioned that because of second tax apron regulations, neither club is allowed to sign a player whose base salary was more than $12.4 million.
The Celtics are tied with the Minnesota Timberwolves with the best record in the league at 17-5. Windhorst reported that Boston is likely to be seeking a quality rotation player to improve its depth behind its vaunted starting lineup.
“The Celtics have six premium starters and it makes them one of the NBA’s best teams. But after that, coach Joe Mazzulla has less experienced/proven players on his bench,” Windhorst stated. “Getting one more quality rotation player, at any position, would give Boston options.”
The Bucks and Orlando Magic are tied for the second-best record in the Eastern Conference with a 16–7 record. Windhorst observed that they “lack size and quickness on the outside, which constantly applies pressure to their second line of defence in the paint,” suggesting that perimeter defence is their greatest need.
Since both Boston and Milwaukee have payrolls that exceed the luxury tax by more than $17.5 million, they are regarded as second-tier teams. In order to preserve balance in the NBA, teams in the second apron are prohibited from making additional purchases.
Naturally, it’s still unclear which players that end up in the buyout market will be game-changers who can affect the Bucks’ or Celtics’ chances of winning an NBA title.
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Brad Stevens identifies one potential Celtics need at trade deadline
Brad Stevens shares his thoughts on the state of the team and the one position he could target at the NBA trade deadline
Brad Stevens has every reason to be pleased with his work so far.
After adding Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday to an already-talented roster, the Boston Celtics’ president of basketball operations has watched his team race out to an NBA-best 26-7 record through Thursday. The Celtics are current betting favorites to win the 2024 title, and all five of their starters were in the top 10 at their position in the league’s first All-Star voting returns.
But is there another move that Stevens can make between now and the Feb. 8 NBA trade deadline to fortify his roster?
“I think every year around this time, you’re looking at, OK, how do we improve to give ourselves our best chance?” Stevens told reporters Thursday at the Celtics’ practice facility. “There’s different ways to do it. Obviously you can improve from within, and we can get better at what we do on both ends of the court and hopefully make strides individually and how we fit together. And then you can improve from free agency or trades or whatever.”
Stevens suggested his preferred path is to have players on the current roster step up and fill necessary roles. But he did identify one position on his wish list over the next 30-plus days.
“I would like to continue to see how we can find another big wing or so that can help us,” Stevens said. “I think that could be from within, and I also think that we’ll continue to monitor free agency and trades. But again, the difference (between) this year and maybe other years is our tools are pretty limited from a dollar standpoint.”
The Celtics don’t have much financial wiggle room, with Grant Williams’ $6.2 million traded player exception as their only path to acquiring real talent. But Stevens says he has full support from ownership to spend to improve the team.
“(We have the) green light to do whatever we need to do, for sure,” Stevens said. “And that TPE, I mean, that’s the really the number one tool we have … to add somebody, but that’s $6.2 million, right? So there’s a small number of people — a lot of the people that are in that were signed to minimum or smaller contracts, or are on their rookie scale deals that teams aren’t exactly excited to move on from yet.
“So, it’s a very small group of people. But we’re going to exhaust it. We’re going to look at it. And I think it’s about OK, who can come in have the self-awareness to add to the group and the talent to add to the group?”
Sam Hauser has been a solid rotation player at the wing behind Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, but reserves Oshae Brissett, Dalanto Banton, Lamar Stevens and Svi Mykhailiuk haven’t made many significant contributions to date if Stevens wants to pursue additional wing depth.
It’s possible Stevens doesn’t find a better option on the trade market, but if a low-cost wing such as Atlanta’s Saddiq Bey or Toronto’s Otto Porter Jr. becomes available, that might be Stevens’ one chance to improve the roster externally entering the home stretch of the season.
Tatum’s two-way evolution on display in Celtics’ loss to Thunder
The Celtics made a fourth quarter run to make it competitive, but they couldn’t close it out in the end. Kristaps Porzingis had 34 points and Jayson Tatum had 30, but that wasn’t enough for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 36.
We’re not in the business of silver linings, particularly when the Boston Celtics’ singular goal is so lofty. But if you’re going to pluck a positive from Tuesday’s loss in Oklahoma City, it should be the overall play of Jayson Tatum.
Despite being hounded by defensive pest Lu Dort for much of the night, Tatum totaled 30 points on 10-of-21 shooting while adding 13 rebounds and eight assists. More importantly, Tatum requested to guard MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander over the final five-plus minutes of regulation as the Celtics feverishly tried to rally out of an 18-point hole.
Tatum wasn’t perfect on Gilgeous-Alexander — no one ever will be — but on a night when no one had a solution to SGA drives, Tatum did his best to use his length to disrupt the Thunder guard. Gilgeous-Alexander posted a game-high 36 points and added 21 assist points, with all seven of his helpers leading to 3-point shots.
“He had it going so I just wanted to switch on him,” Tatum told reporters after game while acknowledging he requested to guard the MVP candidate.
Tatum’s defensive potential is no secret but he often exerts so much energy on the offensive end that it limits the output on the defensive side. There are games when the Celtics need him to more frequently take on the challenge of defending an opposing team’s best player, particularly given the amount of offensive talent the team now boasts.
The NBA’s tracking data suggests that Tatum’s most frequent defensive assignments on Tuesday night — the tandem of Dort (5:09 of matchup time) and Gilgeous-Alexander (3:16) — scored just five points on 2-of-8 shooting with Tatum as the primary defender. The Thunder as a whole were 5-of-14 shooting for 13 points against Tatum, per NBA tracking.
Take those numbers with a grain of salt. Gilgeous-Alexander is such a blur with the ball that even the NBA’s cameras struggle to identify the defender logging the most time on him on various possessions. But re-watch the final five minutes and you’ll see an engaged Tatum trying his hardest to slow him.
Tatum bit on a pump fake and fouled Gilgeous-Alexander in one sequence with 4:32 to play but did a better job staying down and forcing either a miss or a pass in other instances the rest of the way.
For the season, opponents are shooting 46.6 percent against Tatum, per NBA tracking, which is slightly below expected output (47.2 percent). That’s better than Tatum’s mark a year ago (0.3 percent above expected) but well below the 2021-22 season, when he held opponents to 42.2 percent shooting (and 3 percent below expected output).
The encouraging part is that Tatum continues to try to find ways to impact the game beyond scoring. Coming off a poor shooting month in December, one in which the Celtics were impossibly better with him on the bench than on the court, Tatum is making subtle strides in other areas of the game.
On Tuesday night, Tatum was a particularly engaged rebounder against the size-deprived Thunder. NBA tracking suggests that 38.5 percent of his rebounds (5 out of 13) were contested boards, which is nearly double his season average (19.9 percent).
Even more encouraging is that Tatum finished with 13 potential assists. His 23 points created off assists was his second-highest total of the season. If Jaylen Brown doesn’t have an off shooting night, including going 0-for-3 shooting on 3-pointers off Tatum feeds, that total might have been even higher. The Celtics were 9-of-20 shooting overall off Tatum feeds. For sake of comparison, the Thunder were 9-of-17 shooting off SGA passes, including a sizzling 7-of-12 beyond the 3-point arc.
Yes, it all rings a bit hollow when Boston’s rally falls short. But, if nothing else, it’s a reminder that Tatum can take on that challenge and give the Celtics the best chance to succeed.
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