Former Boston Celtics sixth man a possible solution to Spurs’ point guard problem
HoopsHabit’s Cal Durrett believes the San Antonio Spurs’ point guard problem could be solved by the acquisition of former Boston Celtics Sixth Man of the Year and current Portland Trail Blazers veteran Malcolm Brogdon.
“If the Blazers agreed to that deal, it would ensure that the Spurs wouldn’t have the same lack of playmaking next season that they have this season,” Durrett said of a mock trade that’d send Doug McDermott, Cedi Osman, the Atlanta Hawks’ 2025 first-round pick, and two future second-rounders (2024 via Los Angeles Lakers, 2028 via Minnesota Timberwolves). “That is also doubly important since they may draft a point guard and between that, Brogdon, and Jones, they will have far more options and players who can handle the ball.”
Brogdon was part of the Jrue Holiday trade; one that saw the Cs also send Robert Williams III, and two future first-round picks to Portland. Without a doubt, that was the right move to make considering Holiday’s surprising contributions on the block and veteran leadership. Soon enough, that championship experience he brought from his time with the Milwaukee Bucks should pay off as well.
Victor Wembanyama deserves point guard like former Boston Celtics point guard Malcolm Brogdon
On the subject of winning, Brogdon’s prospective landing spot, San Antonio, haven’t been doing much of it in the past two seasons since trading away Derrick White and Dejounte Murray. Victor Wembanyama deserves better in his first season than experimental lineups with Jeremy Sochan running the offense.
Brogdon is the sort of veteran leader, not a championship leader but one who’s accustomed to winning and being a primary reason why, who could help move the Spurs in the right direction again, It’s weird talking about a Gregg Popovich-coached team this way, but Wembanyama hasn’t gotten the best supporting cast in Year 1 thus far.
Joe Mazzulla has same trust from Boston Celtics that predecessor did
Joe Mazzulla has same trust from Boston Celtics that predecessor did
By Andrew Hughes
Joe Mazzulla has the same trust in his Boston Celtics players now that dismissed former head coach Ime Udoka had with his players, says WEEI’s Justin Turpin — who believes Boston’s roster is largely over the fact that they’ll never finish the story with the latter.
“While the fact that the Celtics never got a chance to finish what they started with Udoka last season will probably still sting, all parties appear to have moved on – and it was long overdue,” Turpin wrote. “Udoka laid the groundwork, providing the tough love Boston’s star core needed. Now, Mazzulla has helped them reach that next step, gaining the same trust Udoka did.”
The Celtics destroyed Udoka’s Houston Rockets 145-113 on January 13, and while some saw shots taken at Udoka from certain players, the tone after the contest was only positive after the game when the Cs he coached were asked about him in the postgame presser.
Boston Celtics stars simply happy to see Ime Udoka again in Rockets blowout
Much has been made of the relationship Udoka had with his Celtics even after he was gone and had Mazzulla take over in his stead. While Jayson Tatum did say that the team moved on from feeling much about the Udoka situation, he did sound like someone who misses the Houston head coach as a person.
“Yeah, I got a chance to see him,” Tatum said (h/t MassLive). “I got a chance to talk to him. Haven’t seen him since, maybe it was at (Marcus) Smart’s wedding? So it was just good to see him again and all the other guys on the staff.”
Jaylen Brown got sentimental explaining his close relationship with Udoka and what it was like seeing him again.
“It was cool, you know what I mean,” Brown said. “Anytime you get into bump into familiar faces, friends. It was great to see Ime, it was great to see the guys on the coaching staff who we was in the Finals and the trenches with. It’s good to see those guys, spent a lot of time with them, watching film, things like that. That relationship is always going to be there.”
Udoka has more bad blood than the Cs do, by a substantial margin, especially after the 32-point loss in his TD Garden return.
Former Boston Celtics heart and soul would make Lakers’ biggest weakness worse
Former Boston Celtics heart and soul would make Lakers’ biggest weakness worse
By Andrew Hughes
Lakers Wire’s Robert Marvi sees the possibility of Los Angeles trading for Marcus Smart bringing much good to the Lake Show — but he also sees the former Boston Celtics heart and soul making L.A. worse in what is arguably already their weakest area: 3-point shooting.
“Smart would give L.A. an outstanding defender who is also at least somewhat capable offensively,” Marvi prefaced before saying, “He’s averaging a career-high 14.5 points a game this season, and he can also make plays for others and take some of the playmaking and ball-handling load off LeBron James.
“The big negative is Smart’s poor 3-point shooting, which would make the team’s biggest weakness even worse.”
A Smart-Lakers trade was being discussed due to a massive three-team blockbuster proposed by Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus that’d send the Memphis Grizzlies Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, Jaxson Hayes, Harry Giles III, a 2029 first-rounder, and trade exceptions ($8.3 million, $2.4 million and $1.9 million), land the Lakers Smart, Luke Kennard, John Konchar, Xavier Tillman Sr., Dorian Finney-Smith, and a trade exception ($10.5 million), and the Brooklyn Nets would reunite with D’Angelo Russell while acquiring Jalen Hood-Schifino and trade exceptions ($14 million, $2 million).
Marcus Smart LeBron James’s teammate on Lakers is too painful of a thought for Boston Celtics fans
This is an interesting conundrum.
On one hand, the Lakers landing Smart would be objectively messy for their spacing and could add an explosive personality; something LeBron teams don’t always navigate well (see: Kyrie Irving on the Cleveland Cavaliers).
Still, seeing Smart in purple and gold is an image so offensive to Celtics fans that it’d nearly make an L.A.-Boston matchup nearly unwatchable.
Smart’s injury likely keeps him in Memphis for the time being. The Grizzlies still don’t know what they have in a Smart-Ja Morant backcourt due to the latter’s season-ending shoulder injury after he missed the 2023-24 season’s first 25 games from suspension.
Should the Boston Celtics bring back Danilo Gallinari and/or Mike Muscala?
Should the Boston Celtics bring back Danilo Gallinari and/or Mike Muscala?
Two former Boston Celtics have found a new home, and said new home may not be for long.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported via his X account that the Washington Wizards had traded Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala to the Detroit Pistons for Marvin Bagley III, Isaiah Livers, and a second-round pick.
The Pistons and Wizards are finalizing a deal to trade Marvin Bagley, Isaiah Livers, and two second-round picks for forwards Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala, sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 14, 2024
From the Celtics’ perspective, that’s not even the biggest news. With Gallinari and Muscala now officially traded to another team, Boston can now legally acquire them, either via trade or by signing were they to be waived, as confirmed by MassLive’s Brian Robb.
Before the Wizards trade, the Celtics could not legally bring them back because, per the CBA, teams who trade their player(s) can’t re-acquire said player(s) for a year. However, because that rule is dependent on who was the last team that traded them, the Celtics are no longer restricted by it, meaning they can trade for them and/or sign them if they get waived. The question that remains is, should the Celtics look into that?
Why bringing one or both of Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala back to Boston Celtics is worth considering
First, I’ve mentioned before that Brad Stevens has an affinity for bringing back former Celtics in the past, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he did it again. That has only continued over the past year. Per HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto, Stevens tried to bring Josh Richardson back this past offseason. On Christmas day, NBA Insider Marc Stein reported that the Celtics were “monitoring” the Kelly Olynyk situation.
It’s clear that Stevens still keeps his eye on players who left the Boston Celtics. At the same time, it’s not like he does that strictly because they’re former Celtics. He does that because he justifiably believes they can help. In Richardson’s and Olynyk’s case, it is easy to see why he would want them back because they’re still productive players, and they’ve helped in the past. Would he feel the same way about Gallinari and Muscala? It’s hard to say that he would with a straight face.
Looking back at their tenures with the Cs, they’re probably not remembered nearly as fondly as Olynyk or Richardson. Gallinari never played a game for the Celtics, and Muscala sparsely played in the half-season he played for Boston last year. Their traditional stats from this season don’t really help them out, either.
Gallinari is playing like a 35-year-old veteran coming off a second ACL tear in his left knee. Averaging seven points while shooting 43.5% from the field is not the worst production for an NBA player on the wrong side of thirty. However, Gallinari shooting 31% from three is pretty discouraging, knowing his reputation as a floor spacer. If that’s not enough, he had been in the Wizards’ doghouse since December 26 before the trade. Muscala’s case is even worse than Gallinari’s.
Muscala has stayed in the NBA largely because of his reputation as a stretch big. That did not keep up in Washington, as he shot 27.5% from three, a far cry from the 39.1% he shot with OKC and Boston last season. While Muscala had been featured more than Gallinari towards the end of their time in Washington, his numbers of four points and 3.1 rebounds a game do not scream “needle mover.”
So, after all that, why is it worth considering bringing those two back? First of all, knowing how the Wizards’ season is going, how seriously can we take Gallo’s or Moose’s numbers? Everyone knew the Wizards were starting a new chapter in their franchise, so of course, there’s very little use for veterans like Gallinari and Muscala on that roster. It wouldn’t be ridiculous to suggest that their numbers could have been a little skewed by the situation. It’s also definitely possible that a change of scenery would improve their efficiencies just a tad. Especially if they’re playing for a winner.
Second, it’s not like the Celtics will have a plethora of options out in the open for them as trade and buyout season approaches. Having crossed the NBA’s second tax apron, the Celtics are pretty limited in what they can do. They’re not trading any of their players who are being paid eight figures, and Payton Pritchard has a poison pill contract. Also, there surely will be better players available, but the odds that the Celtics can get them are pretty low compared to what other teams can. Gallinari and Muscala are likely to be the best the Celtics can do.
Third, Gallinari and Muscala wouldn’t really have pivotal roles were they to re-join the Celtics. Boston;s rotation is perfectly fine the way it is. Optimistically, Gallinari and Muscala would have bigger roles than, say, Oshae Brissett, but not as big as Luke Kornet. They would be reinforcements in the rotation instead of upgrades. The Celtics aren’t in dire need of either of them at the moment. Adding them back would be more of a convenience than a necessity.
In the end, those two getting traded again may ultimately mean nothing to the Celtics for this season. But if they appear on the Celtics’ radar again, bringing them back wouldn’t hurt anything. When it comes to the prospect of adding Danilo Gallinari and/or Mike Muscala, the Boston Celtics’ mindset should be, “Eh. Why not?”
Joe Mazzulla grateful to have worked for returning Boston Celtics fired last year
Joe Mazzulla grateful to have worked for returning Boston Celtics fired last year
By Andrew Hughes
Ahead of the Boston Celtics’ January 13 matchup with the Houston Rockets, Joe Mazzulla was someone with no bones to pick, no grudge, and only gratitude toward the head coach who got scandalously suspended, and ultimately fired — thrusting Mazzulla into a role he was not preparing for but has proven ready for –, Ime Udoka.
“You look at guys and coaches around the league who don’t get experiences working for multiple head coaches.,” Mazzulla prefaced on January 12 (h/t NBC Sports Boston) before saying, “And so now that I can sit here today, I’m grateful that I got to work for him. I’m grateful that I got to see another way to do things because I was with Brad [Stevens] for three years, I think, and that was the only experience I had had in the NBA. So if I don’t get that opportunity to work for another coach, who’s worked for multiple coaches, who’s been on benches for championships, who’s been in San Antonio, Philly, other stops, then I don’t get to see how the league works and looking at it from a different perspective.
“I’m grateful for that year because I got to see a different approach. And I kind of compare it to the year I played for [Coach John] Beilein and the couple years that I played for [Bob] Huggins [at West Virginia]. They were two really good coaches and, on the outside, they seemed to have very contrasting styles. But they’re similar in the way they coach the game or defense, how they look at defense, how they look at offense. So I kind of compare it to that, is where I got to see two really good coaches do it different ways and combine my philosophy with theirs and try to make something of my own.”
Joe Mazzulla has continued Ime Udoka’s legacy of dominant Boston Celtics defense
It cannot be lost on either Mazzulla or Udoka, and from the sounds of it, it never has, that the defensive talent they inherited was a gift from Danny Ainge’s genius drafting and front office maneuvering that led him to having high draft picks.
Under Brad Stevens, Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Robert Williams III all grew into well-above replacement-level defenders, but it was under Udoka that it all came together. And Mazzulla has now reaped the benefits; even more so in 2023-24 with Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis in the lineup.
The Boston Celtics have had the ever elusive organizational alignment from the top down even through a scandal, and there has been no loss of momentum through losing two popular cornerstones in Smart and Udoka over the last year and a half.
Of course, Banner 18 is the only way to know all of it was definitively behind the Jays, Al Horford, Derrick White, and even Payton Pritchard, who all experienced the chaos. If Boston does reign supreme in June, there needs to be myriad media produced documenting it all for future generations of hoops lovers to understand.
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