Boston Celtics

 

2020-21 Finish: 15-67

 

Season Highlight:

Season highlights are a tough gauge when you are deep in the middle of a re-building campaign, what a highlight is to a team like championship contenders in San Antonio or Portland is quite different to what Toby would be looking for heading into a 20-21 season

For me the highlight of the Boston season was without any doubt a hugely successful draft day featuring prospects like Jonathon Kuminga, Alperin Sengun and Moses Moody that will add to an already pretty exciting young core that is well on the way to creating a dominant contender in the very near future  .

 

Season Lowlight:

Like mentioned above how do you measure success for teams on the hunt for lottery balls you could look at the Boston season as the team that only managed to win 15 games as oh what a disaster or the team that only won 15 games F**k yeah lottery balls. So I need to look a little deeper for a lowlight

Any team contending or rebuilding want success in some way and for Boston it would be seeing his players perform on the court.

In saying that watching Kevin Porter Jr thrive in Houston would have been exciting unfortunately the KPJ we witnessed in NSL however just wasn�t up to scratch

8.6 Points per game while shooting 37% from the field and 33% from 3, isn�t what we want to see from a young star on the rise

 

Best Trade:

Boston Send: Isaiah Hartenstein
Boston Receives: Jerami Grant

When this trade went down in the NSL it received absolutely no attention at all it just wasn�t worthy of commentary at the time. Fast forward a few months and to say it�s a little lop sided might be making an understatement (still unaware if there were subsequent deals made) Isaiah is now fighting to stay in the NBA on a non-guaranteed contract while Jerami has emerged as a star for the Detroit Pistons and was later used to facilitate a subsequent trade for 2020 #2 draft pick James Wiseman

Obviously other pieces were thrown around over the course of these moves but to strip it down it was essentially from Isaiah Hartenstein to James Wiseman

 

Worst Trade:

Honestly nothing stands out as the worst trade, every deal was done to improve the potential of the roster or add assets, maybe I�m too easy but eh it�s just how I see it

 

Other Notable Trades:

Boston receive #6 draft pick Jonathon Kuminga

Boston Send #7 draft pick Josh Giddey & Moses Brown

This is one to keep an eye on in the future both highly touted recruits in the 2021 draft class Josh Giddey was a polarising pick whereas the affectionately named �Kum-Buckets� (that�s just wrong) was a man moving up many GM�s draft boards.

Moses Brown isn�t one to be forgotten either who has shown flashes of being a player of the future

 

Free Agency:

The Celtics currently have 15 players contracted for season 21/22 and aside from Zach Collins who is a restricted free agent and subsequently return it looks like Toby will be a curious onlooker

Don�t be surprised if the Celtics take advantage of some wiggle room under the salary cap and enter trade discussions as a trade partner for teams looking to shed some cash.

 

Star:

Jayson Tatum

In the not so distant future there is potentially a number of answers to this question as to who is the Celtics best. At this point in the infancy of a rebuild there is only one answer and to no one�s surprise its Jason Tatum

And by quite a margin (for now) Ranking as the NSL�s 17^th best player and putting up all-star numbers consistently which is all you can ask for from a number one option

26.7 Points 7.5 rebounds 3.4 assists with 47/40/90 shooting splits

All he really needs now is a couple of running mates that will help and it looks like that has been taken care of

 

Flop:

Kevin Porter Jr

Ok so this might be an odd choice but chose Just purely due to the emotional roller coaster Kevin Porter Jr sent GM Toby on during the season from the high of draft day jubilation to the low of locker room head case all while. Then watching him take the Houston Rockets by storm while being somewhat of a statistical flop for the NSL Celtics.

 

Draft Grades:

Pick #6 � Jonathon Kuminga 

Life started well for the warriors number 6 pick ending his 1^st taste of the NBA at summer league with 17pts rebounds and 2 assists per game. Also notably getting to the line at a good rate almost 8 per game.

Shooting % wasn�t quite there yet, but everything else is on point

 

Pick #9 � Alperin Sengun 

Alperin Sengun looks every bit the star he was touted to be after the NBA draft had taken place taking the summer league by storm with 14.5 points 11 rebounds 2.7 assists and 3 blocks per game

Also showed good shooting touch going 43% from the field and 37% from three

Pick #11 � Moses Moody

Kuminga�s GSW running mate Moses Moody also showed out in the Summer League giving a preview of the warriors dynamic duo to come in future years

16 points 2.7 rebounds 1 assist and 1 steal per game while shooting 44% from the field and 37% from three

 

The Future:

Boston have a stacked young core that aren�t too far away from being considered contenders with Jayson Tatum the driving force. The wins per season will steadily creep up and before you know what happened it�ll be Division titles, Conference titles etc��.Toby has done an amazing job of building a team while continually adding and flipping assets that benefit the long term future  it will be interesting to see if at some point he decides to combine assets and add another big name player while the Boston salary cap is friendly.

C: James Wiseman / Kevon Looney / Zach Collins
PF: Jayson Tatum / Alperin Sengun / Deni Avdija
SF: Luguentz Dort / Jonathon Kuminga / Kenyon Martin Jr.
SG: Malik Beasley / Moses Moody /
PG: Darius Garland / Kevin Porter Jr