Playing for championships is what the Boston Celtics have always been known for, as they are tied with their rival, the Los Angeles Lakers, for the most championships in NBA history with 17 titles. However, reaching the NBA Finals is something Boston has not done since 2010 when the likes of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen were leading their franchise.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are the two All-Star leaders of this Celtics team now, as Kemba Walker was traded in the offseason. Both young talents had remarkable 2020-21 seasons and will look to build off of their success entering the 2021-22 season, but the rest of this roster is much improved from a season ago.
Marcus Smart will likely assume the starting point guard role on this team, but he is surrounded by plenty of experienced talents in Al Horford, Josh Richardson, Dennis Schroder and Enes Kanter, all of which were added by the Celtics in the offseason.
Not to mention, Boston also has a ton of other young talents on their roster who will be utilized in some capacity in Payton Pritchard, Robert Williams, Aaron Nesmith, Romeo Langford and Grant Williams.
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With a solid balance of experienced and young talents, the Boston Celtics definitely have a chance to be a strong team in the Eastern Conference, but they may still be one piece away from being a true threat against the likes of the Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers, Miami Heat and reigning World Champions, Milwaukee Bucks.
The Celtics were able to work out a deal to sign-and-trade Evan Fournier to the New York Knicks this offseason and in doing so, they created a rather large $17.1M trade exception for themselves. This exception almost acts as a “credit” for Boston in terms of their salaries and they can use this TPE during the 2021-22 season to absorb a player’s salary via trade without relinquishing additional salaries.
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This traded player exception that they have from Fournier is large enough to allow the Celtics to go after some pretty talented players in pursuit of making a deep postseason run, so who could Boston look to target at some point during the 2021-22 season?
