The Boston Celtics have repeatedly stated that they don’t feel they are in the right position to compete for a championship right now. After reaching the Eastern Conference Finals last season, the C’s have struggled this season and other teams have become the favorites to come out of the East over them.
Danny Ainge claimed a couple of weeks ago that the team will need to make some moves to improve their level and see if they can have a better chance at the NBA title in a conference that has the Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets, and Milwaukee Bucks as favorites, while the defending EC champions, the Miami Heat, are also trying to have a deep playoffs run.
Well, they have apparently gotten to work and have found a solution to their problem. A recent report by Jared Weiss and Sam Amick of The Athletic suggests that they were willing to trade Jaylen Brown to the Atlanta Hawks but their asking price is a little too much for the Hawks. It was reported that John Collins and Bogdan Bogdanovic have drawn some attention from the Celtics but that’s not the only trade we could see between these two squads.
Though the Hawks’ demands for Collins have been similar to Orlando’s Gordon price tag, Atlanta’s initial response to Boston’s pursuit of the 23-year-old forward was to build a larger deal around Jaylen Brown, league sources tell The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner. Since the 24-year-old All-Star plays the most valuable position in the game and just started a below market four-year deal, that was not going anywhere unless Atlanta was looking to include Trae Young and DeAndre Hunter, their two main building blocks. Trades for young top picks with long-term control like this are exceedingly rare, especially once they have hit the All-Star threshold.
It seems like this deal is off the table and the Celtics will focus on different players. Seeing the rumors around Trae Young and John Collins, it seems more likely that the Hawks will deal the big man rather than their star point guard. But, the 17-time NBA champions will have to offer a very appealing deal to unlock negotiations with Atlanta. Collins is one of the most promising young players in the league and they won’t let him go for nothing.
They have missed chances to land a couple of superstars and build a strong superteam in the past and adding Collins to Jayson Tatum and hoping for a recovery of Kemba Walker, this team could make a lot of noise in the East.
