Getty Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum high-fives Jaylen Brown during a game against the Phoenix Suns.
From a frontline production standpoint, the Boston Celtics have been getting more out of their wings than just about any team in the NBA. Between MVP candidate Jayson Tatum sliding between the three and the four spots and Jaylen Brown holding down the two/three, the Cs are operating at an advantage night in and night out.
However, that advantage shrinks considerably in the second unit when Joe Mazzulla is forced to wedge an inexperienced Sam Hauser or a small-ish combo guard like Derrick White into a wing role. As such, some have opined that Brad Stevens should prioritize adding some wing depth ahead of the league’s February 9 trade deadline.
That includes Heavy Sports’ Jack Simone who, as part of a recent CelticsBlog roundtable, floated a reunion with a recent former Beantowner as a potential deadline move.
Namely, veteran guard-forward Josh Richardson, who spent half of the 2021-22 campaign with the Celtics before getting shipped to San Antonio in the trade netting White.
Simone: Josh Richardson Could Ease the Burden on Jayson Tatum & Jaylen Brown
There were varying opinions on which areas (if any) the Celtics should seek to shore up at the deadline for the CelticsBlog piece. For his part, though, Simone zeroed in on Richardson and another veteran wing when assessing the trade possibilities.
“Adding a guy like Josh Richardson or Will Barton could help take a load off of Tatum and Brown and give the team an extra option in case everyone else goes cold (like what happened in the Finals a couple of times). Having that extra body at the wing could prove to be extremely important through the end of the regular season especially.”
When the Cs flipped an incoming Moses Brown for Richardson two summers ago, it proved to be a textbook example of a team swapping the birds in the bush for one they could actually hold in their hands. And Richardson hasn’t changed a bit since making the move to the Spurs.
As ever, he’s a known quantity; a pro’s pro who can be trusted to compete on both ends. And it’s not hard to envision him putting up something close to the 9.7 points, 2.8 boards and 0.8 steals with 44-40-86 shooting splits that he logged in 44 games with Boston last season as a backup to Tatum and Brown.
This much is certain — the Celtics’ over-reliance on their star duo (who are both playing 35.9-plus MPG) is something that should be addressed, for the good of the players and the team.
Will Barton Could Be a Nice Reclamation Option
It wasn’t all that long ago that the Barton was one of the league’s better sparkplug-type players; a tertiary gunner who could get hot and lead a team to the W on any given night. Just last season, he was putting up nearly 15 PPG and drilling a career-best 2.2 triples nightly for a contending Denver Nuggets team.
However, as a member of the Washington Wizards in 2022-23, he’s in the midst of a five DNPs in eight games stretch. And his 19.7 MPG represents his lowest workload since the 2014-15 campaign.
Clearly, he’s not in the Wizards’ long-term plans; it may be worth shooting them a call to see if you can get him on the cheap. There’s also this — The Ringer’s Chris Vernon just reported that Washington could buy Barton out of the last few months of his contract.
So, he could also be a buyout option post-deadline if the Cs have an open spot at that juncture.