When you think of Boston Celtics guards entangled in trade talks this season, your mind quickly drifts to the likes of Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart. However, with the former in the midst of his best season to date, averaging the seventh-most points in the NBA (26.9), and the latter pegged as the “heart and soul” of the Celtics, the idea of either player being dealt appears to dissipate by the day.
Yet, that doesn’t mean all Celtics guards are in the clear.
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Carsen Edwards On His Way Out of Boston?
Theoretically, you could point to Kemba Walker as the odd-man-out in Boston’s backcourt, as the 30-year-old remains sidelined following an offseason knee procedure. In fact, the continued development of the aforementioned Brown and Smart as distributors, as well as the surprising play of Payton Pritchard, has almost led many to forget that the Celtics have a four-time All-Star waiting in the wings.
Yet, with three years and a surplus of $108M-plus remaining on his deal, Walker must prove able to warrant a return package worth entertaining for Boston post-knee injury. Instead, Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale has zeroed in on a different Celtics guard, claiming that second-year man, Carsen Edwards, is the one player Boston “needs to trade.”
Carsen Edwards is the lowest-hanging fruit, and in this case, the right choice. He has fallen firmly behind Payton Pritchard and Jeff Teague in the backcourt pecking order, racking up mostly DNPs to start the season. If he’s not going to crack the rotation now, when Walker is on the sidelines, he probably won’t ever be a factor.
Dangling his $1.5 million salary won’t net the Celtics much, but they can move it just about anywhere, and he retains some appeal as a prospective marksman for teams in need of an offensive firecracker. In the event Boston decides to use all or part of the $28.5 million Gordon Hayward trade exception, Edwards is the player most likely to wind up elsewhere should the C’s still need to create a roster spot.
Edwards, a second-round pick back in 2019, has fallen out of favor in his second season in Massachusetts, not that he was a prime contributor prior. The former Purdue Boilermaker and 2018 Jerry West Award recipient (Top CBB shooting guard) has seen his minutes drop by 3.2 minutes per game from his 9.5 minutes per game average of 2019-20. In fact, he’s seen the court in just three of the Celtics’ eight games this season, logging more than four minutes just once (12 minutes in a 19-point victory over the Memphis Grizzlies).
Other Potential Trade Candidates
While Favale did eventually land on Edwards as the oddball on the Celtics’ current roster, his decision didn’t come without a bit of inner-pushback. Favale highlighted a handful of players that could be dealt prior to this year’s deadline, not limited to last year’s 14th-overall pick Romeo Langford, plus a slew of Boston bigs in starters Daniel Theis and Tristan Thompson, as well as the Time Lord himself.
Consideration can be given to any of Boston’s bigs. Neither Daniel Theis nor Tristan Thompson is untouchable, and Robert Williams III isn’t playing a huge role following the addition of the latter. Romeo Langford could work his way into this discussion, but the Celtics may need him to soak up wing minutes once he recovers from his right wrist injury.
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Celtics ‘Need to Trade’ Guard, Says NBA Writer