Getty Kevin Huerter, Boston Celtics
Free agency officially opens on June 30, but it looks like the trade market is where the fireworks are currently set to go off.
And the Boston Celtics should look to get into the mix, according to NBC Sports Boston’s Darren Hartwell. Following the Atlanta Hawks trade for Dejounte Murray, it looks like the Hawks aren’t done rebuilding their roster, and Forsberg proposes taking advantage of their lack of guard depth to bring in Kevin Huerter and resolve some of the Celtics’ perimeter scoring issues.
I imagine any Huerter deal works so that the Celtics use the Fournier tpe to bring him in and then they send out Theis to create a new tpe at ~$8.5 million and keep the tpe cycle going… obviously with draft picks whatever else would be involved
“Stevens may not want to break up a core group that just reached the NBA Finals. But Atlanta doesn’t have much guard depth behind Murray and Trae Young, so perhaps Boston could package Payton Pritchard and a first-rounder for Huerter,” Hartwell wrote on June 30.
Huerter is entering the first year of a new $65 million contract which has an annual average salary of $16.25 million. As such, the Celtics can utilize their $17.2 million trade exception to absorb Huerter, allowing both teams the luxury of not having to make the money match, and also giving the Hawks an opportunity to create a trade exception of their own.
Atlanta is ‘Possibly’ Looking to Trade Huerter
According to reporting from Chris Kirschner and Sam Amick – both of The Athletic – there is a possibility that Atlanta now turns their attention toward trading Huerter or Bogdan Bogdanovic, as they look to ease their spending commitment and re-balance their roster.
“It’s also possible the Hawks explore trading either Kevin Huerter or Bogdan Bogdanovic, who may be headed for bench roles as a result of the Murray addition. Huerter signed a four-year, $65 million deal last offseason, while Bogdanovic is owed $18 million this season and recovering from offseason knee surgery that’s expected to sideline him through training camp,” Amick and Kirschner wrote on June 30.
22 days remaining for Brad Stevens to use the Boston Celtics TPE (via Evan Fournier) of ≈ $17.1M.
Some names to consider:
•Dejounte Murray
•Lauri Markkanen
•Kevin Huerter
•Will Barton
•Kyle Kuzma
•Josh Hart
•Danny Green
Huerter would certainly be an interesting proposition for the Celtics, as he would immediately solve their perimeter scoring woes – either as a starter or coming off the bench. In his 74 regular-season games this year, Huerter averaged 38.9% shooting from deep while taking 5.6 attempts per game – it’s that type of consistency with volume that Boston has been missing, and was a noticeable floor against the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.
Defense Could Be an Issue
Since Ime Udoka took the reigns as the Celtics’ head coach, the franchise has been building its identity on the defensive end of the floor, ranking first among the entire NBA for defensive rating during the 2021-22 NBA regular season.
While Payton Pritchard isn’t a stout defender, he does compete on that side of the ball, regardless of his physical limitations. If the Celtics were to trade for Huerter, the front office would need to feel confident about his willingness to hustle on defense, so as to not produce too much of a drop-off from what Pritchard provided.
The Athletic’s @johnhollinger: “If Boston can stomach the luxury tax hit, a trade of Atlanta’s Kevin Huerter to the Celtics would make a lot of sense for both sides.”
Still, Huerter is six-foot-seven, and his addition to Boston’s rotation would instantly inject some more size into their rotation, which in itself can help shore up the bench unit’s defense.
Furthermore, as John Hollinger recently noted in his June 30 column on The Athletic, “Huerter would give Boston another big wing off the bench who can score, improving their bench, and he’s on the same timeline as Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.”
With Boston’s $17.2 million trade except set to expire on July 18, there is still plenty of time for Brad Stevens to finalize a deal, whether that deal is for Huerter remains to be seen.