The hardest part about the Celtics adding new stars would be seeing Avery Bradley go
COMMENTARY
The NBA silly season – that rumor-rich stretch from the end of the Finals until the first few days of free agency – is always delightfully chaotic.
But this year it has achieved next-level craziness, to the point that when Adrian Wojnarowski breaks news of the Chris Paul-to-the-Rockets deal, you’re not sure whether he’s doing it on behalf of Yahoo! or ESPN. Even those informing us of the transactions are involved in their own.
(FYI, Woj joins ESPN July 1. So he probably hasn’t delivered his last scoop under Yahoo!’s tattered umbrella.)
This hoops silly season is especially compelling around here, of course, because Danny Ainge has a fat stack of appealing trade assets, an outstanding and appealing team, and the desire to use the former to enhance the latter.
Paul George is available? The Celtics are in on that. Gordon Hayward is headed to free agency? Say, didn’t he play for Brad Stevens once upon a time? Lob City is imploding? Well, wouldn’t Blake Griffin look great playing alongside Al Horford?
It is downright impossible for Celtics fans to resist dreaming of sweet new lineups. How does Horford/George/Hayward/Isaiah Thomas/Marcus Smart sound? Look out, LeBron. Or a bigger if riskier five: Horford/Griffin/George/IT/Smart?
And don’t forget Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum – Ainge’s favorite player in the recent draft – bringing youthful energy off the bench. Sure, there would be some depth issues to sort out. But that’s a contendah, I tell ya.
But as we kick around these silly-season daydreams that somehow have a real chance of coming true, it’s hard not to get sentimental about one player who would probably be a casualty of multiple major Celtics moves.
Lost in the anticipation of the Superstar Acquisition Quest 2017 is the reality that it probably means Avery Bradley will go.
This is a bummer. If you don’t like Bradley, there are only a couple of conclusions that can be drawn. You are not a Celtics fan. You don’t watch the Celtics. You don’t know what you’re watching when you’re watching the Celtics. Or you’re an NBA guard who has to play against the defensively ferocious Bradley and the Celtics.
He’s not a superstar because he doesn’t score like one, though he did average a career-high 16.3 points per game this past season. What he is a superb all-around player, a lock-down defender and excellent midrange shooter who this year became a genuine 3-point threat, shooting 39 percent on an average of five attempts per game.
He wasn’t the Celtics’ best player, but he was their best player every third game or so, including in the postseason when he delivered some truly stellar performances, including a combined 56 points in Games 5 and 6 against the Wizards.
The respect for Bradley around the league was confirmed when several of his peers, among them Devin Booker and Damien Lillard, took to Twitter to share their bewilderment in his exclusion from the All-Defensive teams. No, Bradley isn’t a superstar.
But he’s admirable in another way: He’s the kind of player you can see being a crucial contributor to the league’s brightest teams. He’d be a perfect Spur, a fierce third guard for the Warriors.
He’s already been a darned good Celtic, one who is still improving at 26 years old and yet is the lone remaining member of the roster whose lineage traces back to the Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett/Ray Allen years. As a young player, he didn’t have much of a handle and struggled with his shot, but the relentlessness was always there. Every time Dwyane Wade plays against the Celtics, the memory of Bradley’s eat-the-Spalding block on him in 2012 refreshes, and it never gets old.
He was a part of the New Big 3 era when their championship days were already passed. I hope he gets a chance to play on the next great Celtics team. He’s earned it. But he’s due for a new contract after the coming season, and with Marcus Smart and Isaiah Thomas also coming up for new deals soon, someone is going to go. Given the need to clear room to fulfill the Celtics’ quest for multiple superstars in the next couple of weeks, it may happen sooner than later.
If Ainge can bring some combination of George, Hayward, and Griffin to Boston, well, it might feel like 2007-08 all over again around here. That would make for a roster to dream on. But the real thrill would come if Ainge can somehow make it happen without having to sacrifice Bradley to make the financials work. Right now, it doesn’t look probable or even possible, and that’s too bad. Bradley isn’t a superstar. But he’s everything else a Celtic is supposed to be.
