What Derrick White said about getting mentioned in Celtics trade rumors
"I feel like it’s cool to be wanted by other teams, but I wanted to stay in Boston."
It’s been a wild summer so far for the Boston Celtics.
Beyond the pain of Jayson Tatum’s Achilles injury and Boston’s title defense coming to an end in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Knicks, a looming financial crunch due to luxury-tax penalties prompted Brad Stevens to trade away Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday.
Beyond Tatum — who is expected to miss most, if not all, of the 2025-26 season while recovering from that ruptured Achilles — no Celtics player was seemingly safe from trade rumors over the last few weeks.
Both Jaylen Brown and Derrick White also were listed in several rumors as Boston left no stone unturned when it came to reshaping the roster.
But even with Stevens and the Celtics forced to drastically overhaul the roster in order to shed payroll, White told NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg that he wasn’t fretting about packing his bags after four years with Boston.
“I think every summer is pretty crazy, especially nowadays,” White said when asked about his name getting mentioned in trade talks. “But I didn’t feel too worried about anything. My agent and Brad had been talking and all the other rumors and stuff, I wasn’t really too worried about.
“I mean, I feel like it’s cool to be wanted by other teams, but I wanted to stay in Boston, and I was glad they wanted to keep me.”
Even if dealing away White and Brown would have secured a retooling Celtics roster some significant pieces in return, Celtics vice president of basketball operations Mike Zarren noted last month that Boston wasn’t looking to trade those two franchise fixtures.
“Those two guys are really, really great NBA players, and there hasn’t been anything close to serious about trading them,” Zarren said of White and Brown. “I’m not sure where all this reporting came from but those guys are key parts of our team, and we’re lucky to have them here.”
Even if both Brown and White are staying put with the Celtics, Boston is looking at a daunting season in 2025-26 with Tatum on the mend and both Holiday and Porzingis playing elsewhere.
To further complicate matters, Boston’s fiscal constraints due to the CBA also means that they lost Luke Kornet in free agency — with Stevens added on Tuesday that the team is also “unlikely” to retain fellow free agent Al Horford.
Despite the sizable changes to Boston’s roster over the last few weeks, White told Forsberg that he still expects the Celtics to roll out a competitive squad in 2025-26.
“It’s always tough to see guys leave, especially people that you won a championship with and had so many great battles with,” White said. “Obviously, seeing KP and Jrue get traded, it was tough to see. And then Luke signs somewhere else.
“Having a different team and having those guys leave is kind of difficult, but it’s part of the business and I’m confident the guys that we have coming in and the guys that we still have returning. So it’s gonna be a lot of fun, and it’s gonna be a different challenge, but I think that’s just the great thing about basketball.”
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