Paul Pierce said Jayson Tatum’s injury ‘made it easier’ for Celtics to move Holiday, Porzingis
"Let’s say Jayson’s healthy and they won the championship. Then if you break it up, it’s like, what are we doing?"
When the Celtics begin the preseason next month, they’ll enter with a much different roster than they had last season.
Years of spending beyond the second apron threshold of the NBA’s luxury tax culminated in them moving Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis to avoid further penalties.
The moves had to be made, Celtics legend Paul Pierce told Heavy Sports’s Steve Bulpett in a recent interview, but the ruptured Achilles’ tendon injury that Jayson Tatum suffered in the playoffs against the Knicks made the call easier than it would have been had the star forward stayed healthy.
““I’m not sure if that injury played a big role in the changes,” Pierce said. “Because I feel like they still would have been in the same situation even if Tatum didn’t get hurt, you know, as far as luxury tax and the second apron and all of those things. Whether he’s hurt or not, I think they would have had to still make these decisions.”
“But I do think it made it easier to make them,” Pierce added. “Like, let’s say Jayson’s healthy and they won the championship. Then if you break it up, it’s like, what are we doing? So I think it made it easier to make those moves with Jrue and Porzingis and all that.”
The Celtics were trailing the series 2-1 and were losing to the Knicks by nine points with just under three minutes to go in Game 4 when Tatum went down with the non-contact injury. They “blew” the series, Pierce said, citing two 20-point leads that were lost at home with a healthy Tatum available.
“That had nothing to do with the Knicks’ talent and all that,” Pierce said. “But a lot of that goes on the way they play, too. Because they’ve been a team over the last few years that’s given up big leads because they settle for the 3.”
“You know, you live by it, you die by it. But when you win a championship, what you gonna say? What you gonna say, tell them to play something different, take it in more when this is how they won? That’s who they are.”
This season, the Celtics will move forward without Holiday, Porzingis, and for at least a decent amount of time, Tatum.
They managed to out of the second apron with their offseason moves. Porzingis was traded to the Hawks, and Holiday was sent to Portland.
They’ve retained a core of Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard as they await Tatum’s return.
The team’s ceiling will likely be much different without Tatum. After years of being considered a top title contender, the Celtics could be in a fight just to make the playoffs. NBA.com ranked the Celtics 12th out of 15 Eastern Conference teams in their offseason power rankings last month.
There will be some familiar faces this season, but with three starters gone it’ll mostly be a new-look team.
Tatum’s injury alone could change things dramatically.
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