Brad Stevens explained why the Celtics traded Mass. native Georges Niang
"That was a hard conversation to have because he's a Boston kid and I think he would have loved to play for the Celtics."
Georges Niang, a Massachusetts native, was on the Celtics’ roster for a little more than a month.
Boston acquired him in the Kristaps Porzinigs trade in July. By mid-august, the Celtics traded Niang and a pair of second-round picks to Utah for RJ Luis Jr.
On Monday, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens explained why Niang’s stay in Boston was so short.
Ultimately, it came down to the money. With the Celtics looking to cut back on spending after years being deep in the luxury tax, the Celtics opted to move Niang’s salary and bring in forward Chris Boucher on a more affordable deal.
“When you look at it from a standpoint of where we were wing-wise,” Stevens said. “Versus maybe where we were with a little more size and length, and then you added in that one guy made eight million times whatever the tax was versus two million times whatever the tax was, the minimum that counts as 2.3 [million] for us just made some logical sense.”
The opportunity to get Boucher “wasn’t going to be around forever”, Stevens said. The 6-foot-9, 200-pound forward averaged 10 points and 4.5 rebounds off the bench for Toronto last season, while shooting 36.3 percent from 3-point range.
The Celtics signed him to a 1-year $3.3 million deal, less than half of what Niang makes.
But just because the deal made sense, Stevens said, doesn’t mean it was easy to tell the Lawrence native that he would be heading elsewhere.
“Well, we knew we were going to take 14 [players] into the season,” Stevens said. “I like Georges a lot. That was a hard conversation to have because he’s a Boston kid and I think he would have loved to play for the Celtics.”
Now, instead of the Celtics, he’ll be with the Jazz, who recently hired Danny Aigne’s son, Austin Ainge as president of basketball operations. The elder Ainge is team CEO.
“I think he’s going to be happy in Utah. He’s been there before and he likes that, he likes the people and everything else.
Niang suffered a fourth metatarsal stress reaction in his left foot during the offseason, the Jazz announced over the weekend. His status will be reevaluated in a couple of weeks.
Last month, Niang appeared on The OGs podacast with former Heat players Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller.
He said filling in Porzingis’s shoes with the Celtics would have been a tough task.
“You know, I’m a Boston kid. I then get traded for Kristaps Porzingis — which, you know how tough Boston fans are,” Niang said. “They don’t give a [expletive] if I’m from Boston or not. You just took our Unicorn and replaced it with a Minivan. Get the [expletive] outta here.’ I’m like public enemy No. 1. They’re like, ‘What is this? This ain’t shiny. It’s got scratches on it, man.”
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