The Boston Celtics are widely reported to have interest in bolstering their bench ahead of the 2024 NBA trade deadline, but as a second apron ball club in the league’s new fiscal reality, trading for impactful players will be onerous, and by design.
With that in mind, recent word from The Athletic’s James L. Edwards III that the Celtics, along with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks, “have shown great interest in Isaiah Stewart,” the Detroit Pistons big man Boston was previously tied to in terms of trade interest. But before Celtics fans get too excited about the idea of adding Beef Stew to their bench rotation, doing so after he signed a poison-pill extension would require sending out a core player to pull it off.
That means Boston would have to deal with a player making at least as much as Al Horford’s $10 million salary to land Stewart, who would count as $13 million towards the Celtics’ cap despite making just $5.2 million this season due to the poison pill extension.
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And before you ask, it is already too late in the season to bring a player into the Grant Williams traded player exception to then re-aggregate with additional contracts.
Beef Stew may indeed be on the move soon, but it doesn’t look like it will be to Boston, this latest rumbling perhaps tied to previous reported interest from the Celtics rather than anything current — or at least likely to happen.
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