Now in his third year sitting in the big chair as president of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics, Brad Stevens made his first decision to trade a player to move in another direction as a franchise that will leave an everlasting mark on the organization by trading the longest tenured player on the team in Marcus Smart to the Memphis Grizzlies.
It’s worth mentioning that Stevens in fact traded Malcolm Brogdon to the Los Angeles Clippers, however, they essentially backed out of the deal because because of Brogdon’s reported torn ligament in his right forearm and not being able to conduct a physical in the short window of time they were given.
As the 2022-23 season progressed, the logjam at point guard became more evident as Payton Pritchard didn’t receive any minutes when he was deserving of them. It resulted in him asking for a trade, as his role literally changed from a rotation player in the NBA Finals one year ago to almost nothing this past season.
Stevens told Celtics media after the NBA Draft late on Thursday night that Malcolm Brogdon and Payton Pritchard will have to step up along with Derrick White this upcoming season without Smart on the team.
Here he is talking with Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston about how challenging the decision was to move on from Smart and what went into doing so.
Stevens also acknowledges the position Brogdon is in now within the Celtics organization as they actively tried to trade him after he won the Sixth Man of the year Award in his first season in Boston and how they can move forward from it.
A lot of people were unsure if Stevens would be able to make the tough decisions, trading Smart should prove them wrong.
It seems likely the Celtics are comfortable with the point guards they have in their control right now in Brogdon, White, Pritchard, and JD Davison who had a great rookie year in Maine this past season.
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