The Boston Celtics are bringing back 13 of the 15 players from their championship team and are truly running it back to defend their title this season.
Everyone is returning with the exceptions of Oshae Brissett and Svi Mykhailiuk, who’ll both be testing free agency. It’s worth nothing that Brissett declined his player option in hopes of playing more on another team and Mykhailiuk could return to overseas.
With the signing of their first round draft pick Baylor Scheierman, the Celtics currently have 14 players rostered and they’ll likely keep the remaining spot open for roster flexibility and financial ease.
Boston re-signed forward Drew Peterson to a two-way contract, leaving two available contracts open after signing Neemias Queta to a mulit-year contract and not re-signing JD Davison, although that can still happen.
The Celtics also drafted Anton Watson in the second round and signed Tristan Enaruna as an undrafted rookie free agent. Both players will be on the Summer League team and have the opportunity to earn a two-way contract at the end of it.
There’s been a lot of talk on how the Celtics, statistically one of the best team’s in history, is able to run-it-back with their championship team. The answer is actually quite simple: they didn’t have a choice.
Boston is navigating as a second apron team, which limits the way they can do business this offseason, however, one of the few things their able to do is re-sign their own free agents and draft picks and that’s exactly what they did.
GM Brad Stevens and his frontoffice team have prepared for this offseason by re-signing both Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday within the season. Stevens also solidified the core of the team by re-signing Payton Pritchard ahead of last season.
- Payton Pritchard- 4-year, $30 million
- Kristaps Porzingis- 2-year, $60 million
- Jrue Holiday- 4-year, $134.4 million
Although the future of the ownership group is in question, Stevens still has the green light to make the team better and he’s continued to do so by re-signing Jayson Tatum to his inevitable supermax contract and also re-signing Derrick White to the largest contract they could offer him.
The Celtics won the Finals because they have a great top-six players, but the depth of the team allowed them to withstand the season and the playoffs en route to the Finals. Bringing back everyone is just as important as anything else on the roster.
Here’s a look at the re-signings Stevens made this offseason:
- Sam Hauser- team-option, $2.09 million
- Neemias Queta- Non-Bird rights, 3-year, $4.5 million (estimate)
- Luke Kornet- 1-year, $2,800,834 million
- Xavier Tillman- 2-year, $4.78 million
- Jayson Tatum- 5-year, $314 million
- Derrick White- 4-year, $126 million
Boston is legitimately bringing back the same team they won a championship with only last season, and it’s largely because of the second apron, but also because these are great players that make a complete team.
This is a team that Stevens wanted to see run-it-back to defend their title, as he said that they “deserve” it during a recent press conference:
“We’ll always evaluate how to make our team better. But I think we would be crazy not to say that character and the foundation of this team is right. And let’s see if we can be as consistent as we can. Grow. Develop. Get better. Improve. … I’m not anticipating major changes, at least early on. Because I think this team deserves that.”
Stevens goes on to explain that hitting on draft picks and investing in young talent is the key for them to sustaining consistency and success moving forward.
“I think there are a lot of moving parts of keeping this roster sustainable beyond this year, specifically to this year is we’ve got a lot of guys back… And so we’ll think about how we can best continue to invest in young players and their development and growth with the reality that if we’re able to continue to move forward with this group, these guys are going to be on the court. So this will be a good opportunity to bring in somebody who we think will help us down the road.”
It’s worth mentioning that Porzingis won’t be available to start the season, as he’ll still be in his recovery from offseason surgery on his rare leg injury.
Stevens has built this team for another chance to win a title next season if they can all remain healthy.
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Photo Credit: Maddie Malhotra, Getting Images
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