Remember that whole Celtics rebuild thing where they had a ton of draft picks in upcoming years and were going to work their way up to being one of the best teams in the NBA? Yeah, that’s not really the case anymore. Their quest for more rings starts now.
Why? Because they are in the process of working out a sign and trade for Gordon Hayward with the Utah Jazz. So the Jazz are going to sign Hayward to a four-year $128 million deal and the Celtics, who do not have the cap room to take him yet, and going to work out a deal that sends them proper compensation. Not bad.
Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley are guys who are potentially on their way out for the Celtics but honestly, we don’t know if they are going to lose all of them or which picks they’ll have to cough up. Anyways, they’ll have a new big three: Hayward, Isaiah Thomas and Al Horford. They’ll have two third overall picks: Jaylen Brown (17.5 ppg in NBA summer league) and Jayson Tatum (18.7 ppg in NBA summer league).
Isaiah is due for a payday after next season, but he is not focused on that right now. And Al Horford will enter year two of a four-year deal. In other words, the Celtics window to win is probably not that long, and it starts this season.
Assuming they are able to get IT back, after next year then realistically, they’ll have three to four seasons to win a ring before it’s back to the drawing board. Honestly, that’s not too bad. They’ve just got to keep working to make themselves the best team they can be since both Cleveland and Golden State are still stronger teams (probably). Maybe they’re not though. We’ll find out.