The Celtics offseason of wheeling and dealing continued on Thursday night as Brad Stevens elected to trade back from the No. 32 overall pick in a deal with the Orlando Magic. The swap netted Boston four second-round picks, two of which the team used on Thursday night on Amari Williams at No. 46 and Max Shulga at No. 57. Both players are expected to sign two-way deals with Boston.
Amid reports that Boston’s original target at No. 32 was taken by the Suns at No. 31 after they traded to get ahead of Boston, Boston opted to scoop up the extra second-round draft capital on Thursday night, along with a 2026 second-round pick and 2027 second-round pick.
Celtics vice president of basketball operations Mike Zarren discussed the rationale behind the decision to move back on Thursday night after standing pat with Hugo Gonzalez at No. 28 in the first round Wednesday.
“All the time we’re looking for the ability to get more assets in the future and still get a bunch of good players,” Zarren said. “We felt pretty confident that there’d be guys we liked lower in the draft and we had the ability to add a couple of really good future draft picks in addition to getting those guys. So, that’s what we did.”
The Celtics are still dealing with a luxury tax crunch despite dipping under the second apron ($207 million) with their trades of Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday last week. However, Zarren did not indicate that finances had any impact on Boston’s decision to move out of the No. 32 slot.
“I don’t think our draft philosophy has changed that much relative to the CBA,” Zarren said. “The draft pick contracts tend to be relatively small relative to the rest of the cap, so most of the time we’re looking to get the guys we think will be good contributing NBA players, particularly later in the draft. Most people aren’t that, and so we’re looking for the guys who are. And because of that you can’t spend a lot of time thinking about what your team need is. So mostly we look for the best players we can get, with an eye toward the fact that you have to have an opportunity for them to contribute at least a little bit to know if they’re gonna be successful or now. But for the most part it’s go get the best guys.”
After Thursday’s trade, the Celtics have now compiled 10 future second-round draft picks through 2032, which Zarren says the team plans to put to use in future moves.
“You need those assets in order to be able to swing trades for great players later or to move around either in the draft or with guys you’ve got,” Zarren said. “So yeah that adds additional flexibility. We got two picks tonight, both of which should be good future picks, they’re the best of three and two teams in some upcoming years. I think we’ll put the press release out on that shortly if it’s not already out. But that’s a key part of our strategy. We’ve used picks to go acquire a lot of good players over the years and hopefully we’ll be able to do that with these if we’re not also drafting them.”
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