Boston Celtics: 5 dream targets during 2018 NBA free agency
5. Tyreke Evans, SG, Memphis Grizzles
Arguably the best combo guard set to hit the open market in 2018, Tyreke Evans will have plenty of interested parties come July. Coming off a career year with the Memphis Grizzlies, he could be in for a rather sizable payday at 28 years of age.
Evans is going to cost a pretty penny to sign this offseason. However, in this hypothetical, money doesn’t matter and salary caps don’t exist. The Celtics can sign whoever they’d like, which makes the former No. 4 overall pick fair game.
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So why would Boston want him in the first place? Well, they already have a pretty solid combo guard in Marcus Smart. Although his shooting has been all over the place this year, he’s a quality asset for this club who figures to garner some interest as a restricted free agent in 2018. Instead of potentially having to match an overpriced offer for him, the Celtics decide to make an upgrade.
That’s exactly what Evans is. Not only is he a quality perimeter defender, but he runs circles around Smart in the shooting/scoring departments. He’s currently scoring 19.4 points per game while shooting 45.3 percent from the field and 39.6 percent from downtown. To top it off, he’s stayed relatively healthy, having already played in 49 games — more than any season since 2014-15.
The Celtics are already set at the guard spots. However, if they wanted to find a sparkplug off the bench with better scoring abilities than Smart, Evans is exactly what they’re looking for.