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2018 NBA free agency grades: Celtics to re-sign Aron Baynes

By Andrew Neururer

Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images
Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images /
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After having arguably his best season yet, Aron Baynes will be returning to the Boston Celtics for the next two years. Here is the Celtics’ grade for this move.

Yahoo! Sports‘ Shams Charania broke the news shortly after the 2018 NBA Free Agency period begun: Aron Baynes has agreed to re-sign with the Boston Celtics on a two-year, $11 million deal. The second year of his deal is going to be a player option.

This was a great sign for the Celtics and it looks to be one of the cheaper contracts handed out thus far in free agency. There have been a few deals worth close to $9-11 million per year to a few other players, such as Doug McDermott and Joe Harris.

Either way, there are reasons behind each signing, but what’s important is that the Celtics were able to bring back Baynes on a very team-friendly deal. Let’s go ahead and look at a few things that he was able to do for the team.

We all know of the injuries that the team aqcuirred throughout the season. When injuries pile on, someone else has to step up. Baynes did an excellent job of that throughout the season. He was able to come off the bench and start.

In the 81 games that he played in, he started in 67 of them. While his stats never jumped off the page or screamed “starter numbers” Baynes did things that you want from your role players. He wasn’t afraid to sacrifice his body for the team, he played great defense and he never did too much.

Never doing too much sounds like an easy thing, but sometimes players get a little overzealous and want to show out. However, Baynes took pride in his defense and giving the ball to players that were able to do score more efficiently like Kyrie Irving and Jayson Tatum.

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This season, he averaged 6.0 points, 5.4 rebounds and 0.6 blocks per game. Again, the stats don’t wow you, but he certainly did good things in his 18.3 minutes per game. Baynes isn’t the type of guy to block or steal shots. What he does do is get in the way of players with his 6’10”, 260-pound frame.

This season he posted a defensive rating of 97.0 — good for seventh in the NBA for players who played at least 15 minutes per game. Granted, some of those players ahead of him didn’t play as many games, but seventh is still very good.

In a time where teams are straddled with cap issues, the Celtics were able to come away with a team-friendly deal. They know that eventually they will have to pay their young budding stars in Jaylen Brown and Tatum. Depending on how free agency goes this offseason or next, they may have to spend a lot of money on Irving, Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier.

They are already paying up for Gordon Hayward and Al Horford as it is. Any deal that is small is important for the Celtics. They were able to get such a bargain by agreeing to $5.5 million a season for Baynes.

It appears that Baynes is happy to be back regardless of whether he should’ve been paid more or not.

I don’t know of many people that will complain about this, but Baynes fits in perfectly in the city of Boston and it was important to retain him.

Next: 2018 NBA free agency tracker: Grades for every deal so far

Grade: A

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