The Boston Celtics have been an active team throughout the NBA offseason. In doing so, Brad Stevens is thriving in his new position as the team’s president of basketball operations. Since his promotion, Stevens has: hired Ime Udoka to be the head coach and erased Kemba Walker’s max contract from Boston’s books. He acquired Al Horford, Dennis Schroder, Josh Richardson, Kris Dunn, and Bruno Fernando. Along with obtaining multiple levels of traded player exceptions for his return on outgoing players.
In his first offseason as president of basketball operations, Brad Stevens has revamped the roster for the Boston Celtics.
It’s worth mentioning the masterful work Stevens has done in upgrading the overall roster without interrupting Boston’s core of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart; a task that was once projected to be nearly impossible to complete at the beginning of the offseason. In his retooling process, Stevens acquired the players with the best fit for his team that bring veteran experience and leadership to a young Celtics roster that sometimes needs a little direction nearing the end of games and down the stretch in a playoff series.
With Stevens readjusting his team’s salary, it allows Boston to avoid the hard cap and to be a little more pliant with how they spend to acquire players and upgrade the team. In doing so, the Celtics were able to land Josh Richardson and Dennis Schroder using the rest of the Gordon Hayward traded player exception and the taxpayer midlevel. Boston was also able to fit both the contracts from acquiring Dunn and Fernando into the leftover TPE from Walker.
With a much more well-rounded roster that includes depth and experience, Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka has to put together his first starting lineup and rotation as a head coach. Here’s what I believe could be a possible starting lineup.