The Boston Celtics’ sign-and-trade talks with the Utah Jazz have stalled. Could the Denver Nuggets be involved in the trade calls Boston are making throughout the NBA?
The Boston Celtics need to clear some cap space in order to create enough room for Gordon Hayward’s newly agreed four-year, $128 million deal. They promptly made Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart and Jae Crowder available in trade talks, which gives the Denver Nuggets a couple of targets they should make calls about.
Initially, early reports revealed that the Celtics were looking into a possible sign-and-trade with the Utah Jazz, allowing the Jazz to get something in return and for the Celtics to clear a contract nice and easily.
However, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski has reported that those talks have come to a stall, and the Celtics are engaged in trade talks throughout the NBA.
Sources: Boston, Utah sign-and-trade talks dormant since AM. Celtics engaged throughout NBA on Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart and Jae Crowder.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 7, 2017
All three players offer defense, with Bradley and Smart providing elite play at that end of the floor that Denver could greatly benefit from in their backcourt rotation. Seeing as Bradley, the best player of the bunch, will likely command too much for the Nuggets, though, Smart and Crowder seem like the more realistic targets.
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In fact, I just wrote about what Smart would bring to Denver, while my co-expert Mathew Huff has written about why the team needs to make a call about Crowder.
At this point, we don’t know whether or not the Nuggets are one of the teams involved in trade talks with the Celtics. Boston are eager to clear salary and they need to ditch one of those contracts, but they won’t give their players up for too little. Even though Bradley and Smart being free agents next summer helps lower their value somewhat, they’re still important to the Celtics and Bradley’s all-around game in particular would be valuable to countless teams.
And as for Crowder, 3-and-D wings who can play at both forward positions are always important and he’s one of the biggest bargains in the league with a total salary of just $22.09 million over the next three years. Seeing as the Celtics have plenty of wings with the up and coming duo of Jaylen Brown and talented rookie scorer Jayson Tatum, oh, and Gordon Hayward, there’s a good chance that Crowder leaves.
Next: Could/should Denver trade for Bledsoe or Kemba Walker?
The Nuggets would be foolish not to call the Celtics and test the asking prices for these players. Their possible offer a player like Will Barton or Malik Beasley and a draft pick, for instance, could well be outmatched by other teams, but Denver might as well try.
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