DONE DEAL:Boston have successfully signed a contract of $120 million because there……..
I wrote a piece for Basketball Insiders last week discussing how the Boston Celtics should target Detroit Pistons big man Isaiah Stewart during this NBA Trade Deadline cycle.
But it wasn’t Stewart’s name that appeared on my screen on Wednesday when I checked the Twitter notification on my phone informing me of the latest Adrian Wojnarowski trade tweet (also known as a “Woj Bomb”). Rather, it was the moniker of Xavier Tillman, a fourth-year center.
The pride of Michigan State University was exchanged by the Celtics for two second round choices and Lamar Stevens in the second deal of deal Deadline week with the Memphis Grizzlies.
Even though I still believe Stewart was the better player for the Celtics on the floor, I recognize the problems with salary matching that Stewart’s contract extension brought. Either way, Stewart has the same itch for this squad that Tillman does.
To win in basketball, you need to have spacing. And the Celtics have probably the finest space in basketball thanks to their stunning five-out lineups. They now rank top in 3-point attempts and fifth in 3-point percentage.
However, physicality is also necessary if you want to advance far in the playoffs. Aaron Gordon played a crucial role in the Denver Nuggets’ championship run the previous season, in large part because of this.
Boston’s physicality has suffered greatly with the offseason losses of Robert Williams III, Grant Williams, and Marcus Smart. They were first in defensive rebounding percentage the previous season, but this year they are only in 13th place, which is indicative of this.
