With rumors swirling, where could Boston Celtics guard Terry Rozier wind up in a trade?
Terry Rozier was an integral part of the Boston Celtics when they made their run to Game 7 of the Conference Finals last season. He played 36.6 minutes per game and averaged 16.5 points per game, and developed a reputation as a clutch shot-maker.
This season doesn’t resemble those playoffs at all for Rozier, who’s averaging just 22.5 minutes per game and 8.5 points per game with an abysmal 37.4 field goal percentage. His usage rate has fallen from 21.2 percent to 18.5 percent, per Cleaning the Glass.
Rozier thrives when he starts. It’s a small sample size, but he’s shooting 6.6 percent better from the field this season when he starts than when he comes off the bench, and he averages more than twice the assists. Unfortunately for Rozier, he’s unlikely to get consistent starting opportunities with this squad. And while the rest of the team has largely come around on offense, he’s still forcing tough shots and struggling to find his place in the attack.
And so now the Boston Celtics, with the trade deadline looming, have decisions to make. They’d surely love to see what the 2015 16th overall pick will become, but there’s opportunity cost here. The Celtics have a 10.3 net rating when Rozier is on the bench, and just a 1.2 net rating when he’s on the floor. You always have to be careful with those kinds of stats, but the eye test backs it up in this case. Rozier is not fitting in with the Boston Celtics, and is playing pretty ugly basketball.
More important, perhaps, is the luxury tax situation. The Celtics are in the luxury tax right now, and would need to shed $3,827,382 to get under it. They’re barely over, so the bill wouldn’t even be that large, but for a team poised to be a contender for years, ownership might not want to start the clock on the repeater tax.
Rozier is making only $3,050,390, so they’d need to trade away more than Rozier to dodge the tax. That might prove too tall an order (none of the trades I came up with address it), and for all we know, ownership isn’t worried about how much they’re spending. But this is worth remembering as we toss around trade ideas.
Let’s get into some trade possibilities for Rozier. (All ideas were checked for viability in the ESPN Trade Machine).
Memphis Grizzlies
Memphis Grizzlies get: Terry Rozier, Jabari Bird
Boston Celtics get: Justin Holiday, 2019 2nd round pick
This one probably can’t happen because of the salaries. Throwing Jabari Bird in here is the only way to make it work cleanly, but trading a player in the sort of predicament he’s in would bring up weird ethical and legal questions that neither team wants to deal with. But if the teams did decide to go work through that, this one could actually be very nice for both sides.
The Memphis Grizzlies are probably going to have to rebuild. This season had a “let’s run it back one last time” sort of vibe, and it’s not working. They’d be wise to try to move Marc Gasol and Mike Conley, however painful that would be.
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WIth how tough Memphis’s market is, they’d definitely try to avoid a long rebuild. One way to do that? Add a point guard with breakout capability who can jump in and help out a lot quicker than somebody they draft this summer. Rozier can play off ball if the Grizzlies decide to keep Conley and just trade Gasol, or be the point guard of the future they pair with Jaren Jackson Jr. and Kyle Anderson.
For Boston…I mean, okay, let’s really get into what this team’s priorities are. They’re not going to trade for someone that’s a part of the long-term future, in all likelihood – their core is pretty much set, right? Unless they do something dramatic, which would be a surprise, whoever they get in a trade for Rozier probably isn’t sticking around for too long.
So, how they get value is getting someone who helps now (the 2nd round pick is also nice, and the Grizzlies have a couple this year alone that could wind up being pretty high – that could be the gem of the deal). Remember, this team is still underwhelming. If they lose in the second round, this season looks like a failure. If they lose in the first (they’re the fifth seed – this is a real possibility), then yikes.
Trading Rozier might be addition by subtraction anyway, but Justin Holiday could be an impact player for Boston. He’s a rangy wing defender who has been a consistent (if not dazzling) three-point shooter for years. It’d be nice to have a veteran like him as a 4th option on the wing (in this scenario, Marcus Smart will probably have to be playing more point guard). That’s a luxury, but if you’re a team trying to get to the Finals, maybe that’s the kind of luxury you need to pursue.
Charlotte Hornets
Boston Celtics get: Tony Parker, 2019 2nd round pick
Charlotte Hornets get: Terry Rozier, Guerschon Yabusele
You wanted a veteran, you got one.
It’s late at night and that bed looks really toasty, so let’s skip beating around the bush. The Boston Celtics have had chemistry problems. Kyrie Irving has been vocal about the young guys needing to change their ways of doing business, and they don’t seem thrilled about it. He’s talked about needing a veteran voice in the locker room to help settle things.
Tony Parker is the perfect guy to bring in. He’s a veteran who can still play (that matters, dynamic-wise) who’s had an absurdly successful career as a part of San Antonio Spurs teams that placed an extremely high value on team culture. Bringing his voice into the locker room would be a huge win for the Celtics.
It’s also a solid fit on the court. With the other trades proposed here, Boston doesn’t get a point guard back. That’s fine, but it’d force Marcus Smart to play more at that position, when Brad Stevens seems to prefer starting him alongside Irving. Parker wouldn’t get a ton of minutes, but he’d be a point guard option they can trust to give decent spot minutes in the playoffs, which is really all this team should care about.
For the Charlotte Hornets, this is an easy decision. Parker has been nice for them, but he was never really going to be the solution. This team’s big problem has been that they are completely inept with Kemba Walker off the floor. The Hornets surely didn’t expect to solve that issue and convince Walker to stick around for another half decade by bringing in a geezer like Parker.
Parker’s been nice, but Rozier could really be the missing piece of the puzzle. He’s a competent two-way point guard who likes to hold the ball and run things, which is a problem on some squads but is desperately needed here. They just need someone good to take some of the load off of poor Kemba Walker’s shoulders. Rozier could be that guy. Yabusele is just here to balance salaries, but he might be a nice bonus on a team that could use more defensive options.
Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Suns get: Terry Rozier, Guerschon Yabusele
Boston Celtics get: Dragan Bender, 2020 2nd round pick
I started out writing this one feeling pretty bored, just because it’s been discussed to death. It is no secret that the Phoenix Suns have been pretty desperate for a point guard for a long time, and, accordingly, they’ve been involved in rumors every time one seems available. So, naturally, the entire Celtics blogosphere has been tossing around Rozier-Suns trade ideas, and I wasn’t excited about adding another take to the pile.
Then I started thinking about Dragan Bender, and that’s when my boredom turned into excitement. This could be big for Boston.
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Let’s start on the Suns’ side. Terry Rozier could step in and start at point guard on day one, immediately filling their biggest hole. He’s a combo guard/point guard who can handle the ball or spot up, which is exactly the kind of backcourt sidekick you’d want to pair with Devin Booker. Booker should be their engine, and Rozier’s presence won’t take away from that. But Rozier can also handle for a while and give the poor kid a break now and then.
Everyone is so worked up about how great a fit Rozier would be in Phoenix that they’re seemingly forgetting that the Celtics need to get something good too (don’t forget about Daniel Ainge, he who guarded the treasure chest of draft doubloons for many moons more than the scriptures foretold). Dragan Bender doesn’t seem to be on Celtics fans’ radar too much, but he could be a huge scoop for them.
Why, you ask? Bender has had a miserable, underachieving career thus far, worthy of eliciting the “bust” label – why, you ask, should Boston even entertain trading for him?
A couple things here.
For starters, remember for a moment that this is the Phoenix Suns we’re talking about. This is where dreams go to die. Many a promising prospect has gone to Phoenix, only to significantly underwhelm. We shouldn’t make any conclusions about the organization without knowing what’s going on on the inside; on the flip side, we also shouldn’t rush to conclusions about Bender because of what he’s shown in Phoenix. It’s possible he’d perform very differently in a different environment.
His production has been poor so far, but his skill set is real. He’s a seven-footer with an already good jump shot that could develop into elite territory. He has great feel for the game, as evidenced by his underrated playmaking ability as the roll man and his ability to run the fast break as a ballhandler.
The weaknesses are also real. He can’t score inside, defend, or rebound, and he doesn’t seem to have a good sense of when to be aggressive. He’s reminiscent of Kelly Olynk, who always felt like he could be so much more on offense but just didn’t have that scorer’s mentality.
For those of you whose brains are stuck on an endless loop of “Bender stinks, you don’t know what you’re talking about, Bender stinks, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” let’s get on the same page. Yes, Bender has been bad. Not just mediocre, but bad. We’re on the same page. Apart from three-point shooting, he has excelled in not a single facet of the game he plays professionally.
But here’s why the Boston Celtics should pull the trigger anyway. The one position that doesn’t seem secure for the future (assume Irving is re-signing for now) is center, and Bender is a center/power forward who was selected top-5 not that long ago. He could be a bust, but he’s so young that anything could happen. If the shooting progresses, he’s a stud.
If Brad Stevens could develop his natural feel for the game, he could be an excellent system big, potentially filling Al Horford’s role down the line. To get that in exchange for Rozier and Yabusele, two guys who don’t seem to be in Boston’s long-term plans, would be fantastic.