The argument for the Boston Celtics to stand pat at the Trade Deadline

The Boston Celtics are setting up for a very important Trade Deadline period. With less than two weeks until the official deadline (February 10th, 3:00 P.M. EST), President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens has been fervently looking for ways to improve the underachieving Celtics.

It’s all but certain Boston is going to make at least a couple of moves before the deadline strikes. Despite having a plethora of talent, spearheaded by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the C’s find themselves sitting just one game over .500 with a 25-24 record. Considering how good this team looks on paper, that’s certainly not where they want to be at this point.

But what if making an abundance of moves isn’t the best possible option for the Boston Celtics? After all, they don’t have a ton of assets to work with, and for the first time this season, the team actually seems to have some positive momentum working in their favor. It’s a risky strategy, but it may be the best possible path for the Celtics to get better.

The Boston Celtics may actually benefit from standing pat at the Trade Deadline

It’s safe to say that Boston isn’t going to be winning a title this season. Considering how good the superteams of the league have looked this season, and how bad Boston has looked for the most part, I can say with 99.99 percent certainty that the above statement is a fact. For that reason, there’s no sense throwing whatever you can at a superstar and hope that they will be able to turn this ship around.

While a blockbuster trade for a superstar was unlikely to begin with, the same logic makes sense when addressing the smaller level trades that Boston has appeared to be pursuing. What’s the purpose of pulling off these trades if you aren’t going to win this season?

With that train of thought, there really isn’t too much of a reason to pull off any sort of move before the deadline. It’s not as if the team has a ton of expiring contracts on their hands, and many of the potential trade pieces they have could see their deals become more valuable over the offseason. Guys like Marcus Smart, Josh Richardson, Al Horford, and even Rob Williams could see their trade value increase with a strong finish to the season.

The same rings true for young guys like Payton Pritchard, Aaron Nesmith, Romeo Langford, and Grant Williams. For the most part, these guys are unproven, and if they close the season out with some good play, that would help their value increase and make them more valuable to other teams. Of course, these guys would benefit from some of the aforementioned veterans getting moved, but they’ve all gotten pretty consistent minutes recently.

The main reason the front office to not make any moves at the deadline is because of this team’s recent stretch of play. The Boston Celtics two most recent wins over the Washington Wizards and Sacramento Kings have been absolute demolitions. It’s admittedly a two game stretch against some low-level opposition, but you can’t ignore a 53 point margin of victory, regardless of who it is against.

Fans are obviously thrilled with the two results, but it raises the question of why can’t this be done every game? The key here is that this is arguably the healthiest Boston has been all season long. They finally have their full complement of players available, and Tatum and Brown are finally starting to get into their own rhythms after struggling at times during the first half of the season.

Would it be worth it to disrupt the C’s momentum? Whether or not this can actually be categorized as momentum remains to be seen, but this upcoming slate of games is really the team’s last shot to convince the front office to give them a shot to ride things out and see where this goes. It would probably take a massive win streak of sorts to achieve that goal, but it may just be in the Boston Celtics best interests to stand pat at the Trade Deadline rather than pull off a ton of moves.