{"id":398486,"date":"2026-01-10T03:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/398486\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T03:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:23:07","slug":"celtics-identified-as-trade-fit-for-25-year-old-sixth-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/398486\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics Identified As Trade Fit For 25-Year-Old Sixth Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many fans thought the 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics would be treading water this season, waiting for superstar forward Jayson Tatum to return from injury. <\/p>\n

However, through 36 games, Boston has risen to the No. 3 seed in the East and won two-thirds of their conference matchups. <\/p>\n

The biggest story coming out of the Celtics camp now is if and how they plan to avoid<\/a> the luxury tax.<\/p>\n

Aside from the two 50-million-dollar men, Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the most expensive player on the Celtics roster is shooting guard Anfernee Simons.<\/p>\n

Simons has been good this year, making 40 percent of his three-pointers and averaging nearly 14 points per game. <\/p>\n

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However, with a base salary of $27.7 million, experts are wondering how long Boston is going to want to continue paying the player who has not started a single game this season.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He has emerged as the Celtics\u2019 most attractive trade piece before the deadline.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s team of insiders believes he will be moved<\/a> and has identified a potential trade fit by way of the Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Celtics are competitive enough that they shouldn\u2019t dump Simons solely for tax relief,\u201d Zach Kram wrote. \u201cBut if they make a trade to create some financial flexibility, thereby opening a spot in the perimeter rotation, the Bulls\u2019\u00a0Ayo Dosunmu\u00a0would be a good replacement in a subsequent move. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe speedy Dosunmu could add some fast-break points to the league\u2019s slowest-paced team, and his 3-point shooting (43% this season) and strong point-of-attack defense would make him a fit for Joe Mazzulla\u2019s style.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dosunmu is in his fifth year in the league and posting nearly identical numbers as Simons.<\/p>\n

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He is an inch taller, posts better shooting splits, more assists and more rebounds. However, he is doing so for a 10th-place team.<\/p>\n

His salary is nearly four times smaller than that of Simons, and, like Simons, he will be a free agent come the end of the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

This move would take $20 million off the books and provide a potential plug-and-play replacement. <\/p>\n

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The Celtics control four picks in next year\u2019s draft, should any potential trade partner need a pot sweetener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many fans thought the 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics would be treading water this season, waiting for superstar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[29174,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-398486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-anfernee-simons","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}