{"id":447400,"date":"2026-02-03T23:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T23:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/447400\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T23:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T23:05:11","slug":"celtics-bulls-to-swap-anfernee-simons-nikola-vucevic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/447400\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics, Bulls To Swap Anfernee Simons, Nikola Vucevic"},"content":{"rendered":"

3:52 pm: The Celtics will acquire Denver\u2019s 2027 second-round pick in the trade, while Chicago will receive the \u201cmost favorable\u201d of four teams\u2019 2026 second-rounders, tweets<\/a> Keith Smith of Spotrac. That pick headed to the Bulls will likely be New Orleans\u2019 2026 second-rounder.<\/p>\n

\"\"2:46 pm: The Celtics and Bulls have reached an agreement on a trade that will send guard Anfernee Simons<\/a> to Chicago and center Nikola Vucevic<\/a> to Boston, reports ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania (Twitter link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Both teams will also acquire a second-round pick in the deal, Charania adds. While the details on those picks have yet to be reported, the Bulls will likely receive the more valuable of the two, since the Celtics will realize significant luxury tax savings as a result of the swap.<\/p>\n

A deal along these lines had long been considered a possibility for the Celtics, whose frontcourt depth took a significant blow last offseason when they traded away Kristaps Porzingis<\/a> and lost Al Horford<\/a> and Luke Kornet<\/a> in free agency.<\/p>\n

Simons\u2019 $27.7MM expiring contract was also viewed as an obvious trade chip for a team that made cost-cutting moves to get below the second apron and might be looking to further reduce its luxury tax bill \u2014 or to get out of the tax altogether.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the season, however, Simons emerged as a key part of Boston\u2019s rotation off the bench, averaging 14.2 points, 2.4 assists, and 2.4 rebounds in 24.5 minutes per game while knocking down 39.5% of his three-pointers and 88.9% of his free throws. And with the 31-18 Celtics vying for a top-two seed in the East, ducking the tax no longer seemed like a top priority for the team.<\/p>\n

Still, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens ultimately determined that it made sense for Boston to sacrifice some backcourt depth for another rotation player up front while saving some money and generating some additional roster flexibility in the process.<\/p>\n

Vucevic, 35, is a floor-stretching big man who continues to produce strong offensive numbers, including 16.9 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 3.8 assists per game this season, along with a 37.6% mark on three-pointers. He\u2019s on an expiring $21.5MM contract, so the move will reduce the Celtics\u2019 projected tax penalty by more than $22MM, from $39.5MM to $17MM, tweets<\/a> ESPN\u2019s Bobby Marks. The club will also move below the first tax apron as a result of the deal.<\/p>\n

Boston has a $22.5MM traded player exception from last summer\u2019s Porzingis deal, so Vucevic could be slotted into that TPE, allowing the team to create a new exception equivalent to Simons\u2019 outgoing salary ($27.8MM). The Celtics would have up to one year to use that exception.<\/p>\n

As for the Bulls\u2019 perspective, it remains to be seen whether Simons is part of their plans going forward or if the move is more about the second-round pick they\u2019re adding. Either way, something will have to give in Chicago\u2019s backcourt, where Simons joins a group that also includes Josh Giddey<\/a>, Coby White<\/a>, Ayo Dosunmu<\/a>, and Tre Jones<\/a>, as well as Jaden Ivey<\/a> and Mike Conley<\/a>, who are joining the Bulls as part of a three-team deal<\/a> involving Detroit and Minnesota.<\/p>\n

While Conley looks like a potential buyout candidate, the Bulls\u2019 additions of Ivey and Simons suggest that at least one (and perhaps more than one) of White, Dosunmu, or Jones will be on the move this week.<\/p>\n

The trade sending out Vucevic represents something of the end of an era in Chicago. Arturas Karnisovas\u2018 first major trade as the team\u2019s executive VP of basketball operations at the 2021 deadline saw him send out Wendell Carter Jr.<\/a> and multiple future first-round picks (including one that became Franz Wagner<\/a>) to land the Montenegrin center. Vucevic averaged 18.1 PPG, 10.5 RPG, and 3.4 APG on .499\/.349\/.815 shooting in 378 regular season games as a Bull.<\/p>\n

Michael Scotto of HoopsHype first reported<\/a> last week that the Bulls inquired earlier in the season on a swap of Vucevic for Simons and a first-round pick. While Boston wasn\u2019t interested in that offer, the Celtics eventually moved forward on the proposed framework after Chicago lowered its draft-pick asking price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3:52 pm: The Celtics will acquire Denver\u2019s 2027 second-round pick in the trade, while Chicago will receive the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[29174,34909,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-447400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-anfernee-simons","9":"tag-nikola-vucevic","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447400","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=447400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}