{"id":64159,"date":"2025-08-07T03:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/64159\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T03:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:30:09","slug":"anfernee-simons-future-just-shifted-after-latest-celtics-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/64159\/","title":{"rendered":"Anfernee Simons’ future just shifted after latest Celtics move"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anfernee Simons has seemingly been on the trade block ever since joining the Boston Celtics as part of the Jrue Holiday deal<\/a> back in June. The former Portland Trail Blazers guard is entering the final year of a four-year, $100 million contract and is set to earn $27.6 million in the 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n

Many have pointed to Simons\u2019 salary as an easy route to any financial goal Boston is aiming to hit this summer. Earlier on Tuesday, we saw the team ship out Georges Niang <\/a>as well as two second-round picks to further evade the league\u2019s second-apron line<\/a> — a noted goal all offseason long. The extra cushion is nice and could spell safety for the 26-year-old guard, but could just as easily point to him being next.<\/p>\n

If the Cs were to trade Simons in a similar fashion as they did Niang, they\u2019d likely get themselves clear of the $187.9 million luxury tax threshold.<\/p>\n

But\u2026 what if they didn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

What if they kept him around now that they\u2019re safe from the severe consequences that accompany being a second-apron team?<\/p>\n

Keeping Simons may be a low-risk, high-reward play for the Celtics<\/p>\n

Simons, though flawed, is still an exciting offensive player who could be a nice sparkplug off of Boston\u2019s bench in the same way that Payton Pritchard, who will likely start with Holiday gone, was last season. His shifty shot-creating ability and reliable jumpshot make him an interesting fit with the Cs.<\/p>\n

He averaged 19.3 points, 4.8 assists, and 2.7 rebounds per game while shooting 42.6% from the field, 36.3% from beyond the arc, and 90.2%(!) from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

Simons has, for sure, become a \u201cgood stats, bad team\u201d guy in recent seasons, but when Portland was a competitive team earlier in the decade, his numbers were far more efficient. He shot 42.4% from three on 4.4 attempts per game in the 2020-21 season, while he was backing up Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum with the Blazers. For his career, he shoots 38.1% from long range, and can do much more.<\/p>\n

When Simons takes his man off the dribble, he\u2019s able to finish at the rim at a pretty decent rate. Last season, he converted on 63.6% of his attempts within zero to three feet.<\/p>\n

His offensive versatility makes Simons a dangerous weapon for the Cs, if he\u2019s in a lower-usage role. He put up decent numbers while being a top option on some bad Portland teams. It\u2019s exciting to think about how easy things could be for him if he were to play alongside Jaylen Brown and Derrick White next season, perhaps Jayson Tatum the year after.<\/p>\n

Defensively, it\u2019s a different story. The six-foot-three-inch guard doesn\u2019t quite have the frame or the strength to guard multiple positions. All of the numbers and metrics will tell you that Simons is one of the NBA\u2019s worst defenders. The question is whether or not the Celtics believe that they can get him to buy into improving on that end of the floor. Even if they don\u2019t, there\u2019s still evidence that it\u2019s possible to be a strong defensive unit despite having a weak link.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers were one of the best defensive teams in the league during the second half of last season, with Simons as a key member of their rotation.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing that\u2019s been clear this summer, it\u2019s that Boston is setting themselves up to be flexible in the future, when Tatum returns from injury. If they feel that Simons would be willing to sign a team-friendly deal for his next contract, then it would make a ton of sense to keep him around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anfernee Simons has seemingly been on the trade block ever since joining the Boston Celtics as part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-64159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64159","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=64159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}