The Celtics will be aggressive in free agency this summer and coach Brad Stevens offered some insight on the team’s strategy, as Mike Petraglia of WEEI.com passes along. “The biggest needs as we look at it are continuing to grow ourselves on the offensive end, and what we decide to do with regard to protecting the rim,” Stevens said. “You can protect the rim in a couple of different ways. No. 1 is you have somebody in there to protect it. No. 2 is you don’t let the ball get there, and you need versatile guys at a bunch of different positions. You need to keep guys out of rotations. If you look at our team right now, No. 2 would be more of the option.”
Here’s more out of Boston:
- No.16 overall pick Guerschon Yabusele and No. 23 overall pick Ante Zizic both believe they can play for the Celtics right away. However, they are both open to playing overseas initially, Petraglia passes along in the same piece.
- Team president Danny Ainge said that flexibility in free agency this offseason was a factor in the Celtics not making a major deal on draft night, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe passes along via Twitter.
- Isaiah Thomas plans to assist in the recruiting process to bring Kevin Durant to the Celtics and he took to Twitter on Saturday to promote one of Durant’s signature shoes, writes Petraglia in a separate piece. The scribe notes that this is not the first time Thomas has taken to Twitter to reach out to Durant.
I wouldnt mind seeing the Celtics bring over Yabusele. He seems pretty interesting to me, and I think could be another versatile option at the 3/4 spots, behind Jaylen Brown. I would guess it would depend on what the Celtics end up doing with any trades or free agents, and obviously, their other 2 picks this year. Bentil could provide potential offense with his shooting, which is also a need for them. It’ll be interesting to see which of their bigs they keep
I feel like Yabusele and Bentil would be redundant. As excited as I’d be to see Yabusele play right away I just don’t think there’s a need for him next season. I think they should keep him overseas tell him to work on his defense and reevaluate next season.
they would be somewhat redundant, and I somewhat alluded to that. Bentil is an issue defensively and rebounding though, and he doesnt seem to be as versatile. Like I said though, he can provide offense at that position, which is a need, and the Celtics have a really good defensive team anyway, which will be even better if they can get a rim protector too
Sully isn’t coming back. Depending on which free agents want to come to Boston, Johnson may get released to free up 12 million.