Moving some posts from the Celtics Regular Season Thread over here:
It isn’t by choice. Houston is requiring a #1 in return and we need to match $10m in salary. For that purpose, Langford would almost certainly have to be included which would also clear his dead future salary off the books if he isn’t able to contribute.
Moving one of our #1’s was going to happen anyway since it wouldn’t be prudent to add 3 more multi-year guaranteed deals who likely wouldn’t contribute much to the rotation as rookies.
I'd rather move Carsen Edwards + Poirier than Langford if we had to unload $3.6M worth of salary. I see more promise in him than either of the other two, in terms of NBA-level athleticism.
I'm all-in on moving some of our picks to upgrade the rotation, maybe even Memphis if the return is right. We simply don't have enough roster spots to go around, even accounting for letting fringe players compete to show they deserve a spot. The unspoken clause to the GM's dictum, "acquire more picks", is that in the NBA's case, they need to be GOOD picks.
I think everyone would agree. Problem is that Langford still has some positive value, while Poirier has shown nothing and Edwards is a 2nd round pick who hasn't shot the ball well in his limited time. So the question would be how much draft pick compensation you would need to include to equal out the difference in value between Langford and Edwards/Poirier
Houston is in 5th place in the west, with Capela the 4th-leading minutes-getter on the team. He has missed a handful of games over the season, but also 3 of the last 4 for Houston. So what we know suggests that:
- He is a starter and critical part of rotation for them, regardless of whether you think he's lost a step or not, and
- He presents at least some injury risk
The first suggests that the threshold of value to send to Morey would be prohibitive in terms of upgrading the team this year. The second suggests that it may well be worth it to stick to the assets we have (especially given Capela's contract at 3 @ ~$18 after this year at $16).
In a vacuum I'd have no problem replacing one of our centers with Capela, nor in trading one or more picks, but once you include his trendline, the salary (which is all luxury tax for us at this point), AND the asset price required to get Houston to move, it seems hard to believe there's a deal there that's worth discussing.