Celtics Complete Kristaps Porzingis Trade by Dealing Marcus Smart

The Celtics and Wizards scrambled before Kristaps Porziņģis could opt-out of his $36-million player option at midnight to complete a trade that nearly collapsed when the Clippers paused at acquiring Malcolm Brogdon. Tyus Jones found a new home in Washington as Memphis replaced LA as the third team. Brogdon didn’t move, though. The Celtics traded Marcus Smart to the Grizzlies, ending his nine-year career in Boston.

An agonizing decision likely became easier once Memphis sent its own No. 25 overall pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft alongside the 2024 Warriors’ first-round pick, top-four protected that defers to unprotected in 2026. The Celtics sent Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala to Washington along with the No. 35 overall pick to make the money work, Brogdon remaining. Boston landed its third star. Washington found its first post-Bradley Beal building block. The Grizzlies found a culture-starter ready made for Memphis’ historic identity to replace, then complement Ja Morant for years.

The potential Porziņģis impact remains the same as what he could’ve provided in the original construction of the deal. Drop defense. A return to double-big. Collective load management capabilities across all three players at the position. Flexibility on offense. Boston can score inside, outside and through a playmaking center in ways they couldn’t last season. The Celtics also retained Derrick White as a starting point guard, could utilize Brogdon in another trade, or pair the two guards who often thrived in second unit rotations next year. The expensive Porziņģis addition pulled the Celtics within $9.2-million of the second apron, roughly $5-million once they used the No. 25 pick, leaving an even narrower gap to utilize a mid-level exception or return salary in a Grant Williams sign-and-trade.

Porziņģis is also extension-eligible beginning in July for as much as two-years, $77 million, perhaps a conversation in the trade to acquire him. That would leave Porziņģis making close to $40-million in 2025, Jaylen Brown earning over $50-million and inevitably making the same in the 2026 season. Something will undoubtedly break by them, starting with numerous players like White and Al Horford seeing their contracts end, but those three max salary stars alone will account for nearly the entire salary cap for Boston. Smart’s roughly $18-million average annual value through the 2026 season played a key sustainability role.

That’ll now fall on key first-round selections, the first of the Brad Stevens era, alongside continued trade efforts. Payton Pritchard or Brogdon could go in addition to Smart as matching salary in a larger deal. The team could consolidate picks to move up further or add another veteran to the mix. Drafting a rookie at No. 25 will only hit the cap sheet at $2.6-million, and moving up 10 spots give the team a greater chance at finding real value in an albeit still difficult position. The Warriors, unless they suffer a stunning collapse next year, will likely pick late too. What those picks become will play an important role in how we assess the trade.

So too will the dynamic in the locker room next year. The remaining rotation players on the team largely play quieter, lead-by-example roles. Smart and Williams played two of the more vocal roles in the team’s leadership structure in recent seasons, while Porziņģis introduces a fiery personality into the locker room. Perhaps Boston needed a risk, a shake-up, something to change the personality of a team that had played together for a half decade in large part. They found one, and from a value perspective emerged with a return for Smart, Gallinari and Muscala that many wouldn’t have imagined one month ago without Boston adding its own future draft capital.

The trade may settle into some thing more understandable in time for many fans, but watching the constant of the past 10 years of Celtics basketball depart unceremoniously at midnight just short of raising a banner will sting many. It’ll hit a player who embraced the Celtics tradition like no other over that span, seemed to have a chance to spend his career in green and invested in the Boston community extensively the hardest. But new opportunities await on both ends, and Stevens provided a difficult wakeup call to a roster that probably needed one. This window won’t last forever.

“We’ve been doing this for a long time,” Smart now ominously told CLNS Media/CelticsBlog after Game 7. “That’s the beauty of it. We get another chance. We’re blessed … we just came up short. We get another chance next year and we get to go start, obviously not the way we wanted, but we get to go start to figure out what we need to do next year.”