Who will start at center for the Boston Celtics when the season tips off in 2025?
As the team undergoes seemingly inevitable, albeit dramatic changes through this summer, that “big” question looms.
Luke Kornet is a Spur. He represented a realistic solution to fill the starting void left by the Kristaps Porzingis trade, but nobody can knock the previously undrafted big fella for getting a $7.45 million per year pay bump from San Antonio. That’s free agency for you, and the realities of the new collective bargaining agreement.
Al Horford has also served Boston well, but appears destined to ride out the twilight of his career in the Western Conference. His age (39) and affordability ($9.5 AAV in 2024-25) don’t quite line up with even the most optimistic speculations about Jayson Tatum’s return from a torn achilles tendon.
Whatever the Celtics’ plan is now, it’s not exactly what president of basketball operations Brad Stevens envisioned when he addressed media after the NBA Draft last week.
“As you look at the rest of the team and what we’re trying to do, there is no question our priorities would be to bring Al and Luke back. Those guys are huge parts of this organization,” he said, just last Wednesday.
Less than an hour after he reported that Kornet was headed to the Spurs, ESPN’s Shams Charania broke a $5.5 million deal between the Celtics and free agent center Luka Garza. Whether the timing represented a pivot or was merely a coincidence, Garza’s 5.6 minutes average across 39 games with Minnesota last season is just a fraction of Kornet’s floor time as a role player on a contending team.
Xavier Tillman and Neemias Queta are the two lone centers returning on deals to Boston. As an ultra-physical seven-footer, Queta has shown real potential – especially on the defensive end. He played in 62 games last season, averaging 13.9 minutes. But he won’t replace Porzingis or Horford offensively and doesn’t have the three-point shooting skills trademarked in Mazzulla’s offense. And there’s a flip side to his physicality: he averaged 4.4 personal fouls per 36 minutes last season. But he’s just 25 years old, with four seasons of NBA experience, so mark him down as a work in a progress.
If Stevens has another move for a center up his sleeve, it will require moving a roster player just to get Boston back under the second apron of the CBA luxury tax, set at $207.824 million for the upcoming year. The Celtics opened more than $60 million in cap space when they traded Porzingis and guard Jrue Holiday last week, but recently reported acquisitions and signings of Anfernee Simons, Georges Niang, Garza, and Josh Minott will add around $40 million back against the cap. Simons is the most obvious trade piece because of his $27.7 million cap hit and expiring deal.
The free agent bigs who would raise fans’ eyebrows have mostly signed onto their new teams. Myles Turner is a Buck, Clint Capela is Rocket, and Brook Lopez is a Clipper. But even remaining options like Mo Wagner, who was freed up after Orlando declined his team option, may carry too hefty a price tag for the Celtics’ financial goals.
Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck forecasted the offseason changes well before Tatum’s injury on WEEI’s Greg Hill Show in March, when he stated during an interview, “You can’t stay in the second apron, nobody will. I predict for the next 40 years of the CBA, no one’s going to stay in the second apron more than two years.”
The realities of saying goodbye to champions like Kornet are a bitter pill to swallow, but Grousbeck also mentioned the Celtics’ roster architect in that conversation:
“We have Brad Stevens, the reigning executive the year, and thank God we do,” he said.
The CBA was always going to force the Celtics in a cutback position, but Tatum’s injury obviously changed the outlook for the upcoming year. It behooves the Celtics’ new ownership (pending league approval) to avoid the repeater tax while their superstar rehabilitates such a serious injury. Hopefully, when Tatum returns, happy days and open wallets will follow. In the meantime, even with another trip to the Finals looking like a long-term rather than immediate expectation, Stevens still has more deals to make just to round out next year’s team.