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Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Celtics TRADE Anfernee Simons for Vucevic, Does Tatum's COMEBACK Change EVERYTHING?
00:16:02
Boston Celtics shake up the roster, sending Anfernee Simons to the Chicago Bulls for Nikola Vucevic and a second-round pick. Does this signal Jayson Tatum’s return is imminent and set the stage for a new-look Celtics frontcourt? SI's John Karalis explores Boston’s bold move, weighing the impact of swapping wing scoring for Vucevic’s floor-spacing, rebounding, and expiring contract—and what it means for Al Horford, Neemias Queta, and Luka Garza’s rotation spots. Key topics include how Brad Stevens is keeping the team’s trade flexibility intact with a sizable traded player exception, salary cap implications, and potential next moves at the deadline. Karalis breaks down why Boston’s front office is playing the long game, discussing sign-and-trade possibilities, buyout market strategies, and whether the Celtics are positioning themselves for a blockbuster summer move. Can Boston’s revamped roster stay ahead in the Eastern Conference race?
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John Corralis
Foreign podcast Network your team every day.
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Fidelity Go Announcer
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John Corralis
What's happen.
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Native Deodorant Promoter
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John Corralis
It's native. Now on the Lockdown Celtics podcast, Anthony Simons has been traded. Why? This might mean Jason Tatum is coming back soon. Locked on Celtics pot, home of the winners. Hey, welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here in the Lockdown podcast network. It's your team every day and this time it's your team twice a day. It's a bonus podcast here, specifically on the Vucevic trade. I will have a post game podcast after the Dallas Mavericks game tonight. So this will hold you over until then because this is the big news anyway. Who cares about that game right now? What we care about is Anthony Simons being traded to the Chicago Bulls for Nikola Vucevic and a second round pick. If you're new to the show, the show is daily. It's available Monday through Friday for free Everywhere. It's on YouTube. You can watch it there. Bonus podcast when they play on the weekends. I'm John Corralis. I'm a beat writer covering the Celtics for Sports illustrated Celtics on SI. I've been covering the team for about 20 years. I've been doing this podcast for 10 and I've written a couple of books about this team. Let's dive into it. Why. Why was Simons traded for Nicola Vucevic? This is, I think, the why this impacts the Tatum thing. Like I said at the top, you're getting. You're getting in effect an Al Horford type in Vuch. You, you save money. It's an expiring contract. There's no real risk here, right? All you're doing is taking a wing out and putting in a big. And it's a stretch big. So why would you lose wing shooting if you're the Celtics, a guy that's helped them get through a lot of kind of tough scoring nights. The, the, the thing you think about right away is, well, this must mean that Jason Tatum is going to be coming back at some point here this season because the Celtics really leaned on Simons. How many times does he come in? He did it the other night, just comes in, Celtics were cold, he comes in hot and scores a bunch in the first quarter. Now all of a sudden, the Celtics are off to the races. So losing that is, is really tough for this team. Bringing in Vuch gives the Celtics, like I said, that Al horford type. He's 35, so he's older. He is going to grab rebounds, he's going to defend a little bit, but nothing great. He's not going to get out there and switch a ton. It's not going to, it's not going to save the Celtics defense much at all. But he'll get some rebounds. But more importantly, he's gonna hit shots, right? He's, he's averaging 17 points a game. He shoots over 50% on twos. He's shooting 30, almost 38% on threes. He's recently shot 40%. So right away, coming in to a team with better talent, you're looking at the potential for him to be open. And again, this means this is with Tatum coming back to be open a little bit more and to be able to get some, some cleaner looks from three. So a floor spacer that can run pick and pop that I believe is going to step into the starting role and push the Mishkeda to the backup role, at least for now. And I think that's probably that. That's fine. That's fine for me. Keita is, is going to be good no matter where he is slotted. He's going to still get the same amount of minutes and the Celtics can go different. You know, more defense with Keda, more offense with, with Vuch. And late in the game you have, I think, a better scorer, a better scoring option than Luca Garza and a better rebounder, defensive rebounder than Luca Garza. Obviously Garza's are like a workhorse on the offensive rebounds and you still have Garza as a third, third string guy who can come in and, and do that can come in an offensive rebound when the Celtics are missing a ton and you need that. So you have three distinct looks that you can give other teams. Does this move? Wow me? No, not Necessarily. But I think a lot of the same concepts that you that we were talking about with Simons apply to Vucevic. You can, you have his bird rights, so you're trading for him now, but you can resign him this summer if you want at much less. And it's going to be less than even the, the 15 million dollar mid level that I was thinking about for, for Simons. I think Vuch can probably be signed for, I don't know, 10 million. Less than 10 million this summer if the Celtics want to resign him at all. One big element here is the traded player exception that they are, that they've created. The Celtics have created a 27.7 million dollar whatever the, the Anthony Simon size salary. They've created a traded player exception because just a little cap nerd type of stuff. The Celtics acquired Vuch into the Kristoff Porzingis traded player exception. So they technically acquired him for that and then sent Simons out in a technically separate deal where they created a Simon size traded player exception. Why is that important? Because you've extended the window now you have between February. Well, actually it won't be February 3rd. It'll be February 5th or 6th when you know it'll be 5th because that's when the trade deadline is. It'll be February 5th till next February 5th. To use the 27.6 or 7 million dollar traded player exception which you can use to acquire one player. You can break it up to acquire two. Remember you can't combine it with others to get a bigger player, but you can use that to acquire somebody this summer. So even if you let Vuch walk this summer or maybe you keep them around at a much less like a more reasonable deal, you can use that 27/million dollars in a potential Giannis and Tenzin Kumpo trade, assuming that that is going to get pushed into the summer. But if it, if it does, great. If it doesn't, there's going to be other deals this summer. You can be a third team and help facilitate a deal and maybe get another player. Maybe you get another wing player. It's easier to maybe find a wing bench scorer to replace what you lost with Simons to boost that bench a little bit. So this is certainly not the finished product and they don't have to finish the product at the deadline. There will be more moves. I'm sure the Chris Boucher thing has to be panned out. He's out for personal reasons. So I think a Chris Boucher trade is coming as well. But that may be for. I don't know. I don't know what. What that might just be for. Just to get them out. Or maybe they use that to get a wing of some sort.
- [08:19]
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- [08:51]
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- [09:21]
John Corralis
The Celtics created this TPE to kind of extend the window of being able to acquire somebody that you don't necessarily have to send a player out for. The Celtics get under the first apron here so they have a little bit more flexibility. I don't think it's a huge deal that they're under the first apron, but financially for Bill Chisholm, this deal cuts $6 million in actual salary and I believe almost $20 million, about $20 million in luxury taxes. So they don't get under the tax, but they can get under the tax if they want, but there's no pressure to do so. But they probably just saved bill Chisholm $20 million just by doing this deal. So sure, he's happy about that. So that's a big impact for them being under the first apron. What does that do? It takes away some, some restrictions if, if one of the deals that comes up in the next couple of days is a signing trade somehow or not, not in the next couple of days. In, in this summer you, you can, you can be hard capped at the first apron via sign and trade, but you, you can't. It just takes away some of the restrictions. So assigning trade is now possible when you're under the first apron. A buyout is, you can, you have a little bit more flexibility in the buyout market with the, with, with your under being under the first apron because you, you can find, you can find a guy A big, a big money player, you can sign that player to whatever contract. There's a new rule in the CBA where if a person was making more than the mid level exception in a buyout, if you sign that guy, you're hard capped at the first apron. So if one of those guys happens to become available and the Celtics want to sign him now, they can. I don't know who that would be. And generally speaking, the buyouts in those situations, they are rarely helpful anyway, but it's there, it's an option. So I, I'm, I'm lukewarm on the deal. Ultimately, Vucevich fits, and that's good. I think there are more, many more positives here. There's not really a ton of negatives. I think where I just might be get a little hung up is that I was really just on board with Simons. And I think the lesson here with Brad Stevens is as soon as you get comfortable with a position at the trade deadline, that's when he strikes. It's, it really is like a cheetah hanging out in the brush or on a tree branch. And like, you're, you're always on guard. The more on guard you are, you're like, okay, I'm ready. If the cheetah's ready to pounce, I'm ready to run. And the second you're like, you know what? I'm comfortable with this position that the Celtics should just keep Anthony Simons. As soon as you do that, boom, there he is. Bam. He hits you right in the throat. So got me again, Brad. But I, I was, I was comfortable with keeping Anthony Simons. What does that mean for the future? Look, Simons, I think is gonna, whether it's Chicago or somewhere else, I mean, he has a chance to, to look at Chicago and maybe be a part of their future, maybe be some, you know, a starter there. And they have his bird rights too, so maybe he doesn't have to take as much of a pay cut. I still think his, his spot is the 15 million dollar range, but that's for Chicago to figure out. Vucevich fits. He. I'm looking at him. I know in yesterday's podcast I talked about very much a Porzingis kind of role, but Vucevich is a little bit more of a Horford type, but still a stretch big. That will open things up for the Celtics. I don't know if they do this deal without the possibility of Tatum coming back. I know Tatum was hesitant, but I think, I don't think that's going to limit his return at all. I think Vuch is going to do what the Celtics want him to do. Space the floor, hit some shots and grab some rebounds. They're not going to be able to switch with him defensively, so they'll switch one through four, but they won't switch one through five. Very rarely will they do that. They'll play a ton of drop coverage and they'll, they'll do what they've done. They, they'll pack the paint, they'll protect the rim. They'll do that at all costs and they will fly out to the three point line and try to try to give up certain threes. They don't always do it with great success, but nothing's going to change. There's, with Vucevich coming back, coming, coming into the fold. So I for. We know that the deal won't be official for a couple of days, so there's more potentially to come. And even as I say that, I've made the cardinal sin of turning away from Twitter and the potential for any news here. But no, no new news. So we're still waiting to see if there's additional stuff going on. The Celtics ended up getting a second round pick out of this, which they can turn around and attach to somebody else. Maybe it's, maybe it's part of the Boucher deal. We'll see what that, what that ends up being. Is there another deal? Is there a Tillman type of thing? Is there some overflow in the Memphis, Utah deal that, that can bring in somebody? But for now, look, the Celtics get a big, he's, he's good, but at 35, he's not a long term fit. It's a short term fit. What do they do from here? There's definitely more work to do, but very clearly the Celtics thought that keeping Simons was not going to work, so they ended up moving him. The best part, I guess is that they didn't have to attach anything to move them, which is good. He's played himself into a nice role. He had played himself into a nice role in Boston, so there was no need to attach anything. So the Celtics still have all of their firsts, all of their swaps, all of their everything to, to kind of send out that, that spot that he left. It's almost like trade. You can trade Anthony Simon's shadow with that, that tpe. So you've traded, you almost get to trade Simons twice in a way. You've traded him once for Vucevic and now you've got that, that space that Simons shaped, space that you can now trade somewhere else as well and you still have all your picks to make another big move. So the, the good thing about all of this is not only is void he there, there's definitely potentially more to come. And Boston has kept their trade flexibility, which is really, really important. Yeah, they save some money. Yeah, they get into the first apron and I don't know if they're going to try to do more, but I think the biggest signal here is Tatum is probably coming back and they expect him to be some level of himself. And this kind of helps Tatum play the way he's played throughout. So that's, that's my initial Vucevic kind of take. We'll see what happens in the in the meantime, there's still plenty of trade deadline left, so still almost two full days at the time that I'm recording this. So there's an opportunity for the Celtics to do more. We'll react as necessary. You'll get written reaction at SI's Celtics on SI page, so search for Celtics on SI, go to the Sports Illustrated website. Celtics on SI will have my written kind of reactions to this. But if you're new, if you're here, just part of the algorithm that brought you here. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Please subscribe. You can do this audio wise if you're an everyday or if you're with me. Monday through Friday we have the Everyday or club which gets you access to ad free audio which gets you our Discord server in game chats. For Celtics fans. For national fans, it's five bucks a month. It's 50 bucks for the year if you want to pay up front. If you you still have a couple of days to use the code deadline before the trade deadline ends, you get a free month at the Everyday or club that's locked on Celtics supercast.com Locked on Celtics.supercast.com Next podcast is coming up after Celtics and Mavericks, so that'll be a pure postgame podcast. But if any new Vucevich thoughts come up between now and then, I will certainly share them then. For now, I would love you to share this podcast and tell everybody that they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Sellings podcast. Here in the Lockdown Podcast network, it's your team every day.
- [18:16]
Fidelity Go Announcer
When you invest with Fidelity Go, it does all the work for you. So while Fidelity Go monitors the markets, rebalances your portfolio and tracks your progress to keep your investments aligned with your goal, you can invest your time however you want, all while paying no advisory fees under 25k. Invest your money, not your time, with Fidelity. Go get started@fidelity.com go Advisory services offered by Strategic Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Brokerage services provided by Fidelity Brokerage Services, llc, Member NYSE and SIPC.
- [18:46]
John Corralis
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