While the rumor mill has been churning for sometime now about Gordon Hayward reuniting with his college coach Brad Stevens and bolting Utah to become the newest member of the Boston Celtics, one other free agent target of the Celtics has taken a back seat: Blake Griffin.
Intrepid reporter from The Vertical Adrian Wojnarowski reported on his podcast on Wednesday that the Celtics have two major free agent targets this off-season; Hayward and Griffin.
Here are Woj’s comments on the situation from the podcast:
“Boston is really the danger for Blake Griffin,” said Wojnarowski. “I think Boston’s two primary free agent targets, right now, are Gordon Hayward and Blake Griffin. Now they’re not going to get both of them, but they’re both players that would potentially have interest there. I think Boston looks at in different ways with their future.” The Celtics will have the cap space to be able to bring in another max-contract guy during free agency this offseason, so it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to pry either Hayward or Griffin away from their respective teams.”
While Hayward is probably seen as the more attractive free agent target around the league with his status as an elite wing player in a league with a dearth of two-guards who can give you 20-5-5 a game, Griffin may be a more beneficial addition for the Celtics.
With Isaiah Thomas as your lead scorer and ball handler and the ability to draft the No. 1 pick Markelle Fultz as a secondary scorer and ball handler and the level of depth they already have in the back court with Thomas, Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier, it seems as though having a athletic and offensive-minded power forward like Griffin could fill a bigger need and give the Celtics another rebounder.
The Celtics started Amir Johnson at power forward through much of the postseason and a combination of Al Horford and Kelly Olynk is too un-athletic to co-exist for the majority of a game.
We’ll see what the Celtics decide to do with their King’s ransom of assets this summer, it feels like acquiring a player like George or Jimmy Butler may be the only way for them to truly become a competitor to LeBron’s eastern conference supremacy in 2017-18.
