That’s awesome! The Boston Celtics have reportedly agreed to a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder that will ship point guard Kemba Walker to OKC. In return, Al Horford is moving back to Boston, among others. There are also some draft picks involved in the deal.
This is what Adrian Wojnarowski reports from ESPN. Accordingly, the Celtics are trading the 31-year-old Walker together with the 16th pick in the 2021 draft and a 2025 second-round pick to Oklahoma City. For this, Horford, Moses Brown and a 2023 second round pick will go to Boston.
With his first deal as the new President of Basketball Operations for the Celts, Brad Stevens caused a big surprise. However, Boston is said to have had trade talks about Walker in the past. When he found out about it, the relationship between point guard and franchise got a crack.
Walker, who only moved to Boston in 2019, put on an average of 19.3 points and 4.9 assists last season with rates of 42 percent from the field and 36 percent from downtown. However, his injury history worried, Walker repeatedly struggled with knee problems.
With the trade, the Celtics got rid of the 73.6 million dollars that Walker will earn in the next two years (player option for 2022/23 in the amount of 37.7 million), but they also have to part with a first-round pick. The Thunder have three first round picks available in the 2021 draft.
In Horford (35), Boston is getting a solid Big Man who ran for the traditional franchise from 2016 to 2019. After an unfortunate year in Philadelphia, the Sixers gave it to Thunder in 2020. In the rebuild of the team, Horford played no role, after only 28 missions, Horford and GM Sam Presti agreed that the 35-year-old would no longer be used and that the Thunder would instead look for a trade partner.
Horford is also under contract until 2023 (around 27 million per year), but in his last year of contract numerous bonuses are included, which he will probably find difficult to achieve. Over his career, Horford puts on an average of 13.9 points and 8.2 rebounds with a field throw rate of 51.7 percent. Brown (21), another Big Man, showed some good approaches last season in OKC with 8.6 points and 8.9 rebounds in 21.4 minutes per game.
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