Two months into this season, Josh Minott looked like a tremendous find for the Celtics.
Six weeks later, he was shipped to one of the NBA’s worst teams in a trade-deadline salary dump.
Minott, who fell out of Boston’s rotation in late December and was traded on Feb. 5, returned to TD Garden on Friday for the first time as a member of the Brooklyn Nets. It also was just the young wing’s second game with his new club, as Brooklyn initially assigned him to the G League before recalling him earlier this week.
Going from early-season starter on a championship contender to deep reserve on a lottery-bound also-ran can’t have been easy for Minott, but Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez said the 23-year-old has handled the move like a professional.
“Great personality,” Fernandez said before Friday’s game. “You could say that he’s been a teammate in the group for a long time the way he just blended in right away. He knew what we were about. I sat down with him in my office. Sometimes you feel like it’s going to be a quick conversation, and all of a sudden we were talking for like, 20, 30, minutes. And it was good to get to know this guy.
“The reality of the NBA sometimes, you know, there’s trades, and it may be weird. But it’s part of it, and he’s done a great job just trying to right away be part of it.”
Signed to a veteran minimum contract over the summer, Minott saw action in 28 of the Celtics’ first 29 games, starting 10 and showcasing enticing three-and-D potential. But he eventually fell behind Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman and Hugo Gonzalez on Boston’s depth chart, then missed most of January with an ankle injury. He made just five appearances after Christmas, all in garbage time. The Celtics traded him for cash considerations.
After the trade, Minott made three appearances with the Long Island Nets before finally making his Brooklyn debut on Thursday. He played the final five minutes of a 126-110 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, tallying one assist and two steals.
“He played in Long Island and did a great job,” said Fernandez, whose young team entered Friday with a 15-43 record and a six-game losing streak. “We needed him to be in game shape, and I think he took advantage of those minutes, and now he’s ready to play here. So (I’m) very happy with him and trying to help him develop and see what we’ve got.”
Agent wowed by Mazzulla
In a piece for HoopsHype this week, longtime NBA agent Bernie Lee lavished praise on Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, who blew Lee away during a free agent meeting last summer.
After the Celtics lost Jayson Tatum to injury and nearly half of their rotation to trades and free agency, Lee expected them to “take the opportunity to lower payroll, bottom out, and chase a Top 3 draft pick in what we can all see is a transformational draft” — aka tank. Then he sat down with Mazzulla.
“I, like everyone else, assumed they would do the same thing,” Lee wrote. “When free agency began, they requested a meeting with a client I had at the time who had underperformed for years and was going to be on a vastly reduced contract, with the thought that if he could prove he was healthy, his value would return. I looked at it as a great opportunity for both sides, but I also had my eyes open and expected in the meeting to be told of a different directive than competing for a championship in 2025–2026.
“That was until our meeting began at 6:01 p.m. on July 1st. I have done this agent thing for over 20 years, and I have participated in countless free-agent meetings for players of all levels, and I can honestly tell you I have never in my entire career been more impressed with a coach than I was with Joe Mazzulla.”
(Lee did not identify the player. Real GM’s list of his current and former clients includes one who fits that description: former New York Knicks big man Precious Achiuwa, who ended up signing a tryout contract with Miami and now is with Sacramento.)
In their 20-minute meeting, Lee wrote, the agent “quickly realized that (Mazzulla) was a human being who creates his own reality.”
“If I or anyone else thought for a second that he was a person who didn’t look at what the Celtics were facing this year as an opportunity versus an impossibility, then it probably explained why I watch for a living and he’s the man in the arena,” Lee continued. “… If anyone asked Joe to do anything other than compete like the world was about to end, they would probably only get the chance to ask him once. Fast-forward 58 games, and not shocking to me, Joe was right.
“If I am lucky enough to do this another 20-plus years, I highly doubt I will ever see another midstream pivot with this amount of success, and most importantly, a group that was built through adversity versus giving in to it.”
The Celtics entered Friday’s game with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference (38-20) and fourth-best in the NBA.
Roster moves coming?
The end of the Celtics’ bench could look different when they host the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday.
The 10-day contracts that depth guards Dalano Banton and John Tonje signed last Thursday are set to expire this weekend. Players are allowed to sign up to two 10-day deals with the same team, so Boston could choose to re-up both.
The Celtics also could opt to leave the roster spots vacant for now — NBA rules permit teams to roster fewer than 14 standard-contract players for up to 28 days in a given season, and the C’s have 14 of those days remaining — or bring in different players to fill them. They have two players on two-way deals (Ron Harper Jr. and Max Shulga) that could be converted to 10-day or full-season contracts.
Regardless, don’t expect any splashy additions. Boston must be judicious with its signings to avoid wading back into the NBA’s luxury tax, which it escaped by trading away Minott, Xavier Tillman and Chris Boucher earlier this month.
Banton and Tonje entered Friday with 13 total minutes played for the Celtics, all in garbage time.
Off the rim
With Boston beginning a stretch of four home games in eight days, all eyes are on Tatum, who reportedly has been fully participating in scrimmages with teammates as he seemingly nears the end of his Achilles rehab. The Celtics star said months ago that his first game back would be at TD Garden. He did not suit up against Brooklyn — the Celtics were at full strength otherwise — but we’ll be closely monitoring the injury report ahead of Sunday’s game against Philadelphia, next Wednesday’s against Charlotte and next Friday’s against Dallas.