{"id":149138,"date":"2025-07-05T13:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T13:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/149138\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T13:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T13:52:12","slug":"celtics-sign-kevin-durants-former-6-foot-8-teammate-as-potential-jayson-tatum-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/149138\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics sign Kevin Durant’s former 6-foot-8 teammate as potential Jayson Tatum replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things got ugly fast for the Boston Celtics in the 2025 NBA playoffs.<\/p>\n

After defeating the Orlando Magic in a stress-free five-game series, disaster struck against the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.<\/p>\n

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The organization surrendered back-to-back 20-point leads at home and lost their star forward, Jayson Tatum, in Game 4 via a gut-wrenching Achilles injury.<\/p>\n

Although it hasn\u2019t been confirmed, Tatum will likely miss most, if not all, of the 2025-26 season, considering he suffered his lower-body setback late in the year (May).<\/p>\n

While it will be challenging for the Celtics to replace Tatum\u2019s production, the franchise elected to give it a go by signing Houston Rockets superstar Kevin Durant\u2019s former 6-foot-8 teammate<\/a> to their summer league roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cJalen Bridges has been added to the Celtics summer league roster, I’ve been told, and will be going to camp with the team in the fall with a chance to make the roster,\u201d the Athletic\u2019s Jay King reported Thursday. \u201cHe played for Phoenix (Suns) on a two-way contract as a rookie.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Bridges only appeared in eight games with the Suns last season, but he received a golden opportunity to play alongside a Future Hall of Fame bucket-getter in Durant.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old forward averaged only 1.1 points per game on 28.6% field goal shooting and 28.6% three-point shooting.<\/p>\n

Still, it’s worth noting that Bridges is a capable perimeter shooter. The West Virginia and Baylor product finished his collegiate career with a respectable 37% long-range shooting percentage, shooting above 39% from deep during two of his four campaigns.<\/p>\n

Although Bridges is nowhere near the playmaker Tatum is, his ability to flourish as a spot-up shooter in Joe Mazzulla\u2019s system would help him earn valuable minutes as a second-year pro.<\/p>\n

Bridges should treat the upcoming summer league as his first audition for the Celtics.<\/p>\n

More NBA:\u00a0Warriors agree to historic seven-team trade involving two-time NBA champion Kevin Durant<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things got ugly fast for the Boston Celtics in the 2025 NBA playoffs. After defeating the Orlando Magic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,2848,194,6687,77,938,6,191,76,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-149138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-eastern-conference-semifinals","14":"tag-houston-rockets","15":"tag-jalen-bridges","16":"tag-jayson-tatum","17":"tag-kevin-durant","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-new-york-knicks","20":"tag-orlando-magic","21":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114800960942357426","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}