Last Tuesday, Anfernee Simons was in Dallas, preparing to play in what would have been his 50th game for the Celtics.<\/p>\n
Forty-eight hours later, he was playing \u2014 and starting \u2014 for a different team.<\/p>\n
Six days after that, he was back at TD Garden, suiting up for the Chicago Bulls against his former Boston teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NBA moves fast,\u201d the veteran guard told reporters<\/a> Wednesday morning, via CLNS Media.<\/p>\n Indeed it does. Especially for a player like Simons, who was rumored as a likely trade candidate throughout his brief Celtics tenure. Though the 26-year-old impressed coaches and teammates with his unselfishness, production and effort at both ends, those rumors proved accurate, with Boston shipping him to Chicago<\/a> ahead of last week\u2019s NBA trade deadline for center Nikola Vucevic<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was Simons\u2019 second trade in seven months, following the one that sent him to Boston and guard Jrue Holiday to Portland.<\/p>\n Though he wished his stay on Causeway Street had lasted longer, Simons said he was \u201cvery grateful\u201d for his time with the Celtics and appreciated president of basketball operations Brad Stevens\u2019 transparency.<\/p>\n \u201cBrad is a good guy, and he\u2019s always been open and honest about everything,\u201d Simons told reporters. \u201cObviously, it was a tough conversation for him, and for me to accept, but we understood. They have a common goal, (which) is to win a championship. So it was just \u2014 I\u2019m always appreciative of my time here, and I\u2019m always grateful for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Simons, who went from a starter and No. 1 option with the Trail Blazers to an impact sixth man for the Celtics, also understood the move from Boston\u2019s perspective. He\u2019s on a $27.7 million expiring contract, and Vucevic gives the C\u2019s a proven frontcourt presence to pair with Neemias Queta and Luka Garza, both of whom are enjoying career years.<\/p>\n \u201cYou wanted to see, obviously, the light at the end of the tunnel and be able to compete with your team the whole season,\u201d Simons told reporters. \u201cBut obviously, it\u2019s the NBA; obviously, business. And they traded for a great player in Vuc. It\u2019s somebody that will change the dynamic of the team, somebody that can stretch the floor \u2014 he and Luka can stretch the floor now \u2014 and have a big body, as well.<\/p>\n \u201cYou understand that part. So you can get a little bit emotional behind it, but at the same time, you understand it, and you kind of just move on and understand that it was for a great player, as well \u2014 somebody that\u2019s been an All-Star. So you come here and just accept that with this new team, dive straight and try to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n Simons now is starting for a free-falling Bulls team that entered Wednesday with the 11th-best roster in the Eastern Conference. His arrival was part of a full-scale roster overhaul, with Chicago adding seven players and nine second-round draft picks in deadline deals. Simons topped 20 points in two of his first three games with his new squad.<\/p>\n \u201cI really always admired him as a player,\u201d Bulls head coach Billy Donovan said before Wednesday\u2019s game. \u201cObviously, he\u2019s from Florida. I saw him play in high school when he was at IMG (Academy). I thought he played really well in Portland, and then I think even coming in from Portland, where he was starting, to come off the bench (in Boston), he was a guy that really provided a lot of offense for them. High-IQ player. Obviously, he can score a lot of different levels. He\u2019s another guy, I think, because of his feel and his basketball IQ, he can kind of fit in and figure things out pretty quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s been a lot for him, because not only is he necessarily coming to a new team, he\u2019s coming to a really an entirely new team with guys that really are coming at the same time he is. So they\u2019re all getting to know each other. But he\u2019s done a good job up to this point in time. I\u2019ve enjoyed being around him.\u201d<\/p>\n The Celtics did, too, with Joe Mazzulla, Jaylen Brown and others raving about Simons even after the trade. And there\u2019s a chance he has not played his final game in a Boston uniform.<\/p>\n A pending free agent, Simons told reporters that he \u201cfor sure\u201d would be open to rejoining the Celtics.<\/p>\n Happy for Vucevic<\/p>\n Wednesday also was a reunion for Vucevic, who spent parts of six seasons with Chicago before his trade to Boston.<\/p>\n Donovan caught up with the 35-year-old big man on his way into TD Garden.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s great,\u201d the Bulls coach said. \u201cI love him. (We spent) five-plus years together, right around five years together. He was told pro. I think he\u2019ll fit in very, very well to Boston\u2019s team. He could play a lot of different styles, really, really high IQ, and then certainly, I think he gives them a post presence on rolls and switches at the rim, and then also a guy that can stretch it and can also play in the pocket. So it was good to catch up with him, but I think he\u2019ll be a very good fit here for them.\u201d<\/p>\n After slogging through years of mediocrity in Chicago and, before that, Orlando, Vucevic said he was \u201cvery excited\u201d to join the contending Celtics, who entered Wednesday with the fourth-best record in the NBA. The 15th-year pro won just three total postseason games with the Bulls and Magic and has not won a playoff series since 2011-12, when he was a rookie backup with the Philadelphia 76ers.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m happy for Vuc,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cHe\u2019s in a situation where he\u2019s on this team that\u2019s certainly a solidified playoff team. Obviously, if (Jayson) Tatum comes back, that gives him even that much more of a boost. I think for Vuc, the one year in Chicago and then two years in Orlando, he\u2019d been the playoffs, but I don\u2019t think he\u2019s ever been (on) a playoff run, so to speak, where it\u2019s been deep. So for someone like him at his age to be able to experience that, I\u2019m happy for that. I talked to him after the trade had happened, and that\u2019s kind of what his sentiment was that.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he enjoyed his time in Chicago a lot. I think he enjoyed the relationships in Chicago. But I think as he looks at the next step, next phase his career, coming here to Boston, I think it\u2019s something that he\u2019ll get maybe a chance to experience that he really hadn\u2019t been really experienced throughout his career.\u201d<\/p>\n Off the rim<\/p>\n The Celtics tweaked their starting lineup Wednesday night, shifting away from the double-big look they used in the previous three games. Baylor Scheierman replaced Garza, starting alongside Derrick White, Sam Hauser, Brown and Queta. Vucevic and Payton Pritchard continued to come off the bench. \u2026 The only team ahead of Boston in the East standings as of Wednesday, the Detroit Pistons, will be shorthanded for the next few weeks as a result of Monday night\u2019s brawl in Charlotte. The NBA suspended All-Star center Jalen Duren for two games and veteran enforcer Isaiah Stewart for seven for their roles in the fight, with Stewart receiving an especially hefty ban because he left the bench to trade punches with Hornets wing Miles Bridges. Bridges and teammate Moussa Diabate were given four-game suspensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last Tuesday, Anfernee Simons was in Dallas, preparing to play in what would have been his 50th game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[4329,7,75,46,72005,14815,329,301,187,3943,2675,6,3853,302],"class_list":["post-597817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-nuggets","tag-anfernee-simons","tag-basketball","tag-boston-celtics","tag-celtics","tag-celtics-bulls","tag-celtics-trade","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-denver","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-denvernuggets","tag-joe-mazzulla","tag-nba","tag-nikola-vucevic","tag-nuggets"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116054926584567279","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597817","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=597817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}