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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics and Giannis Antetokounmpo #34 of the Milwaukee Bucks<\/p>\n
We\u2019re still working through the tail end of the NBA<\/a> season, and for the Boston Celtics<\/a>, it\u2019s a time to savor. This bunch overcame considerable hardship this season, starting with the Achilles tendon tear for Jayson Tatum<\/a> in last May\u2019s Eastern Conference semifinals, continuing through a summer in which the team traded away Kristaps Porzingis<\/a> and Jrue Holiday<\/a> while letting Al Horford<\/a> and Luke Kornet<\/a> walk in free agency, and going right through to the team\u2019s trade-deadline machinations aimed at further cutting salary.<\/p>\n Despite it all, the Celtics are the No. 2 seed in the East with four days left in the season. There should be a moment for back-patting time.<\/p>\n But this is the NBA, where the rumor mill never stops, and this time, it\u2019s landed on the Celtics and Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, with the fact that Antetokounmpo has all but trashed his relationship with the Bucks combined with Antetokounmpo\u2019s recent praise for Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla resulting in trade chatter around the star forward becoming a Celtics trade target.<\/p>\n Celtics Pulled Into Giannis Antetokounmpo Chatter<\/p>\n That chatter was ricocheting around social media on Wednesday, with longtime NBA insider Sam Amick fueling some flames by saying the Celtics have interest in Antetokounmpo. As he wrote<\/a>, \u201cEven the Celtics, who have the \u2018Two Jays\u2019 back now and look fully capable of winning it all, are known to be interested and discussed in league circles as potential suitors.\u201d<\/p>\n But don\u2019t get too excited about that Celtics fans, one Eastern Conference executive warns.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody is interested in Giannis\u2013or LeBron James or Kevin Durant\u2013before they do the reality check, which is where you dive into what it would cost you in terms of assets, what it would cost you in terms of future payroll, how the chemistry looks and all of that,\u201d the exec said.<\/p>\n \u201cSame for the Celtics. Once you do the reality check, you can\u2019t see any real interest in making a trade like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Celtics Would Have to Trade Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum<\/p>\n The reality for the Celtics remains that team president Brad Stevens just did a contortionist\u2019s job of bending the numbers on the Boston books to get the team below the luxury tax, a situation that will only really pay off in terms of reduced penalties from the league if the Celtics stay under the tax for another year.<\/p>\n That gets difficult if you\u2019re going to bring in Antetokounmpo. More important, the Celtics would need to trade away either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown to make a deal feasible. The other option would be to package Derrick White, Sam Hauser, Payton Pritchard and another three young players to Milwaukee, a pretty impossible scenario.<\/p>\n GettyBrad Stevens, president of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Giannis Antetokounmpo Due a $275 Million Extension<\/p>\n The proposition for the Celtics, then, would be to trade away either Tatum, who is three years younger than Antetokounmpo, or Brown, who is two years younger, for a guy who has struggled to stay healthy and is eligible for a four-year, $275 million extension<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n Oh, and a guy who can\u2019t shoot the 3-pointer\u2013he\u2019s made 29 in the last two years combined\u2013 on a team where that is a must.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, everybody\u2019s going to look into a guy like Giannis if he is on the market, you have to,\u201d the exec said. \u201cBut there are only a few teams that could realistically make that trade, and it is hard to see where the Celtics would be one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tSean Deveney<\/a> is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Celtics\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics and Giannis Antetokounmpo #34 of the Milwaukee Bucks We\u2019re still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,102,121,3871,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-705762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-milwaukee","11":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","12":"tag-milwaukeebucks","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116370733298755136","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705762","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=705762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2237754203.jpg\")
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