Would the Boston Celtics really move on from yet another part of their 2024 championship core this summer?
The team has already flipped two starters, All-Defensive Team guard Jrue Holiday and one-time All-Star center Kristaps Porzingis, to save money. Clearly, with six-time All-Star forward Jayson Tatum likely on the shelf for all of 2025-26 recovering from a torn Achilles tendon, Boston is looking to cut costs.
Holiday was sent to the Portland Trail Blazers for Anfernee Simons, the rights to the New York Knicks' 2030 second rounder and Portland's 2031 second.
In a stunner, Porzingis was traded to the Atlanta Hawks as part of a three-team exchange with the Brooklyn Nets. Boston received forward Georges Niang and another second round pick.
The moves helped the Celtics dip beneath the league's second luxury tax apron, but Yossi Gozlan of Third Apron observes that the team got back above it thanks to its signings of center/power forward Luka Garza and forward Josh Minott.
Boston also saw free agent backup center Luke Kornet join the San Antonio Spurs, and his fellow free agent Al Horford continues to field options.
Now, Christopher Gasper of The Boston Globe suggests a new deal that would see the Celtics flip its other All-Defensive Team starting guard, Derrick, to a team that's vaulted its way into contender status this summer: the Houston Rockets.
“Rockets coach Ime Udoka was one of the driving forces behind the Celtics trading for White in 2022, when Udoka guided them to the NBA Finals,” Gasper writes. “The two overlapped when Udoka was an assistant in San Antonio, and ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported the Rockets were ready to pounce on White if he didn’t re-sign with the Celtics last summer.”
That said, the Celtics have set such a high asking price for White that it may scare off interested parties.
Per Jake Fischer of The Stein Line, Boston requested a deal similar to the Brooklyn Nets' return package in its trade of All-Defensive forward Mikal Bridges to the Knicks. Brooklyn received a pair of 2025 first and second selections, four unprotected first rounders, and a 2028 pick swap.
White would join a Rockets club that, coming off a 52-30 run in 2024-25, has already brought in Kevin Durant, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Clint Capela this summer, while re-signing incumbents Fred VanVleet, Jabari Smith Jr., Jae'Sean Tate, Jeff Green and Aaron Holiday to new deals.