Celtics welcome back Daniel Theis in trade to unload Dennis Schröder

Look at how quick I got that photoshop in for the featured image! The Boston Celtics beat the Trade Deadline buzzer by trading Dennis Schröder to the Houston Rockets for Daniel Theis as reported by Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania.

Dennis Schröder was never in the long-term plans for the Celtics despite his high counting stats for the Celtics in games he started. He pinch hit on several occasions, even winning a few games for the Cs at times as players like Jaylen Brown have missed time with injury. Schröder’s numbers weren’t as high when he came off the bench, and trading Josh Richardson for Derrick White led to even more of a crunch that precipitated a Schröder trade.

This leaves the backup PG role up to Payton Pritchard and potentially the buyout market. As things currently stand, the Celtics have three open roster spots, but they are below the tax. This trade deadline has so far shaped up to be an absolute win.

In addition to tax savings, the Celtics add a reliable big to their thin frontcourt rotation as Ime Udoka starts both Robert Williams and Al Horford. Adding Theis adds a ton of insurance and allows for more freedom to add shooting to the frontcourt beyond Grant Williams.

Teams can continue negotiating beyond 3 p.m. if they’re already on the phone before the deadline, so maybe we’ll see more details surface or even another move. Stay tuned!

Update:

Not much to say here. Enes Kanter Freedom fell out of the rotation and wasn’t a good fit for what the Celtics wanted to do this year anyway (his production wasn’t very good for most of his stints). Bruno Fernando was a regular feature of blowouts. This leaves the Celtics with five open roster spots, allowing the team to be competitive in the buyout market.