trade for Al Horford<\/a>, who played for the Celtics from 2016 to 2019 but had since spent stints with the Philadelphia 76ers and Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\nStevens wasn\u2019t afraid to give up a lot to get Horford, either, sending Kemba Walker, the No. 16 overall pick in the 2021 NBA draft, and a 2025 second-round pick to the Thunder for Horford.<\/p>\n
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Then, in 2022, Stevens re-acquired former Celtics center Daniel Theis in a deal with the Houston Rockets. Theis proved serviceable in Boston\u2019s 2022 run to the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In sum, if you\u2019re a Celtics player traded by Brad Stevens, there\u2019s always the possibility that you\u2019ll be brought back to Boston at a later date.<\/p>\n
Could a similar fate be in store for Porzingis? His fit on Boston\u2019s roster was undeniable, even if his health betrayed him far too often over the last two seasons. But for a Porzingis return to work, it would come down to money, not health or basketball fit. The very reason that Stevens had to trade Porzingis (the dreaded second apron) is the same reason that re-acquiring KP wouldn\u2019t happen unless Porzingis\u2019 value drops even further between now and next summer.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not an impossible outcome, though, especially given Porzingis\u2019 injury history. Not to wish anything but full health upon Porzingis, but if he were to suffer through another injury-ravaged season in 2025-26 and miss significant time, his list of suitors in free agency would shrink, driving down the cost to sign him.<\/p>\n
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In that case, a Celtics return would be plausible. Ultimately, though, what\u2019s best for Porzingis is to stay healthy and have a productive season, leading to a juicy payday from the Hawks or someone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Celtics fans shouldn\u2019t rule out a reunion with a star who was just traded. Kristaps Porzingis is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":61676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[26475,1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-61675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-kristaps-porzingis","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114844768916619354","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}