Trade season is always a wild time in the NBA. It's been a while since the Boston Celtics have actually been players rather than spectators in the swap festivities, but it just feels inevitable this summer. Boston has to clear roughly $20 million from their payroll if they want to avoid being a second-apron team for the third straight season.
Teams who spend above the $207.8 million face harsh punishments to begin with, but teams who do it three times in five years get the bonus of having future first-round picks automatically drop to 30th overall.
Now, with that context out of the way, let me explain that I would not be writing this article if my mom hadn't asked me about this possibility earlier today.
I was about to head to my desk and start prepping my Johni Broome scouting report when she goes, "Do you think they'd trade Jayson [Tatum] this summer?"
There was also a Reddit post in the Celtics subreddit this week, prompting fans for their feelings on a potential move.
My mom's question was more of a "Can they trade him for Giannis Antetokounmpo" inquiry, rather than a "Should they dump his salary?" prompt. Sure, it's fun to daydream about superstar swaps and all, but this just doesn't make any sense.
No, the Celtics should and will not trade Jayson Tatum this summer
Technically, Boston could trade Tatum this summer if they wanted to, as long as they do it after July 6.
To be honest, that should be the end of any Tatum trade talk. Even the biggest Jayson Tatum hater should not want to see him dealt at this point. Like, if you asked me to power rank the worst possible times for a Tatum trade, right now, the summer of 2025 would be the absolute worst time.
We can start from the most basic, basketball only, nothing else exists, point-of-view. If Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens was to start fielding calls for potential Tatum trades, the offers he'd be getting would be far below market value.
Why?
Well, Tatum tore his Achilles less than a month ago. If you were an opposing general manager, would you be willing to pay full price without knowing if JT will ever be the same again? No, of course not.
Now that that's been laid out, we can move on to the human element of this. Tatum tore his Achilles less than a month ago. The end of his eighth season in green was gut-wrenching. The rest of it was about as incredible as the previous seven. Tatum's young(ish) Celtics career is more decorated than that of about 95% of other players who have put the uniform on. He's been named to five All-NBA teams, made the Eastern Conference Finals five times, the NBA Finals twice, and of course led the Cs to their 18th NBA title in 2024.
The St. Louis native has been nothing but a great role model for kids in New England and all over the globe since being drafted by Boston in 2017. He's been a tremendous representative of the Celtics organization and has truly bought into the idea of being one of its great players.
Any trade involving him at this point would be a massive slap in the face to Tatum. If it were to happen and then Boston suffered a championship drought, people would look back and point to that moment as the beginning of the "Tatum curse."
