Displaced Boston Celtics Guard Drawing Interest From Unnamed NBA Teams

The Boston Celtics are having quite a ride this 2022-23 NBA season despite the drama that they had in the offseason.

Ime Udoka was suspended for the entire season and the Celtics leaned on Joe Mazzulla on an interim basis. So far, that move has done wonders with the Cs toting a league-leading 25-10 win-loss record.

With the likes of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart responding well to Mazulla, the Celtics may not need to tweak their roster at all heading into the NBA trade deadline

The closest thing that Boston may resort to is trading away some players for future assets or money considerations. One player that comes to mind is Payton Pritchard.

The 26th overall pick of the 2020 NBA Draft has hardly gotten playing time with the Celtics leaning on the rotation of Smart, Derrick White and Malcolm Brogdon.

In three seasons with the Celtics, the 24-year-old holds career averages of 6.6 points, two rebounds and 1.8 assists in 158 regular season games with Boston.

The Oregon native’s best performance was during his rookie year where he normed 7.7 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 19.2 minutes of action.

The key number in the three years that Pritchard has been with the Celtics is playing time. From 19.2 minutes per game, that decreased to 14.1 minutes in 71 games last NBA season and now down to 10.5 minutes for the current season.

Hence, some teams are reportedly interested in the seldom-used guard who has been known to knock down three-pointers, Steve Bulpett of Heavy reported. He holds a career average of 47.4% from the field and 40.5% from beyond the arc.

But at 6-foot-1, the concern is how Pritchard could match up defensively. Pritchard does work hard so it will be interesting if this will be enough when he matches up against other bigger guards in the league.

Financially, Pritchard is making $2.2 million this season and $4 million in 2023. He could make sense for other teams although a deal would still depend on what is on the table for the Celtics to consider.