Kristaps Porziņģis trade grades: Celtics get ‘B+’ for avoiding second apron, Hawks take win-now swing

The Boston Celtics have made their second significant trade in as many days. Less than a day after sending Jrue Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazers, they have dealt Kristaps Porziņģis and a second-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks. The deal sends Terence Mann and the No. 22 pick to the Brooklyn Nets, while Georges Niang and a second-round pick goes back to Boston.

So what’s going on here? Why are the Celtics selling off so many good players, and how does this trade make sense for all parties involved? Let’s grade the deal team-by-team to figure that out.

Boston Celtics: B+

The Boston Celtics entered this offseason with the most expensive roster in NBA history. They were set to have a payroll of nearly $500 million with luxury taxes factored in. That was fine when Jayson Tatum was healthy and they were a defending champion. However, with Tatum likely to miss all or most of next season with a torn Achilles, Boston basically had to shed payroll. 

They were $22 million above the second apron, and it was critical to duck below it because teams can only spend two years in a five-year period above that line before future first-round picks start automatically dropping to No. 30 overall. The Celtics just used one second-apron season this year. They weren’t wasting another in a non-Tatum year, so shedding at least that $22 million became essential.

They got the ball rolling Monday night with the Holiday-for-Anfernee Simons swap. That saved them almost $5 million. This deal saves them another $22.5 million or so, meaning they have successfully ducked the second apron. Now, not only have they done so, but they’ve gained picks in the process as they got two second-rounders from Portland on Monday. Yes, they lose talent, but Porziņģis had become such a medical risk that they likely couldn’t have justified re-signing him long-term anyway, and Holiday is 35 with three expensive years left on his contract. 

They (thus far) haven’t needed to move their two best non-Tatum players: Jaylen Brown or Derrick White. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t, but now, they can focus entirely on asset value in negotiations for either of them. They don’t have to worry about shedding more salary. That allows them to trade from a position of strength moving forward. If someone bowls them over for White or Brown? They can consider it. Otherwise, they aren’t desperate anymore.

The Celtics could even get a bit more aggressive when it comes to shedding salary if they want. If they can move Sam Hauser’s $10 million salary into someone’s mid-level exception, they might even be able to put themselves in a position to duck the luxury tax entirely. That might not sound important from a basketball standpoint, but trust me, it is. The league’s luxury-tax formula changes for the 2025-26 season to become much more punitive, especially to repeat payers. The Celtics have a lot of luxury-tax years ahead of them when Tatum gets back. Saving money now might make ownership more willing to spend later.

The NBA Draft isn’t even here yet and the Celtics have already accomplished everything they need to accomplish this offseason. There’s more they can do if they want to, and re-signing backup center Luke Kornet is likely a priority now that it seems financially feasible. But the hardest stuff is done. Now, they can focus solely on rebuilding their roster for when Tatum returns without thinking too much about the money involved.

Atlanta Hawks: B

For years, the Hawks have needed to put a deep group of athletic wings around Trae Young to protect him defensively. They’ve now done so with Dyson Daniels, Zaccharie Risacher and Jalen Johnson. The catch is that while all of those guys can defend and wreak havoc in transition, none of them are strong shooters. That limits the space Young has to work with in the half-court offensively. And so, the Hawks needed to find shooting somewhere, and the only open slot in their lineup was at center.

Porziņģis is obviously a stellar shooter at center. His 3-point prowess is well-known, but the other benefit is that he effectively makes an offense switch-proof. If you put a guard or wing on him inside of the arc he’ll just shoot easy mid-range jumpers over them. With Onyeka Okongwu’s growth last season, the Hawks now have two big men that can actually space the floor a bit, yet defensively, they provide very different things. Porziņģis is obviously a strong, stationary rim-protector, while Okongwu is more mobile and can switch onto the perimeter. They could split the center minutes evenly, but they could also even play a few minutes together. So in the short term, it’s a good trade that makes the Hawks better with a niche player type they absolutely needed yet tends to be hard to find.

The question marks here are in the long term. Johnson starts his rookie extension this year. Daniels will next year, and we have no idea whether or not the Hawks will be able to sign Young to a reasonable extension. In other words, this team is getting expensive. That raises affordability questions on Porziņģis for the future.

That part of this is going to be a risk. The Hawks probably could afford to re-sign him at a reduced salary given all of the medical risks he poses. They have another starting-caliber center, so they can afford to have a luxury like Porziņģis even if he misses games, but it’s all going to depend on the number. You can pay, say, $18-20 million per year for a luxury. You certainly can’t pay the $30.7 million Porziņģis currently makes. So extension negotiations are going to be interesting.

If Porziņģis can stay healthy and re-signs at a reasonable rate, this trade could look like an “A” in the long run. But if this year doesn’t go well? No harm done. You just let Porziņģis walk and feel content in the knowledge that you essentially used the No. 22 pick to dump the salary of Terence Mann, which was probably negative anyway. Nice work by Atlanta, but the inherent risks present with Porziņģis limit their grade to a “B.”

Brooklyn Nets: B-

The Nets are this offseason’s cap space dumping ground, and this deal sets the price. The are effectively paying $47 million over three years for the right to pick No. 22 on Wednesday. That’s how much Mann is owed, but Mann isn’t totally dead salary. He’s been a playoff rotation player in the past, and he’s still at least usable in regular-season bench units. He’s making mid-level money now. You’d rather now pay an $8 million player $16 million, but hey, it never hurts to have an $8 million player.

The questions here for Brooklyn lie in their now preposterously large stash of 2025 draft picks. They are currently slated to pick six times on Wednesday and Thursday, and none of them are throwaway picks at the end of the second round. They currently hold the No. 8, 19, 22, 26, 27 and 36 picks in the draft. No team is ever going to roster six rookies in a league with 15 full-time spots. They are going to have to consolidate in some way.

The obvious goal here is to pile enough pick-value to jump from No. 8 up to No. 3 or No. 4, where the Nets would presumably select Ace Bailey. The catch here is that the NBA is not the NFL. Quantity doesn’t mean much in trades of that stature. It’s all about quality. Realistically, Brooklyn’s cleanest path to moving up was probably always to use its cap space as a weapon. After all, Boston effectively just chose cap flexibility over the No. 22 overall pick. Many other teams would too now. So a move up is possible. It just doesn’t seem likely that No. 22 was the difference-maker in that respect.

Ideally, the Nets would have gotten a pick in the future in this deal. That way, they wouldn’t have deepened their roster crunch with another 2025-26 rookie. The value of the contract they’re taking on for the pick they landed is reasonable, but with only a day left before the draft, this trade raises more questions than it answers.