As the Boston Celtics moved to a new era, they decided who would become the player to acquire Jrue Holiday’s position on the team.
The Boston Celtics face new challenges heading into the 2025-26 NBA season. He won’t be a championship contender next year as Jason Tatum’s brutal Achilles injury controls him.
Faced with a massive amount of luxury tax, the Celtics have decided to cut their pay. Before the draft, the Celtics traded Jrue Holiday for Anfernee Simons.
But they didn’t stop there. His $30 million contract is considered too many, so the Celtics traded Christaps Porzingis for the Hawks.
There were new changes to their roster, so these starters had to be replaced. And, after all, the Celtics are looking for their next starting point guard in-house.
According to Grant Afseth of the Fastbreak Journal, Boston Celtics is trying to promote Payton Pritchard into the role of starting point guard.
They feel that Pritchard has acquired a role through years of hard work. And understanding their system makes him the right choice over Anfernee Simons.
“The Boston Celtics look poised to promote Payton Pritchard to the starting lineup, using Anfernee Simons as a high-scoring option from the bench for the 2025-26 season and if he remains on the roster, he looks poised to promote Payton Pritchard to the starting lineup.
“The Celtics believe Pritchard has won his first job through years of steady development.
“He’s become an option to open the game with point guard as he’s well-versed in the system and ready to handle the expanded responsibility.”
As long as Anfernee Simons goes, the Boston Celtics are hugging him now. Ahsses reported that he did not like the offers the Celtics had made for him, but would try to trade him next season.
“While his ability to score has been proven… Boston entered an offseason focused on payroll dropouts and has struggled to find a trading partner for Simons’ contract since signing.
“Anyway, he remains a trade candidate he will monitor when he signs a contract.”
Anfernee Simons is the final year of his contract and will earn $27.6 million this season. It’s hard to see a team that’s willing to take on that salary anytime.
The Celtics need to find a team that can take Simons’ salary and doesn’t need to aggregate the same amount in return.
Keep an eye on Simmons’ situation this season. It’s quite possible that he won’t finish the season with the Celtics.