The Celtics’ biggest mistake at the 2026 NBA trade deadline

The Boston Celtics were on the run all their lives, like despite being without Jayson Tatum throughout the 2025-26 season to this point, they remain one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. At the time of this writing, the Celtics are 35-19, in second place in the conference.

Things are about to get even better for the Celtics; there has been nothing but positivity regarding Tatum’s progress in rehabbing from the ruptured Achilles that ended Boston’s title hopes in the second round of the 2025 NBA playoffs, and some are even theorizing that he could be back on the field for Boston already at the beginning of March.

Should Tatum become fully healthy in the postseason, then the Celtics will become a legitimate threat to win it all. That’s unlikely given that it hasn’t even been a year since Tatum went down with a gruesome injury, but he’s just such a good player that if he returns to form, then Boston immediately becomes a legitimate threat to make it out of the East.

Preparing for the playoffs, the Celtics made a blockbuster trade before the deadline. It’s not entirely clear, however, whether this would benefit Boston in the interim, although it was easy to see where they were coming from when they made this trade.

Nikola VucevicPlayoff prowess will be tested for the Celtics

for years, Nikola Vucevic is in the shopping block amid the Chicago Bulls’ decline from a 2022 playoff team to struggling in the playoffs for three straight seasons. Time passed rather quickly; Vucevic is already 35 years old, and the struggles he had defensively were only more pronounced as his athleticism declined more and more over the years.

That, however, did not stop the Celtics from doing their best to acquire Vucevic in a trade with the Bulls, Anfernee Simmons to the Windy City, along with the best of the Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans, New York Knicks and Portland Trail Blazers in the 2026 second round, in exchange for the Montenegrin big man.

The Celtics also received the Denver Nuggets’ 2027 second-round pick from the Bulls, so no one can blame Boston for making the trade for how little this cost them. Now, the second round selection trades should drop into the early 30s given how bad the Pelicans have been this season, but even then, that’s not a huge price to pay because they truly believe Vucevic was the frontcourt upgrade they needed to bring in.

The merits of bringing in Vucevic are clear. He’s a well-rounded, offense-oriented big man, and he’s a huge upgrade over their current five-man options, at least on the offensive end. He can pop up for threes (he’s shooting over 41 percent from deep in his few games with Boston so far), and he can punish mismatches with his soft interior touch.

The Celtics, despite being without Tatum, somehow have second best offensive rating in the alliance, and the addition of Vucevic would further boost this explosive attack of theirs, which rarely turns the ball over and often creates a lot of shot attempts from outside the arc.

Vucevic is a perennial double-double threat who became somewhat underrated during his time playing for a mediocre Bulls team. And it’s not like the Celtics are committed to him for the long haul. He is in the last year of his contract making the total of $21.5 million, and the Celtics can simply cut ties with him if things don’t work out.

The Celtics moved Vucevic off the bench to start his career in Bantown, and it looks like that will be his role moving forward. Some of their top fives in heavy minutes have Cueto at the five (their Cueto-Brown-Derrick White-Peyton Pritchard-Sam Hauser lineup has incredible net rating of +17.2 in 186 minutes), and there’s no point messing with what works.

But trading away Simmons forced the Celtics to come off the bench to try and balance Pritchard. Simmons has allowed the Celtics to be assured of a staggering amount of minutes from their guards, but head coach Joe Mazzula needs to be more aggressive in making sure one of Pritchard and White is on the court the entire time Simmons is gone.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But the Celtics knew this was going to be an off year anyway, so maybe trying to fix what wasn’t broken wouldn’t be for the betterment of the team.

And there is also the question of Vucevic encountering some problems in the match in the postseason. He struggles when it comes to defending in space, and will be put to the test in the playoffs when every team decides to force him to defend every action.

Simmons would be in a similar predicament, so the Celtics decided to move on with a potential defensive liability who at least had size. That’s why trading Simmons for Vucevic is so complicated, because a case should have been made for the Celtics to either stick with Simmons or throw the dice on Vucevic.

This is it not a mistake per se for the Celtics. But among the moves they made, this was the one that drew the most criticism. There’s also the question of having to re-sign Vucevic next season, though given that he’ll be 36 next season, that shouldn’t cause Boston to break the bank anyway.

Only time will tell if the Celtics’ decision to select Vucevic over Simmons was the right one. It’s hard to doubt the Celtics front office at this point as they have been masterful in their handling of the delicate cap situation over the summer. They have also drawn well in recent years.

This could easily go the way of the Celtics, and to that end, the few hundred words written in this space will have to be served on a plate for the author to eat.