3-Team Trade Idea to Complete Boston Celtics' Offseason Salary Dump

It's been a summer of savings for the Boston Celtics, who've shed hundreds of millions of dollars in salary and luxury tax payments for the 2025-26 season.

And considering the fact that Jayson Tatum is likely to miss most (if not all) of the campaign, it's no surprise Boston may not be done overhauling, even if it means moving someone who just arrived.

"The Celtics, to my understanding, are going to continue to look for salary-shedding opportunities," NBA insider Jake Fischer said in a live stream on Bleacher Report. "And they are going to continue to listen to incoming trade calls for Anfernee Simons."

Simons, a 26-year-old guard on an expiring contract, may not make a ton of sense for the gap-year Celtics, but the volume and efficiency he can bring as a three-point shooter could help a team in need of boosts in those categories.

And we've come up with a three-team deal that sends him to one of those organizations, while also cutting Boston's payroll even further.

The Deal

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Before we get into why each team should consider this, as always, we'll look at the entire framework of the deal in one frame:

Boston Celtics Receive: Terance Mann, Ochai Agbaji and a 2030 second-round pick from Toronto

Boston Celtics Lose: Anfernee Simons and a 2031 second-round pick

Toronto Raptors Receive: Anfernee Simons

Toronto Raptors Lose: R.J. Barrett and a 2030 second-round pick

Brooklyn Nets Receive: R.J. Barrett and a 2031 second-round pick from Boston

Brooklyn Nets Lose: Terance Mann

Feel free to quibble over the number of picks involved. The major players are what's most important. And, as promised, an explanation for why everyone should be interested can be found below.

Boston Keeps Saving

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Boston Celtics Receive: Terance Mann, Ochai Agbaji and a 2030 second-round pick from Toronto

Boston Celtics Lose: Anfernee Simons and a 2031 second-round pick

As previously mentioned, this deal is primarily about cutting costs for Boston.

Letting Al Horford walk and trading Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis helped the Celtics get under the dreaded second apron, but there's still some work to do to dodge the first or duck the luxury tax entirely.

And again, for a team whose best player will be spending the year rehabbing a ruptured Achilles, avoiding the penalties that come with hefty payrolls makes a lot of sense. If Boston can somehow reset their "repeater tax" by getting their roster under the $187.9 million luxury tax line this season, building in the future could be far less painful (and expensive).

This move doesn't quite achieve that ultimate goal, but it would bring the Celtics below the first-apron line, while also giving them a flyer on a young(ish) wing in 25-year-old Ochai Agbaji and another potential trade chip in Terance Mann.

The latter could be seen as a relatively inexpensive, plug-and-play effort guy for a contender, and his $15.5 million salary in 2025-26 is movable.

Boston is also giving up a second-rounder to the team taking the biggest financial hit in this trade, just to sort of grease the wheels, but it's getting one back for sending the best individual player (or at least the best offensive player) to the Toronto Raptors.

Toronto Declutters and Adds Shooting

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Toronto Raptors Receive: Anfernee Simons

Toronto Raptors Lose: R.J. Barrett and a 2030 second-round pick

When trying to figure out who might have some interest in Simons, it makes sense to check out the three-point leaderboards.

And last season, Toronto was 29th in threes per game and 23rd in three-point percentage. That makes them an interesting landing spot for a guard who's averaged 2.9 threes and shot 38.6 percent from deep over the last five seasons.

The problem with a straight-up trade between the Raptors and Celtics, because both are currently over the first apron, is that neither can take back more salary than they're sending. That's why a third team is necessary, but we'll get more into that later.

For now, we'll focus on why Toronto would be willing to lose both R.J. Barrett and a future second-round pick for Simons.

Beyond the shooting punch, Simons should simply be a better all-around fit than Barrett on a team that already has Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram.

You might be able to survive starting two combo forwards who need the ball in their hands and don't command a ton of attention from the three-point line, but I'm not sure you can deploy three such players in heavy doses.

Simons' shooting would make playing Barnes and Ingram together more palatable, too. It'll be tougher for defenses to pack the paint against Barnes' drives and Ingram's forays into the mid-range if Simons is pulling bodies out beyond the three-point line.

Brooklyn Facilitates the Deal

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Brooklyn Nets Receive: R.J. Barrett and a 2031 second-round pick from Boston

Brooklyn Nets Lose: Terance Mann

Again, Boston and Toronto would likely need a third team to facilitate a Simons move, and the Brooklyn Nets have the flexibility to do that.

Of course, Nets fans may balk at the idea of taking on a combo forward making almost twice as much as Terance Mann, but Barrett's deal only lasts for one season beyond this one. And it should be movable between now and the 2027 trade deadline.

There's a chance Brooklyn could extract more value out of this deal by finding another taker for Barrett later.

But even if it doesn't, this framework gives the Nets a second-round pick for their troubles. In a vacuum, even with his lack of consistent outside shooting, Barrett is clearly a higher-impact player than Mann. And his abilities aren't nearly as duplicative with Michael Porter Jr. as they are with Barnes and Ingram.

Yes, Barrett could take some developmental minutes and opportunities from Brooklyn's incoming bevy of young playmakers (including Egor Demin, Nolan Traore and Ben Saraf), but he's probably not good enough to ruin any inkling the team has toward tanking for another lottery pick in 2026.