Ex-Celtic Antoine Walker thinks Boston needs a big man

Ex-Boston Celtic forward Antoine Walker has some thoughts on what sort of move his former team ought to look to make to maximise their postseason success.

Former Boston Celtic forward Antoine Walker has some thoughts on what Boston should be looking for ahead of the 2020 NBA trade deadline.

Unlike many of his peers, he steers clear of specific players he’d like the celtics to target, but in a recent appearance on WEEI radio show Dale & Keefe, the ex-Celtic related he thought his former team could use a bit of an upgrade in terms of size.

Much attention has been focused on supplementing Boston’s wing depth in case of a postseason injury to a starter.

There’s also been several high-profile big man trade suggestions to address the Celtics lack of heft in the frontcourt, but Walker stayed away from naming names, instead focusing on what he felt was Boston’s biggest roster problem.

“[The Celtics] lack size,” he began (courtesy of WEEI’s Nick Friar). “I didn’t think they would really miss him [at first], but I think they really miss Al Horford.”

“A guy who can stretch the floor, who can pay the four and the five … Enes Kanter, I think, has been serviceable, he’s been good,” the Kentucky product added.

“But if they can make a move for a big, maybe a rebounder, [they should] because they have enough scoring,” concluded Walker. In a sense, he’s not wrong. Boston may even have too much scoring, at least at the starter level, to guarantee star happiness if things were to go south in terms of morale.

However, as former Memphis Grizzlies GM John Hollinger has noted, the drop-off after the starters for consistent scoring is a gulf talentwise, and could spell trouble in the playoffs. Even still, his point about the Celtics’ need for a counter to some of the East’s more talented bigs is not wrong.

The question is how to counter such players?

“They’re going to have to be able to match up with a Joel Embiid,” noted Walker. “Milwaukee is pretty big inside. So if they can make a move, I don’t know who that right guy is. You don’t want to give up all of your key assets, or a big key asset that you have.”

And therein is the difficulty, and perhaps a reason why the former Celtic didn’t offer up any candidates. Boston can absolutely use a player able to better match up against such bigs — but then so could most of the teams in the league.

Adding the sort of frontcourt player stout enough to at least slow the Embiids and Giannises of the league isn’t out of the question, but such talent comes at a premium, and might require packaging players that would hurt Boston’s game in other ways as well as those premium draft assets they’d rather keep.

It’s quite possible the conundrum Walker struck on forces the Celtics to make a small move to add scoring to the end of the bench. They could very possibly make no moves at all, given the potential high cost of any player able to make an impact.

We’ll know for sure one way or another by the end of next week when the Feb. 6 deadline arrives.

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