The Celtics have built a habit that keeps paying off: find value late in the draft or on the margins, turn that player into a useful rotation piece, then lock him in before the price gets too high. It’s a pattern that has already shown up with Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser, and more recently with players like Ron Harper Jr., Neemias Queta, and Jordan Walsh.
Baylor Scheierman looks like the next name in that line.
Boston took Scheierman 30th overall in 2024, but as a rookie he barely got on the floor. Last season, though, he started to show real progress in his second year and made a case that he can be at least a reliable rotation player. That’s the kind of development the Celtics have repeatedly turned into a long-term roster win.
The team’s leverage is already built into the calendar. Boston will hold a fourth-year rookie option on Scheierman for 2027-28, which gives the front office room to maneuver when extension talks come around next summer.
If Scheierman keeps trending up, the Celtics could take the same route they’ve used with other young pieces: pick up the option for the following season and then move straight into extension talks, the way they did with Neemy and Walsh. There’s also another path if he keeps playing well enough.
Since Boston likely won’t be dealing with the tax pressure it faces now, the team could decline the option and open an extension immediately. That would cost more for 2027-28, but if Scheierman has earned that kind of deal, it would be a problem worth having.
That’s the larger Celtics blueprint in action. The goal is simple: keep as much talent as possible for as long as possible on contracts that make sense. Boston has done that well, and when a deal stops looking right, the front office has shown it’s willing to move on early and keep the roster moving.
For now, the Celtics have flexibility everywhere they look, and that only improves if they stay under the luxury tax for a second straight year and avoid the repeater tax. In today’s NBA, staying ahead means constantly planning for what’s next, even when that means making hard calls down the road. Sometimes that sort of planning comes with a steep price, like trading Jaylen Brown, but that’s the kind of work Brad Stevens and the front office are doing.
In Other News...
Former Celtic Behind Derrick White Move Is Back In Focus
Josh Richardsons NBA journey has always had a bit of a connectors feel to it, moving through Miami, San Antonio, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Dallas and Boston before the league chapter closed. For Celtics fans, his stop in Boston still matters because he was part of the roster churn that set up one of the franchises most important deadline moves, and his brief stint gave the team a useful two-way wing before the front office reshuffled the deck.
Richardsons place in that story has come back into focus because the move he helped make possible remains one of the clearest turning points of the recent era. He finished with 554 games, 11.5 points per game, 3.0 rebounds and 2.6 assists, a solid career by any measure, but in Boston his name will always be tied to the trade that brought Derrick White into the fold and helped change the Celtics trajectory. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Quietly Avoided The Wing Chaos Trapping The Rest Of The NBA
While much of the NBA has spent the summer wrestling with restricted free agents and the awkward business of paying young wings before they hit the market, Boston has been able to sit a step back from the chaos. The Celtics got ahead of the problem by extending players early and building out a deep, versatile wing group on manageable contracts, giving them the kind of roster flexibility a lot of teams are still trying to buy at a premium.
Jordan Walsh, Baylor Scheierman, Sam Hauser, Ron Harper Jr. and Hugo Gonzalez make up that room, and the price tag is strikingly modest for a team trying to stay competitive at the top of the East. Boston is paying roughly $22 million combined for the group this season, with nearly half of that tied to Hauser, and the bigger challenge may be finding enough minutes to keep everyone involved once the games start for real. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Pick Is Already Taking An Unexpected Turn Away From Boston
Max Shulgas first year in Boston never really got a chance to settle into a clean long-term plan. The Celtics 2025 second-round pick spent most of his rookie season with the Maine Celtics in the G League, where he showed more of the playmaking and scoring touch that made him worth tracking, while also getting a brief look in 11 NBA games with Boston. Even after that, the organizations stance on his future was already shifting, with the team declining his player option for the 2026-27 season.
Shulga then kept moving, briefly landing a Summer League deal with the Golden State Warriors before taking the next step overseas. For the Celtics, it is another reminder that second-round picks can take a winding route, and not every prospect stays in the same development lane for long. What had looked like a patient, two-way progression through Bostons system is now turning into something very different, with his next chapter set away from the NBA path the Celtics had been building around. [Read more 🡒]