NBA

Celtics welcomes new signing Kristaps Porzingis as he shares it was an ‘extremely easy’ decision to come to Boston

Antonio Kozlow Sports Editor

Updated30 Jun 2023

Once the Celtics were eliminated by the Miami Heat during the last Eastern Conference Finals, President of basketball operations Brad Stevens promised that changed would come to rebuild a roster that would finally return the Boston squad to the championship series. The first step is here, as the Massachusetts side has oficially welcomed new signing Kristaps Porzingis this Thursday.

According to the big man, he decided to wear the Celtics jersey mostly motivated by the faith they’ve shown in him so far.

“It’s the most exciting feeling that you can get,” he said about signing for his fourth club in the NBA. “Just the idea of that. It made it super easy. It made (the Celtics) my complete, favorite option.”

The club from Massachusetts traded for the 27-year-old from the Washington Wizards the night before last week’s NBA Draft, through a three-team deal that included transfering Marcus Smart to the Memphis Grizzlies.

If interested, you can check out the complete welcoming press conference in the video below:

Smart had been one of the players who’d been a part of the Celtics roster the longest, as the decision to let him go wasn’t an easy one. Coach Joe Mazzulla admitted what a tough choice it was, and shared that he spoke to his former player shortly after the trade was confirmed.

“I was able to talk to him, and I just told him that I love him and I appreciate who he is as a person,” the trainer expressed. “You’re never going to replace a guy like him.”

This is why Boston is placing their hopes and dreams in their new seven-foot-three foward, who was the fourth pick of the 2015 draft and is coming off from one of his strongest campaigns so far. The team intends for him to bring a fresher dynamic around club stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.

The Celtics will have him compete for a spot against fellow center Robert Williams, and constitute a team full of leading veterans which includes Al Horford, Malcolm Brogdon and Derrick White.

“The Unicorn” shared why moving to Boston was an easy decision for him and an exciting new step in his 402-game career

First nicknamed “The Unicorn” by Kevin Durant back in 2016, Porzingis shared how the Celtics’ recent success and thorough franchise history excited him the most about his arrival.

“The opportunity to play for a really good team already, and to be able to add to that and hopefully to help these guys make their lives even easier … made it extremely easy for me to make that decision,” he detailed.

Despite the fact that the team is entering luxury tax territory with the signing of the star center (who has exercised his $36 million player option next season before this trade), the Boston team aren’t done with trading this summer.

“We’re trying to win and everybody is very supportive of that from the top down,” President Stevens explained. “We’re going to try to put our best foot forward and do that. The required part is the right talent to build around it. We’re very fortunate to have a lot of talented players.

“We’ve got guys under contract here that are really good players. Building a team that fits around that in the best way we can is what we’re trying to do.”