Celtics have reportedly given Josh Richardson a one-year extension, possibly intending to trade him

With the draft, free agency and Summer League all over, and training camp still on the way in a few weeks, this is the only quiet part of the NBA calendar. Even during this condensed offseason, there is still enough time for many players in the league to step away from the grind a bit.

However, not everyone is on vacation. On Monday, the Boston Celtics agreed to a one-year, $ 12 million extension with Josh Richardson, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. The Celtics had already acquired Richardson earlier this offseason in a trade with the Dallas Mavericks.

Richardson, 27, has just had a disappointing season with the Mavericks, in which he averaged 12.1 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game, but only shot 42, 7% from the field and 33% from the 3-point field. In the final games of the Mavericks’ first-round playoffs against the Los Angeles Clippers, he was largely out of the rotation.

In theory, Richardson is a versatile defensive end who can help on offense without needing to have the ball in hand all the time. In practice, however, he hasn’t lived up to those ideals, at least not since his 2019 campaign with the Miami Heat. From there, he bounced back between the Philadelphia 76ers, Mavericks and now Celtics, his numbers and impact dwindling with every stop.

This isn’t an encouraging trend, but Richardson has previously worked with new head coach Ime Udoka in Philadelphia and coming for a year-long audition with a Celtics team where he is looking to reinvent himself, the fit made sense. . Giving him extra time before he’s even played a game with the team, however, doesn’t. At least not in terms of typical team-building rules.

But given the Celtics’ clear desire to add a third star to play alongside Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and, in particular, all the rumors circulating around Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal, it seems likely that they added this extension to Richardson’s deal with the intention of trading it.

In a scenario where the Celtics want to trade for Beal or someone else, and they have to hit a large number to match wages, Richardson at around $ 12 million could help them get there without including Marcus Smart or Robert Williams. . We’ll see how it works, but it’s hard to imagine the Celtics would burn so much of their remaining 2022 ceiling space so soon unless they had some corresponding moves up their sleeve.