Portland Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons. Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Report: Celtics in talks to offload recently acquired player's expiring deal

By Sai Mohan | Last updated Jul 10, 2025 12:53 PM ET

The Boston Celtics' busy offseason has seen the 18-time NBA champions trade Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, acquire Anfernee Simons and Georges Niang and draft Real Madrid prospect Hugo Gonzalez.

They're not quite done.

According to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, the Celtics are actively in trade talks with teams to offload Simons' $27.7M expiring contract.

"I have talked to other teams who have said they are actively trying to trade Anfernee Simons," Windhorst told Hoop Collective Podcast, via RealGM. "Whether they can or not is another [thing]."

Earlier in the week, The Ringer's Bill Simmons, who has close ties with the Celtics, highlighted how the franchise never held an introductory news conference for the former Blazers guard, a customary practice in the NBA. Further to Simmons' point, the Magic hosted a presser to welcome Desmond Bane, as did the Lakers to introduce Deandre Ayton.

Weird that the Celtics never did a press conference welcoming Anfernee Simons to the team. pic.twitter.com/WXVvgNYAXr
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) July 7, 2025

When Boston traded Holiday and Porzingis, it was widely expected that the franchise would endure a gap year in 2025-26, since star player Jayson Tatum (Achilles) is likely to miss most of the season.

Celtics front-office head Brad Stevens threw cold water on that notion earlier this week, stressing that the term "rebuild" does not exist in the vocabulary of the C's, a proud franchise that plays to win.

"My expectations are always the same — compete like hell to win the next game," he said, via ESPN. "That's [rebuild] not going to be part of the lexicon in our building, and that's the way we're going to focus moving forward."

Stevens confirmed that "basketball penalties associated" with the NBA's luxury tax second apron was the reason the franchise traded Porzingis and Holiday, two proven vets with championship pedigree.

While the pair of trades helped the C's evade the second apron, they remain approximately $20M over the luxury tax entering next season. Boston reportedly wishes to shed more salary to get under the first apron — trading Simons will help it get there. However, the franchise has prioritized retaining sharpshooter Sam Hauser and his budget-friendly, four-year, $45M contract, per multiple insiders.

Besides Hauser, the Celtics are also expected to hold onto Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard, while making others available.

Sai Mohan

A veteran sportswriter based in Portugal, Sai covers the NBA for Yardbarker and a few local news outlets. He had the honor of covering sporting events across four different continents as a newspaper reporter. Some of his all-time favorite athletes include Mike Tyson, Larry Bird, Luís Figo, Ayrton Senna and Steffi Graf.

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