The Boston Celtics team that won the NBA championship just two seasons ago is now long gone. Thanks to the “second apron” payroll threshold in the league’s collective bargaining agreement, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens has been forced to dismantle the powerhouse team that remained largely intact through the 2024-2025 season as well.
The second apron comes with crippling penalties that restrict player movement and draft picks, resulting in a team’s inability to sustain itself over the long term.
Celtics Forced to Dismantle Historic Lineup
The Celtics, in an effort to cut payroll to stay under the second apron, have been forced to trade center Kristaps Porzingis and guard Jrue Holiday. Free agent center Luke Kornet was allowed to depart as a free agent, and 39-year-old free agent power forward Al Horford has not signed anywhere yet.
But the Celtics have not made any attempt to retain him. Horford is expected to make a move to the Golden State Warriors.
But despite the gutting of the Celtics’ championship lineup â made worse by the absence for most, if not all, of next season of four-time All-NBA power forward Jayson Tatum with a torn Achilles tendon â some elite Celtics players remain.
Boston has big plans for one of them, according to a new report on Thursday.
Pritchard Sets 3-Point Record Off Bench
The Celtics’ 2020 first-round draft pick out of Oregon, 27-year-old Payton Pritchard, not only won the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year Award in 2024-2025 for his work coming off the Celtics’ bench, he set a record on March 16 when he hit his 219th three-point shot of the season off the bench.
That topped the previous record of 218 set by Wayne Ellington of the Miami Heat in the 2017-2018 campaign.
Pritchard finished the season with his new record of 246 three-pointers off the bench. He also hit nine in the three games he started for a total of 255.
Sixth Man No More For Award Winning Guard
Now, however â according to a report by Grant Afseth of Fast Break Journal â on the new-look Celtics of 2025-2026, Pritchard’s days as a “sixth man” will be a thing of the past.
According to the report, the Celtics “appear poised to elevate Payton Pritchard into the starting lineup while using Anfernee Simons as a high-scoring option off the bench for the 2025â26 season if he remains on the roster.”
Simons, a 6-foot-3, 181-pound guard who averaged 19.3 points per game last season for the Portland Trail Blazers, was acquired by Boston in the July 7 trade that sent Holiday to Portland.
The Celtics will owe Simons $27.7 million this season, in the final year of his four-year contract. That means Boston may yet trade him away for a cheaper option, in order to stay below the second apron.
Pritchard has two years remaining on his four-year, $30 million contract, and has $7.8 million in salary coming to him in the 2025-2026 season.
Pritchard Brings Back Memories of Earlier Small Guard
Either way, Pritchard is expected to join the Celtics’ starting backcourt alongside eight-year veteran star Derrick White, with four-time All-Star Jaylen Brown taking over the Celtics lead scoring role in Tatum’s absence.
At 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, Pritchard appears undersized for the role of starting point guard, but Barstool Sports Celtics writer Dan “Greenie” Greenberg saw a parallel in recent Celtics history.
“In 2014-15, essentially the last time the Celtics were in a ‘rebuild,’ they brought in an undersized point guard who immediately changed the entire trajectory of the franchise,” Greenberg wrote.
That undersized point guard was 5-foot-9-inch Isaiah Thomas, who went on to average 24.7 points per game in his three-year period with the Celtics, leading Boston to the playoffs in all three seasons â and to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016-2017.
The Celtics have been a playoff team every year since Thomas joined, getting to the Eastern Finals six times and the NBA Finals twice, winning the legendary franchise its 18th championship in 2024.
“Nearly 10 years later, it still never gets old,” Greenberg wrote.
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