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The Celtics are shipping out another offseason pickup ahead of the NBA trade deadline.
Boston reached an agreement Thursday to trade reserve big man Chris Boucher to the Utah Jazz, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported. The terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.
Boucher sat out the Celtics’ final two games before Thursday’s 3 p.m. ET trade deadline for what the team called personal reasons, and he played sparingly in his lone half-season with Boston.
Signed in July to fortify an unproven Celtics frontcourt, the 33-year-old quickly fell out of head coach Joe Mazzulla’s rotation and never returned. Boucher’s garbage-time cameo against the Sacramento Kings last Wednesday was his first game appearance since Nov. 23. He appeared in just nine games for Boston, totaling 94 minutes, 21 points, 18 rebounds and seven blocked shots.
Earlier in the week, the Celtics agreed on a separate trade that will send guard Anfernee Simons to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for veteran center Nikola Vucevic. That trade, which also includes a swap of second-round draft picks, was finalized midday Thursday, the Celtics announced.
Simons, acquired in the offseason trade that sent Jrue Holiday to Portland, carved out a substantial role during his brief time with the Celtics, appearing in all 49 games as a high-impact sixth man.
Unless Utah sends back a player in the Boucher deal, the move will give Boston two open spots on its 15-man roster. The team must fill at least one of them within the next 14 days. It appears the Celtics filled one of them by signing two-way center Amari Williams to a two-year, $2.7 million deal, according to NBA insider Marc Stein. Williams, who was the 46th overall pick in last June’s draft, has impressed in 13 games (two starts) with Boston and showed his potential with a nine-point, six-rebound outing in a win over the Portland Trail Blazers last month.
It’s the second trade the Celtics and Jazz have made since Boston’s former assistant general manager, Austin Ainge, was hired last June to run Utah’s personnel department. The Celtics also traded forward Georges Niang to Ainge’s club before signing Boucher.
The Celtics also dealt wing Josh Minott to the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday, according to Charania. After starting nine straight games early in the season and getting steady minutes, Minott fell out of Mazzulla’s rotation in late December and has played in just five games since Christmas. An ankle injury sidelined Minott for 10 of those games.
Minott, who signed a two-year, $4.96 million deal with the Celtics this past offseason, averaged 5.8 points and 3.6 rebounds during his time with Boston.