This is the Wrong Time for the Boston Celtics to Sign Bradley Beal

A new rumor is circulating, according to Jake Fischer, that the Boston Celtics are a potential landing spot for free agent Bradley Beal.

“I do think there’s some Miami interest there,” he said on a Bleacher Report live stream. “I would not rule out Boston for Beal because of the connection with Jayson Tatum.”

The phrasing of this seems more speculative than reporting, but no matter what it is, it should not happen.

The reason why there's any connection to the Celtics is because of Jayson Tatum, one of Beal’s best friends. The Celtics have an open spot and Beal and Tatum have spoken in the past about how great it would be to play together. On the surface, it seems like it would be a cool little favor to Tatum.

But there are a few reasons that this kind of move should be avoided. First, we’re fresh off the Jaylen Brown saga where Tatum was criticized for not “going to bat” for Brown in an effort to keep him on the team. When Brad Stevens was asked how much influence Tatum had on the trade, Stevens simply said “none.”

And that's how it should be. The NBA has earned a reputation of superstar players putting their fingerprints all over front office moves because one transformational player can deliver a championship. They have been appeased over time, but that time is changing, at least to some degree.

Like the first tropical storm-force winds of a category-5 hurricane, teams like Boston, New York, and Oklahoma City have experienced varying degrees of destruction, but it’s clear it’s only the beginning. Giving in to the influence of stars puts teams at risk of having to blow up their rosters even sooner than they’d hoped, so it’s best to resist that influence if a team can.

Boston is in a position where everyone is mostly left to do the jobs for which they were hired. It's not like little favors can’t be done here and there, but nothing that rises to the level of signing and trading players because a star has demanded it. Considering the very public stance that Tatum kept his hands off the Brown situation, allowing him to influence the front office and bring Beal in would rip open a very fresh wound that hasn’t even really had time to heal.

Beal has been a free agent all summer long, and has been available to sign throughout this whole process. If Boston really wanted him, he’d be on the team by now instead of Mike Conley. There hasn’t been any indication that Tatum has pushed for Beal to join the team, but if he does and the team acquiesces, it will turn into a PR nightmare. You can bet we’ll get a full week of “Tatum wouldn’t go to bat for Brown but he would for Beal?” topics on sports talk radio.

And while front offices shouldn’t be afraid of blowback from moves they believe in, it’s clear they could have had Beal by now if they wanted, so the criticism would be justified. Signing Beal now, after all that's happened, would be a transparent capitulation.

They’d also be over the tax if they signed Beal, which would mean they would have to cut someone before the season ended. How would that player feel knowing he was getting axed because the best player wanted to play with his buddy?

And what if Beal doesn’t play much? Would Joe Mazzulla feel the pressure to start playing Beal? How would one of Tatum’s teammates feel about losing playing time to a lesser player just because he and Tatum grew up together in St. Louis?

There might not be anything to this rumor, but if there is, the Celtics should take a deep breath and steer clear. Nothing good can come out of signing Beal at this point. Not after trading Brown away and signing Conley as their veteran of choice. Beal isn’t the missing piece to a championship. He’s simply one of Tatum’s best friends, which is a nice story for them, but a bad idea for a signing right now.

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