Inside The Wizards

Former Wizards Star Dealt Again Amidst Celtics Fire Sale

The former Washington Wizards star's time with the Boston Celtics was successful, but comes to an end after just two seasons.
Henry Brown|
Apr 8, 2025; New York, New York, USA; Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis (8) reacts during the first half against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: John Jones-Imagn Images
Apr 8, 2025; New York, New York, USA; Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis (8) reacts during the first half against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: John Jones-Imagn Images | John Jones-Imagn Images

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The Boston Celtics' plans of dominating the remainder of the 2020s were suddenly put into question following Jayson Tatum's Achilles tendon tear in the middle of the playoffs.

Facing one of the league's most exorbitant payrolls while waiting for their franchise centerpiece to recover and return, they've made the tough decision to sell some of the high-level role players they spent big on en route to the 2024 title.

Jrue Holiday was the first domino to fall, sent back to the same team the Celtics first rescued him from in the Portland Trail Blazers in an attempt to duck the remainder of the 2x champion's hefty contract. Within a day after that trade, Kristaps Porziņģis similarly found the door.

His move has been telegraphed since the Celtics' season ended prematurely in the second round of the playoffs, when they blew games early in the series to set up Tatum's Game 4 elimination and an eventual six-game elimination. Porziņģis wasn't much help in the series, dealing with a mysterious illness that held him to under five points per game in a series in which he was pulled at halftime multiple times.

The former All-Star is set to join his fifth different NBA team in the Atlanta Hawks, having fully reached the end of the Porziņģis cycle. He can be excellent when he's healthy, peaking as the X-factor on one of the great teams in the history of the league and a deserving champion, but he's never riding high for long.

Before Porziņģis encountered some of the highest highs and lowest lows of his career in his two years in Boston, he found some rare consistency with the Washington Wizards. He revamped his career in the low-stakes environment, shaking off an ugly Dallas Mavericks chapter to shoot and defend his way back into stardom in advertising his services for contenders.

Now, he's hinging on journeyman status after four trades in a decade of service. He'll join Trae Young, Jalen Johnson and company on an up-and-coming Hawks that looks to take advantage of the wide-open Eastern Conference, giving Porziņģis a chance to get right back into action should he fully recover from whatever's been hampering him.

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Henry Brown
HENRY BROWN

Henry covers the Washington Wizards and Baltimore Ravens with prior experience as a sports reporter with The Baltimore Sun, the Capital Gazette and The Lead. A Bowie, MD native, he earned his Journalism degree at the University of Maryland.

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