The "What If ... " Game for Celtics fans, with ex-Celtic (now World Champion) Dennis Schröder
Boston signed him in 2021 on a sweetheart, one-year, $5.9M deal only to trade him midseason. Did they give up on the feisty playmaker/floor general too soon?
Team USA faltering (once again) during FIBA play, while disappointing, shouldn’t be all that surprising.
Their struggles serve as a reminder of how Team USA’s best players don’t show up until the Olympics, and the gap between international team’s top performers (many of whom are above-average NBA players) and the second-tier of talent the NBA sends to FIBA for Team USA, is disappearing before our very eyes.
For Boston Celtics fans, the gold medal-winning German team saw a pair of former Celtics - Dennis Schröder and Daniel Theis - play important roles as the German team won all eight games it played.
But it was Schröder who stood out above all others in the tournament which made him a no-brainer for the tournament’s MVP award.
But in watching him lead Team Germany, his play will certainly improve the Schröder narrative, but also serve as a reminder of what the Celtics gave up on a couple of years ago.
Prior to winning gold for Germany, Schröder was best known in NBA circles for betting on himself a couple of years ago by turning down an $84 million contract with the Lakers which Schröder alluded to in this Instagram post from 2021.
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He would eventually sign a one-year, $5.9 million deal with the Celtics that year. It was a salary cap steal in every sense of the word for Boston, and yet the Celtics still wound up trading him midway through the season to the Houston Rockets for a deal that netted them Daniel Theis.
The deal was not about making Boston a more talented team, but providing what they felt was added depth in the frontcourt at the expense of a more talented, more impactful player in Schröder.
Aside from fumbling the bag, Schröder, who this offseason signed a two-year, $26 million deal with Toronto, is exactly the kind of edgy, irritant of a playmaker the Celtics would love to have in the fold now.
Marcus Smart being traded to Memphis not only left a void defensively for Boston, but it also removed one of the game’s best agitators from the roster.
Boston has good players at just about every position.
But we’ve seen time and time again, talent can only take you so far if it’s not buffered with the right kind of role players.
And that is where things get kind of muddled when it comes to the brief time that Schröder was a Celtic.
From what we saw during his FIBA play, his on-the-court feistiness isn’t just limited to opponents.
There was a well-documented verbal tussle with Germany’s head coach Gordon Herbert.
It was the kind of moment that led many to believe it would be the precipice to their downfall.
Instead, it made both Team Germany and Schröder more determined to do what no German team had done before - become FIBA World Champions with an 83-77 win over Serbia in the gold medal game.
He showed the world that, when given an opportunity to lead, he’s more than capable of rising to the challenge on the largest of stages. He had that opportunity with Team Germany, and he’ll have a similar role this season with the Raptors.
As for Celtics fans, you have to wonder how that dogged determination would have played out had Boston not traded Schröder along with Enes Freedom and Bruno Fernado, to Houston for Theis.
It becomes yet another entry into the “What If … “ game that so many teams, so many fans, find themselves playing when something as significant as what Schröder did for Team Germany.