How does the draft lottery impact the Celtics salary cap and potential trades?

The final pieces of the Celtics puzzle were filled in on Tuesday night as the team now knows exactly what they have to work with from a financial and asset perspective for a crucial 2019 offseason. Here's an updated look at the pieces the Celtics now have at their disposal this offseason and how the now set picks could impact some wheelings and dealings in the weeks to come.

Guaranteed Salaries for 2019-20 season 

Gordon Hayward: $32.7 million
Marcus Smart: $12.6 million
Jayson Tatum: $7.8 million
Jaylen Brown: $6.5 million
Guerschon Yabusele: $3.1 million
Robert Williams: $1.9 million
Semi Ojeleye: $1.3 million
No. 14 pick: $3.45 million
No. 20 pick: $2.6 million
No. 22 pick: $2.38 million
No. 51 pick: (no cap hold)

Guaranteed money committed: $74.33 million to seven players and three draft slots
NBA Salary Cap Projection: $109 million
Luxury Tax Projection: $132 million

Note: Each draft slot number is at 120 percent (max) of potential salary, which is the standard amount teams sign first-round rookies for. 

Other Potential Salary Obligations

Player options (Decision must be made by June 29th)

Al Horford: $30.1 million
Kyrie Irving: $21.3 million
Aron Baynes: $5.45 million

Restricted Free Agents

Terry Rozier, Daniel Theis

Unrestricted Free Agents

Marcus Morris, Brad Wanamaker, Jonathan Gibson

What are the Celtics' options with their draft picks when it comes to trades?

The Celtics have two options when it comes to trading draft picks. The first is to agree to a trade on the night of the draft. In that scenario, the rights to a player can be traded and said player holds no salary matching value in a trade (since the player is unsigned). This is the most common sort of trade you will see on draft night with one team simply drafting who another team wants at their spot.

The other (rarer) way rookies can be traded upon being drafted is after they sign their rookie contract. In this instance, any team can trade a player 30 days after they sign a contract. In this version of a trade, a rookie's salary slot counts as salary in a deal and can be used to help make the money match up in a trade for a veteran player with a sizable salary.

What is a good example of this type of deal?

The most prominent example was in 2015 when the Cavs drafted Andrew Wiggins at No. 1. Days later, LeBron James agreed to a deal with the Cavs, which created a more win-now mindset for the franchise. More than thirty days after Wiggins signed his contract, he was dealt with Anthony Bennett and Thaddeus Young as part of a three-team trade in late August which ended up with Love landing in Cleveland. Wiggins' salary was used as part of the salary matching needed to help even things out with Love's big salary.

Could this type of trade come into play for the Celtics this summer? How would it work?

Absolutely. The Celtics don't have many mid-level salaries on their roster and the guys that do make that kind of money are pretty valuable (Tatum, Brown, Smart) and shouldn't be thrown into a deal strictly for salary matching purposes. That's where the Celtics three first-round picks could come into play. Those picks could help get a trade over the finish line, not just from an asset standpoint but from a salary matching standpoint.

The scenario would go something like this: The Celtics would agree to terms with Pelicans (or Team X) ahead of draft night in a deal for Anthony Davis or another star. As part of the deal, the Celtics would send a number of 2019 draft picks along. Normally, the Celtics would just make the day official on draft night but since the C's need some salary help they wait on that front. Instead, they take the players that Team X wants at each pick that's included in the deal. The Celtics then sign those players to their rookie contracts and at some point 30 days later, the trade is made official with those players involved (along with all the other pieces of the deal).

This hypothetical would allow Boston to include another $6-8 million in the salary structure of a deal without having to give up players on their current roster, potentially sparing some lower tier players like Semi Ojeleye or Robert Williams to be included simply for money reasons. Additionally, any trade for Davis can't become official anyway until June 30th (when Irving's current contract expires).

What are some other creative ways the Celtics could include salary in a trade? 

There are other options for the Celtics here beyond using these draft picks but the logistics get tougher. Sign-and-trades remain a possibility but the front office won't be able to get into the specifics on those until free agency begins (due to tampering rules). Any trade involving Davis is extremely likely to be agreed upon in principle by draft night (due to the picks being taken for the Pelicans) so relying on a sign-and-trade scenario for that agreement is a long shot.

The other possibility would be including someone who picks up their 2019-20 player option into the trade but that feels very unlikely as well. Horford and Baynes are both going to want assurances that they won't be dealt before opting into their current deals and while the Celtics probably won't make any promises for the full season with someone like Baynes, doing so just days later without his permission (he's unlikely to want to go rebuild somewhere) will be a non-starter unless some strings are attached (pricy extension, etc.).

All things considered, the best bet here is that the Celtics will be making picks for someone else on draft night if they do end up making a big splash. The timing of it all will be more essential than ever in allowing the C's the flexibility to keep a few pieces that they may have been forced to give up otherwise.