Karalis: How do the Boston Celtics build out their bench?

There is one recurring thought that pops into my head when I try to break down what faces Brad Stevens as he starts his new job as President of Basketball Operations: My God he has so much work to do. 

There are questions all across the roster. What does he do with Kemba Walker? What’s Marcus Smart’s future? Does he try to lock up Robert Williams now? Do they bring back Evan Fournier? 

The answers to all of those questions will shape how Stevens builds out a bench for his new head coach. For example, Fournier could be back as a starter, as a sixth man, or gone altogether. Right now we just don’t know. 

We can make some assumptions, though, and just try to work through the Celtics options, and, maybe more importantly, what’s not available.

I’ve written this before but I have to repeat myself so the message gets through: The Boston Celtics will not receive a player via sign-and-trade because it will hard cap them. Their payroll is too high for that. It’s even possible that, depending on the timing of the moves, that the payroll would be high enough that a suggested sign-and-trade would not even be allowed by the league. 

They also cannot use their full mid-level exception (approximately $9.5 million) for the same reason. They will not hard cap themselves. 

Here’s what they do have: 

The taxpayer mid-level exception: Approximately $5.9 million to spend on a free agent. It can be split up, but contracts cannot run more than three years and the raises are limited to 5%. 

The bi-annual exception: Approximately $3.7 million to spend on a free agent. It can’t be combined with anything else to increase its value. This can be used for two-year contracts and raises are limited to 5%. Teams can only use this every other year. 

Remainder of the Gordon Hayward traded player exception: $11,050,000. It can be used to trade for a player or players making up to that amount. 

Daniel Theis TPE: $5,000,000

Enes Kanter TPE: $4,767,000

Jeff Teague TPE: $1,620,564

Vincent Poirier TPE: $343,873

No exceptions can be combined to increase their value, including TPEs. They can’t mash the Theis, Kanter, Teague, and Poirier TPE’s together to make an $11.6 million TPE. That’s not allowed. They also can’t use them with a player to match salaries. Hayward’s $11 million TPE plus Tristan Thompson doesn’t mean they can bring back a $20 million player. TPE’s stand alone on their own. 

The Celtics can also sign players to minimum contracts regardless of the situation, with the lone exception being if they were hard-capped. Hard-capped teams can’t go over that line no matter what. 

Obviously they can make player-for-player trades. The only limitations there are whether the salaries match properly and each team has the roster spots to bring in the players if there’s a 2-for-1 or 3-for-2 kind of deal.

Those are the tools available to Stevens. Now let’s look at this roster. 

Let’s keep Smart for now. I think he sticks around, so we can pencil in Smart, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Robert Williams as starters. 

There’s no guarantee Thompson stays, but also trading him isn’t the biggest priority at the moment, so let’s keep him for now. 

Aaron Nesmith, Romeo Langford, Grant Williams, and Payton Pritchard are sticking around unless they get thrown into a bigger trade. 

That’s nine players. The 16th overall pick will be a tenth, leaving five empty spots. 

Unless team ownership is just convinced to pay a hefty tax bill, I can’t see how the team keeps Kemba Walker. I still think he is good and his leaving is not a guarantee. I think a new coach can tell Walker he’s coming off the bench and it can work out in Boston’s favor, but the team is going to be expensive and, as I’ve written before, there is little appetite for shelling out cash if they aren’t convinced they can be contenders. I’m assuming Kemba is out. 

How he leaves determines how those five spots are filled. Does a deal to the Clippers for spare parts materialize, or does he move into someone’s cap space to create a monster TPE (I wonder what the record is for most TPE’s held by a single team. Boston could challenge that)?

This suggestion of Walker for Patrick Beverley, Luke Kennard, and Yogi Ferrell is intriguing and viable.

In this scenario, the Celtics keep Kennard and Ferrell and that fills two roles. If there’s a way to flip Beverley for another useful player, that’d be an added bonus. 

If money is an issue for the Celtics, then taking back players for Walker decreases the likelihood of Fournier coming back. He can sign somewhere outright or Boston could try to pull the same TPE trick with him in a sign-and-trade. 

If money isn’t as much of an issue, and Stevens can convince the team that paying the tax is inevitable and a two-year deal for Fournier works for both sides, he can fill a big role as the sixth man. 

So as you can see, there are a lot of “what ifs” going on here. This is a super-charged “choose your own adventure” book with choices to make on every page. 

If the Celtics do get players back for Walker, who they keep then plays into who they target in free agency and what tool they use. 

Scanning the league for potential trade targets that fit into the remaining Hayward TPE doesn’t yield much. One name that brings in some of the stretch-four size-with-shooting Boston needs is Juancho Hernangomez in Minnesota. He makes $7 million next season and has a non-guaranteed $7.5 million the year after. He’s coming off a disaster of a season where he played sparingly and shot poorly. 

However, he’s only 25 years old and he shot very well last season in limited time as a starter. His career 3-point percentage as a starter is 39.3% while it’s 32.3% as a sub. At $7 million and with a hole in the starting lineup, a one-season flyer on Hernangomez could be worth a shot. He can be a real defensive liability, so he’s probably not a long-term solution, but he can probably be had for almost nothing. Maybe they can take a look at Edwards and see if he can be the shooter he was supposed to be in Boston. 

Larry Nance, Jr. could fill a similar role. He has two more years on his deal at $10.7 million and $9.7 million. He was born in Akron and both he and the Cavs seem to enjoy their situation, so it might cost Boston a bit much in terms of draft capital to get him. He has value as a vet who wants to be in Cleveland, which is hard to find.

Still, he’d be able to defend on the wings and the Celtics could really use someone to take some of the defensive pressure off Tatum and Brown. 

The Celtics could turn to an old friend and see if Daniel Theis wants to take their taxpayer MLE to come back and slide back into his role, but that could take away minutes from Robert Williams, which no one wants.

As you can see, there’s no perfect solution out there. The available players in these price ranges are certainly flawed, and it’s a matter of which flaws Boston can live with in the short term while hoping to make bigger splashes later on players that more easily convince Wyc Grousbeck, et al. to open up their checkbooks a bit more.

Until then, I’ll be wondering if the Memphis Grizzlies will let Justise Winslow walk so he can finally come to Boston like Danny Ainge originally wanted. The Celtics are going to be shopping at the clearance racks at the outlet malls for a while. Brad Stevens is just trying to be like Marge Simpson and find himself a Chanel suit as he tries to build out his bench.