Roster reset: Where the Boston Celtics stand after the Kemba Walker trade

Brad Stevens made it very clear that the Kemba Walker trade was first about money and then about setting the team up for a future move. 

"The first thing was it was really important to create a clear road ahead from the standpoint of financial flexibility," Stevens told the media yesterday. 

The Celtics did accomplish some of that goal. But there are still a lot of questions surrounding the move, what it actually saved the Celtics, and what their next steps could be. So here's a quick reset to show you where the Celtics stand right now.

THE SALARY CAP

Projected 2021-22 salary cap: $112 million
Projected 2021-22 tax line: $136.6 million
Projected 2021-22 hard cap: $142.6 million

GUARANTEED SALARIES

The Celtics are already over the projected cap line with their guaranteed salaries next season. However, that's not all that's used to calculate the salary cap. There other factors here, but this illustrates that even before we factor in the confusing cap minutia, Boston is already in a tight financial situation even without Kemba Walker. 

NON-GUARANTEED SALARIES

Take the $119,974,142 guaranteed and add the partial guarantees to Parker and Brown, which is money they'll get even if they're cut. That's an additional $1,023,369 for a guaranteed total of $123,134,951. If Parker is on the team past July 31, then his full salary becomes guaranteed. If Moses Brown is on past December 1, then his full $1.7 million is guaranteed.

WAIVED PLAYERS

The Celtics used the waive-and-stretch provision to cut Guerschon Yabusele and Demetrius Jackson. That mechanism spread out the cap hit over time, and this season is the last of those being on the books. Boston has $1,131,937 of "dead money" on the books, adding to its guaranteed total and bringing it to $124,266,888.

But wait, there's more!

CAP HOLDS 

Cap holds are a fake number here to prevent teams with a bunch of their own free agents from getting under the cap, signing other free agents, and then coming back and signing their own. That loophole was closed a while back, so now the league has a variety of calculations depending on the player, length of time in the league, and various other things that are way too confusing for you to care about. 

Here are the numbers:

The Celtics have $34.1 million in placeholders on their cap. So let's just backtrack for a moment. 

They have $124.2 million in guarantees and the cap is $112 million, so let's just round that down to a $8 million difference. They cannot trade Marcus Smart and Tristan Thompson (a combined $24 million) into some team's cap space for nothing and create $12 million in cap space because the cap holds prevent that. The league just makes a blanket assumption that all teams will re-sign all their free agents. 

How does a team get rid of cap holds?

• They actually re-sign the player. For example, if Boston gives Fournier a deal that starts at $17 million in year 1, then the big cap hold goes away and the $17 million goes into the guaranteed column.
• The player signs elsewhere. Then there's no reason to have a hold anymore. He's gone.
• The team renounces the rights to that player. They say "sorry, Luke Kornett and Semi Ojeleye, we're not bringing you back." Those holds then go away and those players become free agents. They can, though, still be re-signed by Boston, but then those guy would be treated like any free agent. There's no more ability to exceed the cap to sign them. The team would have to use one of its other tools 

A note about Fall and Waters: They've both had their two stints as two-way players. If Boston wants to keep them, they have to make them a qualifying offer to make them restricted free agents and sign them to guaranteed deals. Boston can refuse to make those offers, and those holds would go away. 

EXCEPTIONS ALSO COUNT AS CAP HOLDS

I won't list them all here, but before you get crazy about guys being renounced and all of that, the Celtics have about $41 million in exception that also count against the cap. They don't count in tax calculations or anything, but all of the TPE's and MLE's, and BAE's are all part of this calculation. When the NBA sees you have a method for acquiring a player, it assumes you will use it. The team has to renounce these things to actually get under the cap, but by doing so, they lose these tools. 

All of this is to say that right now, Boston is not getting under the cap, no matter how you slice it, without extreme measures. It's always been about the tax line. So where does Boston stand there? 

THE TAX AND HARD CAP

The projected tax line is $136.6 million. The Celtics have a guaranteed total of $124,266,888 at the moment and that doesn't count Fournier's salary. The hard cap of approximately $142.6 million is looming large here. 

Remember, the team is hard capped at that number if...

• They use the bi-annual exception
• They use the full mid-level exception
• They receive a player via sign-and-trade

If a team is hard capped, they cannot do anything for any reason that brings them over that line. If they're at the hard cap line, they can't sign a minimum-salary buyout guy or get a disabled player exception should someone suffer a major injury. That's an absolute spending limit. 

If Boston re-signs Fournier starting at his current rate of $17,500,000 and then adds a $5.9 million player with the taxpayer MLE (this is the one that doesn't hard cap them) and does nothing else to shed salary, their guaranteed total will be about $146.4 million. So just with those two moves, Boston is over the hard cap line. They can operate there if they want and haven't used any of the other hard cap triggers. But it limits the options many people have been asking about. 

SHEDDING SALARY

If Boston REALLY wants to use that full mid-level exception or acquire someone in a sign-and-trade after re-signing Fournier, they'll have to shed salary. This is partly why moving Tristan Thompson makes sense. The other obvious reason is that Boston has four centers and that's not necessary, so all told, finding a taker for Thompson feels like a strong possibility. 

They can attach a second-round pick to move him into cap space and clear the full $9.7 million, which gives the Celtics some breathing room. They can move Edwards or Grant Williams in similar fashion to clear some more. 

THEY COULD LET FOURNIER WALK

Let's say the New York Knicks swoop in and offer Fournier a big one-year deal, or another team says they want Fournier and Boston works out a sign-and-trade to that team. Fournier is off the books and Boston's guaranteed salaries now total $124.2 million. 

Does that work for a sign-and-trade? 

Still probably not. In that scenario, there are 10 guaranteed players making $124.2 million but 15 roster spots. If the Celtics hard cap themselves, they will be severely limited in who they could even pursue in a sign-and-trade. There would be $22.4 million in room before hitting the hard-cap line but if they, to use a popular example, manage to get Lonzo Ball for $20 million, Then there's only $2.4 million left and 11 spots filled. 

This brings us back to flipping Thompson for nothing to alleviate some of this. Trading Thompson for a TPE would give Boston about $14 million in breathing room, which would really be more like $13 million because we can assume Moses Brown gets guaranteed under this scenario. 

So a hard cap scenario with a $20 million player, minus Thompson, plus Brown puts Boston at 12 players and $11 million of room before being hard-capped. They can use the taxpayer MLE and that would eat up about $6 million of that, leaving about $5 million of room left and 13 filled spots. 

It's do-able, but it's still not ideal because that space goes quickly and it handcuffs the Celtics if they're doing some kind of unbalanced trade and trying to match salaries. 

Boston could send Thompson away for nothing and then use their full MLE again. No Fournier, minus Thompson, plus Brown, plus full MLE guy basically puts Boston at ~$125 million and ~$21.5 million of room before the hard cap with 11 players under contract. They could use some TPE's to try to fill out the roster or some other exceptions, but that still doesn't leave a ton of wiggle room. 

They could bring a player back for Thompson, which would cut into that space but also add a player to fill out the roster. 

TL;DR

This is all confusing stuff. The NBA's CBA is a convoluted mess of language that has closed stacks of loopholes. The bottom line is this: 

By trading Kemba Walker, the Celtics created some flexibility, but they're still likely to be a tax paying team. The hard cap looms so anything that triggers that has to come with subsequent salary-clearing moves to create breathing room. It's much more likely that they don't trigger that. 

By staying away from the hard cap, Boston can use some of its other tools (like the remaining $11 million of the Gordon Hayward TPE) to fill holes on the roster, but even then it's likely the team will need to clear more salary to bring the tax bill down. 

As you've probably heard here and other places, Stevens isn't close to being done this offseason. He has a lot of work to do. 

(Salary numbers via Basketball Insiders)