Bradley Beal’s future is one of the NBA’s hottest topics, with people flooding trade machines with bare minimum, mostly unrealistic deals that technically work, but won’t really wow the Washington Wizards.
The Boston Celtics will theoretically be in his mix of preferred teams should he ask for a trade; mostly because going to Boston would make the team very good and give Beal a chance to compete for a title, but also because he’d get to do it alongside one of his best friends, Jayson Tatum.
There is pressure mounting on Beal to make a decision before Thursday night's NBA Draft, so Washington can get in on the bonanza near the top of a strong class. While showing some obvious on-court frustrations at the beginning of last season, Beal has stayed true to his desire, so far, to stick with the Wizards.
According to a new piece by The Athletic’s Fred Katz, staying with Washington is as much about maintaining the power afforded to him as a franchise cornerstone as it is him hoping to build a winner and retire as one of the few remaining team-monogamous NBA players left. Katz reported, however, that Washington choosing someone other than Sam Cassell, Beal’s preferred candidate, as its new head coach (Wes Unseld, Jr., son of Washington legend Wes Unseld, got the job) left Beal wondering how much sway he actually holds.
So elsewhere, front office vultures sit in the treetops and wait to see if a new carcass will present itself for the picking. Boston is especially interested because they, too, are being eyed by the rest of the league, albeit from a distance. They have younger stars, so their interest in Beal is as much about keeping those guys proactively happy, years before their new contract extensions expire, as it is about adding a great player.
This is where it gets a little shaky for the Celtics. They don’t have the best trade offer right now if Beal acquiesces to the pressure and officially asks for a trade before the draft. Toronto could offer the No. 4 pick and Pascal Siakam to give Washington a win-now piece and a potential future star. Golden State can offer James Wiseman, along with the No. 7 and 14 selections if Washington wants to blow it up and start young.
Boston could probably trump those bids by offering Jaylen Brown, but that doesn’t make sense for them. That deal is a more of a lateral move, that would be seen simply as the appeasement of Tatum. They can do better.
Brad Stevens can hope Beal only wants to go to Boston and forces the Wizards into a position of weakness, in which case the Celtics can offer a lesser package centered around Marcus Smart and some combination of Romeo Langford, Aaron Nesmith and/or Grant Williams, plus three first-round picks and two pick swaps.
Of course, they could also hope that Beal says “I’ll give Unseld a shot and then if this all sucks this year, I’m out.” Frankly, it makes the most sense to do it that way. Yeah, he’s screwing the franchise a little bit on the trade market, because they’ll miss out on 2021 picks, but he’s also giving them and the coach a chance to keep him. Boston’s best hope there would be for Washington to fail.
That would bring us to two scenarios that get Beal to Boston: The one where he only wants to join Tatum and he forces the Wizards to take whatever Boston offers, or one where he declines his $37.2-million player option and becomes a free agent in the summer of 2022.
But is free agency really an option for the Celtics?
The bottom line is, it’s going to be tough.
Right now, the projected salary cap for the 2022-23 season is $115.7 million. The Celtics have two guaranteed salaries in 2022-23: Tatum’s $30,351,780, and Brown’s $27,187,500, for a total of $57,539,280
That leaves $58,160,720 of cap space. If Beal opts out and the Celtics give him the 10-year veteran max of 35% of the salary cap, his first year salary would be $40,495,000. That’s a difference of $17,665,720.
Let’s put a pin in that number. Boston needs to find its way to fill its roster with $17,665,720 of free money at this point to ensure enough cap space for Beal. At this point, there are three people on the team, including Beal in this scenario, and a minimum of nine spots to fill.
Let’s start with Al Horford. $14.5-million of his $26.5 million salary next season is guaranteed. The Celtics can’t just waive him because $14.5 million of dead money would eat into that $17.6-million. They would have to trade him for nothing into someone’s cap space.
Simply put: Horford cannot be on this team with Beal, and Boston can’t get it done simply by waiving him.
The Celtics have team options on five players, which must be decided in October:
Langford: $5,634,257
Nesmith: $3,804,360
G. Williams: $4,306,281
Payton Pritchard: $2,239,200
Carsen Edwards: $1,930,681
Let’s assume, for now, that all of these players are still on the team next summer. Boston has three wings in Beal, Tatum, and Brown, so they need guards and bigs. Let’s keep Pritchard and Nesmith for now. They make $6,043,560.
We’ve got $11,622,160 left, and five players on the roster. We’d better hope Moses Brown is ready, because he’s making $1,846,738 and we need someone cheap in the middle.
Why?
If Boston hasn’t extended Robert Williams, he becomes a restricted free agent with a $5,430,710 qualifying offer. If they make him that offer, his cap hold becomes $10,985,928. It’s impossible to keep him in this scenario and sign Beal, because the cap hold is too big.
If Moses Brown is ready, then the Celtics have $9,775,422 left for six players.
Oh, by the way, this is a good time to tell you that the NBA has what’s called a “minimum roster charge” for teams with fewer than 12 players on the roster. That amounts to the rookie minimum for every empty slot, because it rightly assumes that you have to fill every empty slot with somebody.
The rookie minimum for that season is $953,012, and six minimum roster charges equals $5,718,072.
We have to keep this in mind, because every player Boston signs from here on out adds that player’s salary to the books, but only eliminates one of the minimum roster charges.
This assumes that Boston has renounced all of its other holds and exceptions. Smart is gone. There’s no room mid-level exception they can use. There’s no traded player exception at that point anywhere to bring someone in. At this point, Boston finds itself with a roster of Tatum, Brown, Beal, and theoretically Pritchard, Nesmith, and Moses Brown. That's half a roster needed, with only $9,775,422 to spend.
The Celtics can finagle some of this money with veteran minimum guys. They can find 10-year players willing to make the minimum that season, approximately $2.7-million, but Boston would only be charged about $1.7 million, because the league reimburses teams in that situation.
That’s still not an ideal situation. Even if Boston gets an unheard-of six ring-chasing vets to sign for the minimum, that's $10.3-million. They’re out of money.
I haven’t even factored in their draft pick at this point, which depends on the draft slot. We can assume Boston used it to get off Horford’s salary to make it easier, but we’re still in a bind.
Boston can find a way to sign Beal via free agency, but it will hurt, and it will take some creativity. They can ask him to take a below-market deal and play the short-term opt-out and re-sign game to give him bigger raises. They could do a one+one deal with a player option in year two, have him opt out, and use his non-Bird rights to give him 120% of his prior contract.
Instead of $40.5-million to start, the Celtics can give him $37-million to start, add a couple of million to their cap space immediately, and then have him opt-out and give him a $44.4-million deal next the following season. The difference between two years of a normal contract and this is minimal. Beal could play ball with Boston and try giving them some room to sign Robert Williams a fair market deal.
That’s a huge risk to both sides. Boston could lose Beal after one season if he hates it in Boston, and Beal is playing with fire going without guaranteed years. Any long-term injury to Beal could mean more than $100-million in lost earnings.
In the end, it’s simply highly unlikely Beal comes to Boston this way. There are a lot of scenarios that are technically possible to make it work, but at what cost? Is Beal, Tatum, and Brown plus the names that are left over really enough to be a champion? Are they willing to go through a season of very high usage in order for Boston to get its exceptions back and then add more pieces around them?
Also keep in mind that the next season would be the final year of Brown’s deal. They’re playing with fire if they keep asking Brown to wait, and wait, and wait for a winner to be built.
The best-case for Boston and Beal would be for him to demand a trade to the Celtics and force Washington’s hand. They don’t have enough to trade for him otherwise, and it would take Simone Biles-level cap gymnastics to even put a very flawed roster around a newly-signed Beal in free agency.