Brad Stevens had a plan for the Celtics, and it was working beautifully. He had his coach, he had his players, he had his big offseason acquisition, and he had a future all set up and ready to fire like Tallahassee mowing down the undead in Zombieland.
And then came a couple of Sandy Koufax curve balls.
Ime Udoka did what he did, forcing Stevens to go with young and unproven coach Joe Mazzulla days before training camp opened. We’ll never know what would have happened had Udoka been in charge this season, but we do know it would have removed a major distraction from the beginning and kept some continuity from last season. They might still have fallen victim to Miami because it just seems like that's what is happening to everyone right now, but it’s also possible things could have gone differently.
And as an aside, Udoka is the one person in this mix who has seemingly avoided a lot of the blame in the aftermath of the season. I’ve seen people wonder about his punishment if he was able to be hired by the Rockets, but that overlooks the fact that Udoka’s poor judgment put him in that position at all. He made the bad choices, not the team. His ego got in the way, and from a basketball perspective, it let the team down.
That's Udoka’s fault, and it should be seen as such.
Anyway, the season went how it went, and Stevens was there ready to adjust should it need to if it didn’t work out. He had moveable contracts, some exceptions that could be used to bring in decent help, and draft picks that could help grease the skids to add pieces around a core vying for a championship. Most importantly, he had ownership's blessing to spend deep into the tax.
That is going to come back to bite the Celtics now with a collective bargaining agreement that punishes big spenders. The league wanted its revenge on the Golden State Warriors (and Steve Ballmer’s L.A. Clippers), and the Celtics got caught up in the sting.
Without moves starting this summer, the Celtics will start feeling a real pinch as they approach what’s known as the “second apron,” which is a threshold set $17.5 million over the luxury tax line. Teams above that line are basically stuck, with trade rules being significantly limited and exceptions all thrown out the window.
So, for example, a team above the second apron, let’s call them a supertax team, can’t use a mid-level exception at all, not even the smaller taxpayer exception. So a Danilo Gallinari signing wouldn’t have been allowed.
Also, trade restrictions are immense. A multi-player deal to bring back one guy like the Malcolm Brogdon trade would not be allowed. Supertax teams can’t send out more than one player to match an incoming salary. They can send out one to take back two, but the salaries would also have to match exactly or be less -- supertax teams can’t take back more salary than they send out.
Sign-and-trades are out as well, so a player can’t be sign-and-traded out to somewhere anymore if a team is over the supertax line.
Also, future draft picks are frozen, teams can’t send out cash in deals, and teams can’t acquire anyone via buyout.
Basically, if your team is over the supertax line, unless they do a 1-for-1 trade where the salaries match perfectly, they can’t make any moves.
This is a preposterous set up that threatens to reshape the NBA for the worse. I hate the deal. After chewing on it for a while, here are some of the ramifications I see.
FOR THE CELTICS
Someone has to go.
Is it entirely, absolutely, necessary to move a big salary this summer? No, not if Boston is willing to just run it back completely and bank on internal improvement. They have this summer to get their affairs in order, and if they choose to make one more mid-level signing before that rule goes away next summer, then they can try to bolster their bench, make one more mid-season trade if necessary at the deadline, and just go for it.
That comes with a real risk, though. The rules kick in next summer, and if Boston is stuck without a title at that point, then they're going to be hurting. Let’s say they bring Brogdon back, re-sign Grant Williams, and don’t win … they’ll be a supertax team looking to shed a lot of salary next summer with few teams operating with the cap space to take guys in.
Oh, by the way, traded player exceptions are out for supertax teams, so Boston wouldn’t get a $22 million TPE for Brogdon in that scenario. They’d just have to pay someone to take him, likely with a first round pick. Boston would get nothing but a heavily protected second round pick that will never convey.
And so they have a decision to make right now. Do they prepare for the future this summer and trade away one of their three guards in Brogdon, Derrick White, or Marcus Smart?
I can see a scenario where they move Brogdon and try to find a replacement for Grant Williams. If they can pull a move like that, then they can let Williams walk and they’ll be in a much better spot next season.
I can also see the “do nothing” scenario, but that could come at a huge cost if they don’t win a title. People will be able to swallow big changes if there's a parade, but if Boston falls short and big changes have to come anyway? Things will get ugly.
I also see a two-year window for Boston right now before they have to make a decision on Jaylen Brown. He’s under contract for this upcoming season already, and the year after that will be year one of his supermax extension (which I fully expect him to get). If Boston can’t win a title by then, then they’ll have to make the call on whether he’s truly the running mate for Jayson Tatum because Tatum’s extension will start the season after that.
Boston will have to decide if they want to commit $100 million to those two players. They have two years to make that call. Win a title together (or if we’re being overly optimistic, two of them), and then management might decide to keep the ball rolling a little bit. If they don't win, Brown will almost certainly be gone before the 2025-26 season.
FOR THE NBA
- Smaller windows for homegrown teams: This is who is truly getting punished here. Teams who have tanked, drafted well, and built a good supporting cast around their young talent are going to be priced out of contention.
Boston’s a bit further along in the process, but any team like OKC or Houston that bottoms out and finds some lottery luck will ultimately have to pay its stars supermax deals if they reach their potential. Not only are they going to get expensive quickly, the tax rates are higher so smaller market teams are going to pull the plug on these teams sooner than usual.
Maybe this is meant to disincentivise tanking. It’s the only thing that makes sense here because teams will go from pretty cheap to pretty expensive in short order if the entire team is built through the draft.
- A lot more young free agents: Teams are going to have to pick and choose which of their first round picks are actually showing promise. If some players are slow to keep up, teams might just decline their options sooner rather than keep them on for the duration of the rookie contracts. If there's a financial strain on the horizon, this could lead to younger players who need more time to develop hitting the free agent market
- No one will want to be in the second half of the first round of the draft (but everyone will want to be in the second round): Teams in the bottom 10, especially, might be looking to get out of that spot and into the second round where salaries aren’t guaranteed. Those guaranteed salary slots at the end of the draft could be financial burdens to teams in those spots, because those teams are likely good enough to have a big payroll. The last thing they want is more guaranteed salary on the books.
I can actually see some NFL-style declined options then re-signing for less. So say, for example, the 20th pick in this upcoming draft, with guarantees of $2.6, $2.7, & $2.9 million is showing some promise but isn’t quite there for an expensive team. That team could tell the player they're declining the $2.9 million but want to bring him back at the minimum $1.8 million and build future salary off that.
If that $1.1 million saves $7 million in taxes, teams will try that trick. Players at that end of the roster might take it because they want to stay in the league.
The second half of the draft has the potential to be a mess. The second round will be very popular because those deals can be negotiated.
- Middle class pay drop: There's zero chance PJ Tucker would get a three-year, $33 million deal in this new environment. He might not even be a taxpayer mid-level guy. Obviously we can say that about him specifically at this point, but even teams with cap space will have to be careful about giving role players big money.
I think full mid-level money will still be handed out, but it feels like that will be tougher to get in this economy. We’re going to see guys who could have gotten taxpayer MLE money get minimum deals because good teams just can’t spend the money.
Using the taxpayer MLE will hard cap a team at the second apron, so good teams with owners willing to spend couldn't even go over that supertax line. That leaves minimums left for free agents.
I’m not sure why the players agreed to this deal.
- Shorter contracts: Those players who do get good deals are probably going to get them for short years. Four-year free agent deals for big money will be tough to swallow for teams trying to build around stars. Those deals will drop to two and three-year deals as teams are constantly cycling guys in and out trying to find cheaper options.
- Constant flux: This all means that the NBA will accomplish its ultimate goal of eliminating super-teams. It’ll be impossible to pay three stars while still fielding a functional team in this environment.
The NBA has wanted parity for a long time. This does accomplish that in a way because the good teams won’t be able to stay at the top for more than two or three years. Players will be cycled from city to city, constantly changing the landscape of the league. The really bad teams can’t stay bad for too long, and the really good teams will have to give up good players.
Unless the final document provides a surprise or two, we’re going to see the good teams, like Boston, get ripped apart and have to figure out a new way to win.
That's what makes this past season especially painful because it’s a giant missed opportunity. The Celtics had it in their hands and they let it go. Now they're going to have to figure out how to win with less. The next few years of the NBA are going to get incredibly interesting.
Stevens and his colleagues in front offices all have their work cut out for them.