Boylston Street was bustling with its normal traffic this morning. The hangovers from a weekend of partying have mostly worn off. Brad Stevens is at the Auerbach Center with his staff, back at work to prepare for the upcoming 2024-25 season, hoping to make everything we just witnessed happen again.
It’s not like they haven't been doing this stuff already. Let’s just be clear about that. A front office’s job is to have a simultaneously short-, intermediate-, and long-term view of the team. The draft and free agency have been looming as the playoffs progressed, so, in a way, game nights were a bit of a distraction from a new task at hand.
Luckily for us, we didn’t have to think much of that until now. So here’s a quick primer on where Boston stands, the business at hand, and the limitations of their new world.
Let’s start with the raw numbers. These are approximate. The actual number will be set on July 1.
- Salary cap: $141,000,000
- Luxury tax: $171,315,000
- First apron: $178,655,000
- Second apron: $189,486,000
- Celtics current committed salary: $186,189,869 (this is for 11 players guaranteed money for next season, including Sam Hauser and Neemias Queta, who are on team options, which could change).
- Cap holds: $19,105,147 (these are placeholders for free agents like Luke Kornet, Oshae Brissett, etc. These were created to allow teams to use Bird Rights to sign players but not make it look like the team had cap space. A cap hold is what the name says it is, it holds a certain amount of money aside as if it was being paid to a player in case you want to sign him. It’s not necessarily what he’ll make and rights can be renounced at any time to actually free up that space).
- Celtics current total salary cap: $205,295,106
So the Celtics are ~$16 million over the second apron with a bunch of players, and potentially a draft pick, to sign. All of this is to illustrate Boston’s very limited financial situation. They are going to be above the second apron this year no matter what. They are not going to make cost-cutting moves. They are not going to nickel-and-dime their way through this season.
They're not only committed to paying huge salaries, they will pay about $40 million in taxes. But with that huge financial burden come some pretty big handcuffs.
Second apron teams cannot use a mid-level exception to sign free agents. They can only use minimum contracts. So if you see someone out on the market that you want, that player needs to either take a minimum contract or he’s not coming to Boston.
“But what about a sign-and-trade, John?”
Sorry, those are out too. Second apron teams cannot send or receive players via sign-and-trade. In fact trades are VERY limited for second apron teams.
They cannot:
- Aggregate salaries in trades (send out multiple players to match salaries, i.e. Payton Pritchard and Al Horford to receive a player making $16 million)
- Take back more salary than they send out (they can’t send out Kristaps Porzingis for Devin Vassell because Vassell makes $79,533 more than Porzingis. Below the aprons, there is wiggle room, but trades have to be exact or less for the apron team. And no, this is not a realistic trade I just used the two closest salaries I could find).
- Use a Traded Player Exception (the remaining $3.9 million in the Grant Williams TPE can’t be used. They can’t take a flier on another change of scenery for Cam Reddish and his $2.4 million).
The Celtics CAN send one player out and take two in return as long as the two don’t make more than the player leaving. So Derrick White can go to New Orleans for Herb Jones and Trey Murphy because they make $18.1 million and White makes $20 million. So two players coming IN is allowed, but two players going OUT is not.
And of course, Boston can sign their own draft picks.
That's all the tools they have: highly-restricted trades, minimum signings, and draft picks.
So that puts a heavy emphasis on keeping who they have. That's why I expect Luke Kornet back. Not only does he know his role here, Boston isn't going to find anyone better than him with those restrictions on the team. It’s why we might see Xavier Tillman back. He has value during the regular season and can help. I’m not sure if Svi Mykhailiuk comes back because he might actually want to play somewhere now that he has a championship. The same holds true for Oshae Brissett, who declined his player option.
Both could come back, but there are always minimum guys around to round out the end of the bench. I won’t begrudge Mykhailiuk or Brissett if they can cash in on some championship shine for a bigger role somewhere.
As I mentioned, the Celtics have Queta and Hauser on team options, so they can come back on cheap deals. I expect Boston to exercise Queta’s option.
Hauser is an interesting player because Boston can negotiate another longer-term deal with him, declining the team option this year and starting the new deal right away. They can also exercise the team option and extend him beyond that. It’ll be interesting to see where that goes, but either way, I’d expect some kind of new deal for Hauser this offseason.
I’m interested to see where the Derrick White talks go as well. He can sign a four-year, $126 million extension this summer, which is a healthy amount of money. Or he can wait, become a free agent, and sign a deal closer to Jrue Holiday’s four-year, $135 million (or more, depending on the season he has next year). That has no bearing on this upcoming season’s finances, but it will impact things down the road.
And finally, Jayson Tatum is going to get a max extension this summer. The five-year, $315 million extension will be the new richest contract in NBA history. That deal will get done. It's just a matter of when.
That's a lot of words to basically say Boston is bringing the whole team back, minus some potential shuffling at the end of the bench. White, Hauser, and Tatum will probably get deals done this summer. And no matter what the rumors, there's a much greater likelihood that Boston can’t get a deal done for someone on the market than can.
The second apron is built to be restrictive, but Brad Stevens did an amazing job not just building this team, but locking this team up for an extended run. They can run this team back next season and maybe the season after that before tough decisions need to be made. They’ve pulled one championship out of this group, maybe there's one or two more in there.
There's only one way to find out, and because of the new CBA, they kind of have no choice but to see that way through.