Charting a path forward for the Celtics: Where they are, and what they need to start doing this summer

Brad Stevens has a lot of work to do, and none of it will be easy. Boston is a second-apron team for the second year in a row, which means they have to get under that line and stay under for a while. 

As of right now, their two draft picks six and seven years out are frozen and can’t be traded in a deal. The 2031 and ‘32 picks are untouchable until Boston gets back under that line. Further, if they go into next season over the second apron, their frozen first-round picks start automatically moving to the end of first round. 

“I start with the basketball penalties part, which is the second apron. You’re weighing those against your chances of being a championship contender,” Stevens told NBC Sports Boston. “And then you also, obviously, consider where you are and where you are financially. But I think one of the best things that we’ve got going for us is that we have a lot of good players under good contracts, guys that everybody knows that if you put them on the floor you have a chance to win the next game.” 

It’s a hell of a needle to thread, but Stevens is trying to figure out how to get below the second apron … and eventually the tax line … while retaining enough guys to stay in contention. I don’t know how well he can do both, especially since he needs to stay under the second apron for three seasons to unfreeze the picks and under the tax for two seasons to get away from the repeater penalty. 

So let’s dive into this and see where the Celtics stand and how they might maneuver out of it. 

SALARY SITUATION

Boston’s 2025-26 total salary is currently about $228 million. That's about $40 million over the tax, $32 million over the first apron, and $20 million over the second apron. 

As a repeater tax team, they are paying the highest possible tax in the CBA. The first $5.7 million is taxed at $3 (so $16.8 million in taxes). The next $5.7 million is taxed at 3.25. Then the next $5.7 million gets taxed at $5.50, then $6.75, then $7.25, then $7.75, then $8.25, then $8.75.

This is how the tax bill gets up to $238 million. If you start breaking the $40 million over the line into those $5.7 million chunks and multiplying them by those ridiculous numbers, you get an even more ridiculous number.

This number does not take into account a Luke Kornet or Al Horford contract, though there are cap holds in place. Those are artificial numbers plugged into the cap sheet so teams can’t make all their moves and then sign their own free agents with Bird rights.

Here’s what guys are making next season:

THE PATH FORWARD

As I said, the Celtics have two missions to accomplish. They need to get under the second apron, and they need to get under the tax line. The tax thing might have to wait as the Celtics try to toe the line between contending and cutting salary. Getting under the second apron will cut the tax bill anyway, so it might be tolerable for now. 

That's especially true when you consider the goal isn’t to just slip under the second apron. They need to get far enough under to be able to do business as a first-apron team. They need to be able to aggregate salaries at the trade deadline, which would then hard-cap them at the second apron.

They need wiggle room. 

Under the old system, bad teams could keep cap space open to do business with teams like Boston, accumulating draft picks to acquire big salaries from expensive teams. The salary dump option has dried up considerably, with Brooklyn as the only current team with enough space to take a big salary like this. 

Holiday going to Brooklyn for nothing solves a lot of problems, but the Nets probably don’t want to operate that way. Holiday is going to have to go somewhere in exchange for cheaper players. The Celtics might have to play a sort of opposite paperclip trading game to get where they want to go. Instead of constantly trading small things for something incrementally bigger, they can trade a big contract for incrementally smaller deals. 

For example, Holiday for Tobias Harris works and saves Boston nearly $6 million. Then Harris for Marcus Smart saves another $5 million. Then Smart for Kevin Huerter saves another $3.5. 

I really don’t want to get into a ton of hypothetical trades right now. I’m not really advocating for a series of events that nets Boston Huerter. At the same time, this is the type of player that you have to consider in 2025 around a super-expensive core. Huerter makes $18 million and is an expiring deal, so you can do worse than renting a career 38% 3-point shooter while saving more than $14 million.

He gets Boston 70% of the way to the second apron line, and he’ll save them $18 million when they let him walk in the summer of 2026. From there, Boston can find a team to take Sam Hauser for nothing (his $10 million fits into a mid-level exception, which is now allowed to be used to absorb salary in a trade) and they’ll be in the ballpark of where they need to be. 

In the grand scheme of things, Scheierman rising to Hauser’s role and then Huerter assuming Scheierman’s old role isn’t the worst thing in the world. Obviously, the Celtics will be worse because of this, but there's no scenario here where Boston gets better. 

They would still have to figure out what to do with Porzingis. They could try to do some of the same maneuvering with him to flip him into Kelly Olynyk, who makes just under $13.5 million and is also an expiring contract. 

Again, this is more about the goal being accomplished than the player. In this scenario, the Celtics save another $17 million, some of which can be used to sign Horford, Kornet, or both.

There is also the waive-and-stretch option, which spreads the cap hit over twice the remaining years on the deal, plus one. So Porzingis' $30-plus million would become $10-plus million on the books over the next three seasons, saving them $20 million in the short term but leaving a problematic $10 million of dead money on the books over the next two seasons. I doubt it will come to that, but that's a glass Stevens can break in case of emergency. 

This would keep most of the team intact, create some easy salary to shed next summer to help accomplish the tax goals, and bring in some guys who can sort of, somewhat approximate some percentage of what the guy they lost did. 

There are other expiring guys out there who can be moved. Collin Sexton, Harrison Barnes, Jusuf Nurkic, or Daniel Gafford are all somewhat useful, short-term players who can come off Boston’s bench. Unlike past offseasons, the goal isn’t to make a trade that makes Boston better. The goals are to save money and minimize how much worse the team gets. 

If they can move Holiday, who was good this past season but nothing near his peak, and Porzingis, who was disappointingly unavailable at the most crucial moments to accomplish these goals in this manner, and get back somewhat useful expiring contracts, then that might minimize the future pain they have to endure to get under the tax. 

But make no mistake about it, this is the beginning of a painful road for Boston. They might be able to sneak another season out of like, 70% of this roster, but whether they’d try that depends on Jayson Tatum’s recovery. I think Horford is a bellwether for how that will go. 

Horford is super-tight with Tatum, and if the updates he gets are optimistic, then I can see him coming back for a year or two. If Tatum tells him things aren’t going well, then Horford might just choose to retire. I don’t think he wants to go to a different city, and I don’t think he wants to play a lost season. But if Tatum’s prognosis is good, then it might be enough to convince Horford to return. 

But things will change soon enough, no matter what. One of Tatum or Brown will likely have to go in order to get under the tax for an extended period of time. It’ll be hard to stay under the $206 million tax line two seasons from now when Tatum and Brown combine to make $115 million. There's no way to field a truly competitive NBA team with $91 million to split between 12 players. Something has to give at some point. 

So this is a multi-step plan with a few moves happening this summer and a few more happening next summer and then, maybe, a few more after that. We haven't even touched on the fact that everyone is getting older over this whole process. Tatum will be 30 before we know it, and decisions about the team’s future will have to be made. 

But that makes it ESPECIALLY important to get under the second apron now. Because the last thing Boston wants is to have picks frozen or moved to the end of the draft when they shift to a full rebuild. The Celtics already owe a 2028 swap to San Antonio as part of the Derrick White trade, and that might come into play here.

Side note: if you want a glimpse into Boston’s plans way down the line, watch to see if they aggressively pursue a deal with San Antonio to get that pick back. If they swing a deal that gets that back, it might be a sign that the rebuild begins in 2028. 

That's too far off to worry about right now. 

The first order of business is to get under the second apron, and by a considerable amount. Just dipping under won’t be enough. Then they have to eliminate their tax bill next summer, and operate as a non-tax team for at least two years in a row. Who knows what happens after that, but that's reset Boston needs to make. 

It really makes not winning it all this season feel a lot worse, doesn’t it?