Celtics
“I think the Celtics knew when they traded for Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis they’d be staring at this in the face this summer.
The Celtics are in the hunt for their second-straight championship, but the roster could end up looking quite different next year according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.
“You’re not going to want to hear this. I know you’re not going to want to hear this. You might start bleeding from your ears,” Charania said during a recent appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. “Right now, Boston is fully focused on winning a championship. That is the No. 1 focus, repeating.”
“But, I can tell you that the rest of the league is bracing for some level of change to come to the Celtics from their roster this offseason,” Charania continued. “Sources have been telling me for weeks now that the Celtics will be exploring trade options in the offseason. This iteration is just not going to be sustainable for this team and no one around the organization from players to staffers would be surprised if there are changes coming to this roster.”
Celtics governor Wyc Grousbeck shared a similar read on the situation back in March. He said the basketball penalties in the league’s new collective bargaining agreement for teams who go too deep into the luxury tax are too steep to make the Celtics’ current situation workable.
“The basketball penalties mean it’s even more of a premium now to have your basketball general manager be brilliant and lucky because you’ve got to navigate, because you can’t stay in the second apron,” Grousbeck said. “Nobody will. I predict for the next 40 years of the CBA no one is going to stay in the second apron more than two years.”
The Celtics are in the second apron, and are feeling some of the penalties, Charania said. Some of the basketball penalties include: Not being able to use the mid-level exception to sign players, not being able to use cash in trades, not being able to trade first-round picks seven years out, and not being able to execute sign-and-trade deals that keep the team over the cap.
“When you think about the new collective bargaining agreement, there’s restrictions that come with trades, there’s restrictions that come with freezing of draft picks, that’s all stuff that they’re dealing with right now.”
There are financial penalties tied to the luxury tax as well. The Celtics have their entire starting five under contract for next year, but the total cost to keep them all would be daunting.
“They have five players, right now, scheduled to make $28 million or more next season,” Charania said. “That’s a league record. They would have a salary bill of $500 million dollars, that would be a league history mount. I think the Celtics knew when they traded for Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis they’d be staring at this in the face this summer.”
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