Celtics/Hawks supposedly discussed deal for Smart

[Vermont Green]

We had the same convo a few days ago. If the C's were trying to win, we wouldn't have dumped Juancho's expiring way ahead of the deadline. Juancho sucks at basketball, but expiring contracts have value when trying to construct bigger deals. And no, we can't realistically use the TPE to match salary cause the luxury tax will explode through the roof. If history is any indication, Wyc is cheap. I don't expect him to pay a hefty tax for an underperforming team.

Long story short, we aren't trying to win.

I think your logic is a bit circular here.  You say that we should have kept JHern so that we would have salary to send out in a trade.  And then say that there is no way we would use the TPE to bring in a player.  How is it any different to keep JHern at $7M and trade him to bring back $7M vs dumping him and then using a TPE or part of a TPE to bring back a $7M player.  The result is exactly the same.

To me, by dumping JHern who was doing nothing to help us win gives us the flexibility to not go over the tax this year or to use a TPE if we want for a player who may become available and that is a good value and can help us win this year and in the future.

To try to argue that keeping a bad player shows that you are trying to win but trading a bad player proves you are not trying to win is not logical in this context.  It just gives us more flexibility.

I think it is pretty simple.  The Celtics are more focused on the long term over trying to go all in to win now.  That does not mean they are not trying to get better or an indication that they are cheap.  To me it is just smart.  I believe they would bring a good player who is a good long term fit.  But if no such player becomes available this season (and it is not likely one will), they can stay under the tax and see what they can do in the off season to build the roster.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

I like Heurter a lot. He had some great moments in last year's playoffs. You could argue that he was the second most important player for the Hawks.

I just don't get what he would bring to the Celtics. I don't understand the motivation here. He's a good, not great shooter. He does a good job moving the ball and he will likely keep developing as a scorer. I just don't see that we gain as much as we are losing in Smart.

[Roy H.]

We had the same convo a few days ago. If the C's were trying to win, we wouldn't have dumped Juancho's expiring way ahead of the deadline. Juancho sucks at basketball, but expiring contracts have value when trying to construct bigger deals. And no, we can't realistically use the TPE to match salary cause the luxury tax will explode through the roof. If history is any indication, Wyc is cheap. I don't expect him to pay a hefty tax for an underperforming team.

Long story short, we aren't trying to win.

I think your logic is a bit circular here.  You say that we should have kept JHern so that we would have salary to send out in a trade.  And then say that there is no way we would use the TPE to bring in a player.  How is it any different to keep JHern at $7M and trade him to bring back $7M vs dumping him and then using a TPE or part of a TPE to bring back a $7M player.  The result is exactly the same.

Well, not quite exactly the same.  TPEs can't be combined with player contracts to match salaries, whereas contracts can of course be aggregated.  Additionally, Juancho's contract could bring back 125% + $100k of it's value; a TPE only fits a player making the amount of the TPE + $100k.

Jvalin was talking about "trying to construct bigger deals", so the ability to aggregate salaries is a pretty big deal.  For instance, Smart + JH would allow us to deal for a player making north of $26 million.  That's more than enough for John Collins.  You can't construct that type of deal with Smart and a trade exception.

[BruceBanner18]

So if this report is true, Atlanta likes Smart. It's also been reported Collins could be had for a starter and a pick. It's also been reported they'd like to clear out some salary from the likes of Gallinari and/or Bogi.

So we have Smart, a starter they like. We have a 2022 FRP which is currently 13th and the potential to add a second FRP in 24. We have Horford with a partially guaranteed contract to help save $$ next year. We also have a couple vets in Schroder/Richardson. A couple lower level prospects in Nesmith, Grant, Langford.

If Atlanta is as motivated as reported, we seem to have most of the pieces they could want.

If we could turn Smart/Horford ++ into Collins and Gallinari or Bogi how much would you be willing to add as our ++? I'd go pretty strong if we could end up with Brown, Tatum, Collins, Williams as our core.

[Roy H.]

So if this report is true, Atlanta likes Smart. It's also been reported Collins could be had for a starter and a pick. It's also been reported they'd like to clear out some salary from the likes of Gallinari and/or Bogi.

So we have Smart, a starter they like. We have a 2022 FRP which is currently 13th and the potential to add a second FRP in 24. We have Horford with a partially guaranteed contract to help save $$ next year. We also have a couple vets in Schroder/Richardson. A couple lower level prospects in Nesmith, Grant, Langford.

If Atlanta is as motivated as reported, we seem to have most of the pieces they could want.

If we could turn Smart/Horford ++ into Collins and Gallinari or Bogi how much would you be willing to add as our ++? I'd go pretty strong if we could end up with Brown, Tatum, Collins, Williams as our core.

I was playing around with that idea yesterday.  I'd give up Smart, Horford and two #1s if that appealed to Atlanta.  I'd love to see us make a 3-way trade with Dallas to bring back Brunson, too.

BOS trades:  Horford, Smart, Schroder, 2022 swap rights, 2023 #1, 2023 Houston #2, 2025 #1, 2027 #1
BOS receives:  Collins, Bogdanovic, Brunson, Boban

DAL trades: Brunson, Boban
DAL receives:  Schroder, 2022 swap rights with BOS, 2025 #1

ATL trades:  Collins, Bogdanovic
ATL receives:  Horford, Smart, 2023 #1, 2027 #1

Timelord / Freedom / Boban
Collins / Williams / Fernando
Tatum / Richardson / Nesmith
Brown / Bogdanovic / Langford
Brunson / Pritchard

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yacf2b4g

Cut / trade one or both of Dozier and Bol, look into acquiring a backup PG

[Celtics2021]

We had the same convo a few days ago. If the C's were trying to win, we wouldn't have dumped Juancho's expiring way ahead of the deadline. Juancho sucks at basketball, but expiring contracts have value when trying to construct bigger deals. And no, we can't realistically use the TPE to match salary cause the luxury tax will explode through the roof. If history is any indication, Wyc is cheap. I don't expect him to pay a hefty tax for an underperforming team.

Long story short, we aren't trying to win.

I think your logic is a bit circular here.  You say that we should have kept JHern so that we would have salary to send out in a trade.  And then say that there is no way we would use the TPE to bring in a player.  How is it any different to keep JHern at $7M and trade him to bring back $7M vs dumping him and then using a TPE or part of a TPE to bring back a $7M player.  The result is exactly the same.

Well, not quite exactly the same.  TPEs can't be combined with player contracts to match salaries, whereas contracts can of course be aggregated.  Additionally, Juancho's contract could bring back 125% + $100k of it's value; a TPE only fits a player making the amount of the TPE + $100k.

Jvalin was talking about "trying to construct bigger deals", so the ability to aggregate salaries is a pretty big deal.  For instance, Smart + JH would allow us to deal for a player making north of $26 million.  That's more than enough for John Collins.  You can't construct that type of deal with Smart and a trade exception.

While you're right with regard to adding Juancho to someone like Smart to get back someone in the low 20 million range, that's not what the conversation was about last week that he's referencing, and he says again here.  Specficially:

And no, we can't realistically use the TPE to match salary cause the luxury tax will explode through the roof.

This shows an understanding that we weren't going to take back more salary than we sent out in a deal that aggregated Juancho with another player.  In other words, pre-dump, when we were $5ish million into the tax, sending out $20 million to get back $23 million (I'm not looking up the exact salaries, but that's an approximation of Smart-Juancho for Collins) in salary wouldn't likely happen any more than bringing on $7-10 million more in salary than we send out by using a TPE.  He was making this argument that somehow Juancho's $7 million was exceptionally useful, and the overall point is that it wasn't really.  There might have been some narrowly constructed trades where it would have helped, but there were a limited number of those, and it wouldn't at all surprise me if the Celtics had been rebuffed on them.  And so upon the Celtics having determined it wasn't useful, they moved it and saved some money, which is good business sense.  There's a small chance they even get someone useful out of it, but failing that, they now at least don't have to get rid of someone useful to get under the tax, and thus don't have a to make an anticompetitive move for budgetary purposes.

[Vermont Green]

We had the same convo a few days ago. If the C's were trying to win, we wouldn't have dumped Juancho's expiring way ahead of the deadline. Juancho sucks at basketball, but expiring contracts have value when trying to construct bigger deals. And no, we can't realistically use the TPE to match salary cause the luxury tax will explode through the roof. If history is any indication, Wyc is cheap. I don't expect him to pay a hefty tax for an underperforming team.

Long story short, we aren't trying to win.

I think your logic is a bit circular here.  You say that we should have kept JHern so that we would have salary to send out in a trade.  And then say that there is no way we would use the TPE to bring in a player.  How is it any different to keep JHern at $7M and trade him to bring back $7M vs dumping him and then using a TPE or part of a TPE to bring back a $7M player.  The result is exactly the same.

Well, not quite exactly the same.  TPEs can't be combined with player contracts to match salaries, whereas contracts can of course be aggregated.  Additionally, Juancho's contract could bring back 125% + $100k of it's value; a TPE only fits a player making the amount of the TPE + $100k.

Jvalin was talking about "trying to construct bigger deals", so the ability to aggregate salaries is a pretty big deal.  For instance, Smart + JH would allow us to deal for a player making north of $26 million.  That's more than enough for John Collins.  You can't construct that type of deal with Smart and a trade exception.

While you're right with regard to adding Juancho to someone like Smart to get back someone in the low 20 million range, that's not what the conversation was about last week that he's referencing, and he says again here.  Specficially:

And no, we can't realistically use the TPE to match salary cause the luxury tax will explode through the roof.

This shows an understanding that we weren't going to take back more salary than we sent out in a deal that aggregated Juancho with another player.  In other words, pre-dump, when we were $5ish million into the tax, sending out $20 million to get back $23 million (I'm not looking up the exact salaries, but that's an approximation of Smart-Juancho for Collins) in salary wouldn't likely happen any more than bringing on $7-10 million more in salary than we send out by using a TPE.  He was making this argument that somehow Juancho's $7 million was exceptionally useful, and the overall point is that it wasn't really.  There might have been some narrowly constructed trades where it would have helped, but there were a limited number of those, and it wouldn't at all surprise me if the Celtics had been rebuffed on them.  And so upon the Celtics having determined it wasn't useful, they moved it and saved some money, which is good business sense.  There's a small chance they even get someone useful out of it, but failing that, they now at least don't have to get rid of someone useful to get under the tax, and thus don't have a to make an anticompetitive move for budgetary purposes.

Right, TPEs are less flexible than actual salary as they cannot be combined but the salary has to be something someone is willing to take back.  If we want someone like say Beal, we can trade Horford and Smart.  Anyone really think JHern is going to make or break a deal like that?

And these are not mutually exclusive, we can trade Horford plus whatever (if you can find someone that actually will take Horford) and also bring in even more with TPEs.  Having JHern or not makes no difference.  You can like the JHern trade or not but it does not "prove the Celtics aren't trying to win".

[Roy H.]

In other words, pre-dump, when we were $5ish million into the tax, sending out $20 million to get back $23 million (I'm not looking up the exact salaries, but that's an approximation of Smart-Juancho for Collins) in salary wouldn't likely happen any more than bringing on $7-10 million more in salary than we send out by using a TPE

Well, I hope ownership isn't that cheap.  It's one thing saying  "I won't pay additional luxury tax for some random dude making $7 million".  It's different to say "I won't pay additional tax to bring back a third option / star player".

[Vermont Green]

In other words, pre-dump, when we were $5ish million into the tax, sending out $20 million to get back $23 million (I'm not looking up the exact salaries, but that's an approximation of Smart-Juancho for Collins) in salary wouldn't likely happen any more than bringing on $7-10 million more in salary than we send out by using a TPE

Well, I hope ownership isn't that cheap.  It's one thing saying  "I won't pay additional luxury tax for some random dude making $7 million".  It's different to say "I won't pay additional tax to bring back a third option / star player".

Exactly.  And you can't force a trade to be made or you will lose the trade.  Even if we don't make a deadline deal, doesn't mean we won't in the off season.  I believe this ownership has spent money in the past and will in the future but only for a good deal.  Some one like Collins who probably makes sense now and in the future, they will deal for if they can (easier said than done).  I don't want them to do a deal just to do a deal and end up getting nowhere or worse.

The debate is about the JHern deal and what it signals about the true intentions of ownership.  I don't think it signals anything.

[Celtics2021]

In other words, pre-dump, when we were $5ish million into the tax, sending out $20 million to get back $23 million (I'm not looking up the exact salaries, but that's an approximation of Smart-Juancho for Collins) in salary wouldn't likely happen any more than bringing on $7-10 million more in salary than we send out by using a TPE

Well, I hope ownership isn't that cheap.  It's one thing saying  "I won't pay additional luxury tax for some random dude making $7 million".  It's different to say "I won't pay additional tax to bring back a third option / star player".

No, I don't think they weren't going to pay the luxury tax for a third star.  That's in part why they went above the hard cap to start the year, to have flexibility for such a move.  If you think Collins is a third star, then that's a bad example on my part.  In my view he's a high-level starter, as is Smart to me, but not a star.  But this is a large digression from the original topic, because there's no evidence something built around Smart and Collins was an option (and even if it were, there are plenty of ways to get to such a deal without needing Juancho's salary).