Ainge get Pierce and Ray Allen off the books for next year

[Rondo /doc]

      Pierce and Allen got to go to bring youth to this team for rondo to lead for next 5 years  . If pierce and allen exit thats 35-40 million in cap space . High profile free agents chris bosh or dwayne wade , with a lower level free agent like david lee at pf great rebounder and interior defender, or rudy gay slashing athletic young sf to replace pierce .
     
      At 19th pick either eric bledsoe of kentucky 6-1 pg second best pg in draft , who can also play og , or williams out of memphis very quick 6-4 og slasher . Take care of replacing bigs in free agency not draft , a 19 pick big man usually takes 3-4 years to develop and are a risk if they are worth it . I really hope Ainge gm is wise in breaking this team up now , for the future, they went as far as they could go ,  with the right breaks anfd moves by ainge the future is bright .

[RondoKid]

Bledsoe isn't the 2nd best PG in the draft. Nor is he even close to being ready to start. Getting rid of PP and Allen would be stupid without knowing what we are going to have besides cap space.

[xmuscularghandix]

The Big Three

[CoachBo]

Why in the world people want to go back to winning 24 games a year escapes me.

[jsilva982]

We'd still only have like 15 mil in cap space to sign free agents even if Pierce/Allen walk and Sheed retires. 

ie our best course of action is to re-sign Ray for 2 years.  We can't do anything until KG is off the books basically.  So the challenge for Ainge the next 2 seasons is putting a team on the court while maintaining medium term cap balance (signing people for more than 2 years will put the post-KG free agency splash at risk).  So in that regard it'll be difficult to bring any even medium tier players here if we wont give out multiple year contracts with the MLE etc.

That said, the way to build with the way the current salary cap situation is has to be through trade as we did with the Big 3.  At worst, we will have some massive expiring contracts in the next few years (assuming Ray comes back for 2).  That is ultimately how we have to rebuild I think - Ray/KG expirings in 2 years. 

Josh

[nickagneta]

Unless the plan is to strip the team salary down as low as possible in hopes of attracting Lebron James here, I don't want to here about dumping Ray and Pierce.

Now granted, there is a scenario in which Pierce opts out, Rasheed retires, the C's release Gaffney and Lafayette and the Celtics renounce every single one of their free agents that nets the Celtics a total team salary of $39.7 million:

Garnett - $18.8 million
Rondo - $9.1 million
Davis - $3 million
Perkins - $4.1 million
1st round pick - $1.2 million
7 minimum cap holds - $3.5 million.

If the salary cap is set at $57 million the Celtics have enough cap space to offer Lebron a max contract. Granted our team for next year will be starter heavy:

Rondo/vet min/vet min
1st round pick/vet min
Lebron/vet min/vet min
KG/Baby/vet min
Perkins/2nd round pick/vet min

But needing six vet minimum players it isn't out of the question that one of those players could be:

Brian Scalabrine
Shelden Williams
Joe Smith
Juwan Howard
Skip Murray
Ben Wallace
Damien Wilkens
James Singleton
Eddie House
Jason Williams
Allen Iverson

or a host of other not so great players but good enough to fill out the roster for a year.

You then do what you can to add a good MLE and another good pick next off season and when KG retires and his money comes of the books you add another free agent to add to Rondo and LeBron and the young core you have around them.

Okay, never mind. Let's just bring back everyone and make another go at it.

[jsilva982]

Isn't the cap projected to be around 51 mil next year?

[jdpapa3]

Isn't the cap projected to be around 51 mil next year?

That was the early projection, but it has been revised to 55-56.

[nickagneta]

Isn't the cap projected to be around 51 mil next year?

Last I heard it was $56.1 million but you never know, it could go up or down fractionally:

Link

David Stern changed the landscape of the free-agent market Friday. In a media chat after a board of governors session in New York, he revealed that the league's projection for the 2010-11 salary cap is now $56.1 million -- a robust increase from its earlier projections.

[jsilva982]

Interesting.  It's a shame we don't have Paul's bird rights if he opted out. 

[Rondo /doc]

   Basically Danny Ainge , can we get Lebron or Wade here under max contract if we let the 33 year old pierce and 35 year old allen go ? ! Imagine Rondo and Wade/ or James for the next 7 years ?! We would  compete in the east with Howard , we have a physical center Perk . And now we would have the bullets to deal with LA and Bryant . Lebron is a much better rebounder then pierce and allen combined , giving our bigs help against gasol and bynum . Plus im sure wade and lebron would love to team with rondo/doc/and ainge !

[bopna]

  Basically Danny Ainge , can we get Lebron or Wade here under max contract if we let the 33 year old pierce and 35 year old allen go ? ! Imagine Rondo and Wade/ or James for the next 7 years ?! We would  compete in the east with Howard , we have a physical center Perk . And now we would have the bullets to deal with LA and Bryant . Lebron is a much better rebounder then pierce and allen combined , giving our bigs help against gasol and bynum . Plus im sure wade and lebron would love to team with rondo/doc/and ainge !

Lets just stop about this Lebron talk..Its really a pipe dream that even if we have a ton of capspace, reading into Lebron's demeanor he will not and would never want to be a Celtic...The guy has an ego of a martian so if there is ever a big market team he would consider its the Knicks...He won't even consider the Bulls where he would undoubtedly be always behind MJ's cloak, Boston, no chance as there are so many ghosts here of the pasts that will overshadow Lebron...In NY, Its just Willis Reed, and we all know Lebron is Head and Shoulders above Reed specially if you ask the generation of today who have basically forgotten about NY's past. Lets be realistic of our expectations people..we can talk perhaps about the Melo's, Joe Johnson or even KD but LEbron...Ain't HAPPENING!!!!

[Ohio Celtics Fan]

Why in the world people want to go back to winning 24 games a year escapes me.

this.

[Hila]

There is one LeBron. There are half a dozen teams who pinned their futures on him choosing them. Most of those teams will get  nothing. The Celtics don't need to add themselves to those odds, especially since Boston isn't LeBron's kind of place. He wants to stay home or go to one of the biggest markets. Either way, he wants to be THE MAN, which is hard to do with a historically successful franchise like the Celtics. And since the Cavs have been eliminated from the playoffs by the Celtics twice in the last three years, joining the Celtics would be even more of a "betrayal" than leaving the Cavs for, say, the Knicks or the Bulls. It won't happen.

It's also bad business (long term) to send Pierce on his way to clear cap space after all Pierce has done in a Celtics uniform. The Celtics want a reputation as an organization that takes good care of its players rather than treating them as commodities. That makes the Celtics more attractive to future free agents they actually have a chance of getting.

You know how a teenage Dwyane Wade watched his hometown team separate with Jordan and Pippen on bad terms? And now that he's a megastar, he doesn't know if he wants to go home because he doesn't think the Bulls are loyal?

Penny wise and pound foolish to let Pierce go for economic reasons. He's been the face of the franchise for too long.

[Fan from VT]

There is one LeBron. There are half a dozen teams who pinned their futures on him choosing them. Most of those teams will get  nothing. The Celtics don't need to add themselves to those odds, especially since Boston isn't LeBron's kind of place. He wants to stay home or go to one of the biggest markets. Either way, he wants to be THE MAN, which is hard to do with a historically successful franchise like the Celtics. And since the Cavs have been eliminated from the playoffs by the Celtics twice in the last three years, joining the Celtics would be even more of a "betrayal" than leaving the Cavs for, say, the Knicks or the Bulls. It won't happen.

It's also bad business (long term) to send Pierce on his way to clear cap space after all Pierce has done in a Celtics uniform. The Celtics want a reputation as an organization that takes good care of its players rather than treating them as commodities. That makes the Celtics more attractive to future free agents they actually have a chance of getting.

You know how a teenage Dwyane Wade watched his hometown team separate with Jordan and Pippen on bad terms? And now that he's a megastar, he doesn't know if he wants to go home because he doesn't think the Bulls are loyal?

Penny wise and pound foolish to let Pierce go for economic reasons. He's been the face of the franchise for too long.

I agree that Lebron is an impossibility, so it's not worth cutting ties with Pierce for a .5% chance of that.

However, I don't buy the "loyalty" argument at all. I think it's worse business long term to be signing players to long, over-market contracts based on "loyalty." Players don't really think about the historical loyalty of a team that much, particularly when they are still entering their primes. Yes, palyers are concerned about the skill and committment of ownership, but more in the sense that they want to be sure the owners will pay to surround a star with talent and commit to winning; this is the reason that the big FA's don't trust chicago or the clippers. It's not that those franchises have done wrong in the past, it's that players don't trust them to be competent now.

I think Wyc and Ainge have clearly demonstrated the talent and commitment to build a winning team; if Lebron wanted to come to Boston, the Celts should absolutely cut whatever ties they have with KG, Pierce, Allen, whatever they need to clear to sign him. then, 5-8 years down the road when it was time for the next era, do you really think a free agent would dwell on the fact that some well-past 30 year olds were cast aside to sign the best player of our generation? No. THey'd see a winning franchise committed to putting winning teams out there.