Currently, the Celts are capped out for next year, having a $73 million payroll for a salary cap that will be around $60 million.
However, theoretically, the Celtics could clear some decent cap space if KG retired. (This is more of a thought exercise than anything else, so feel free to nit pick). Here's how:
(All salary info found here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AodNvAy3ZYZmdGE3NDBqMElRUXh2REN4Q3pZRG1TU1E&gid=4)
1. KG formally retires. His $12.44 million comes off the books.
2. We waive Pierce. His salary counts as $5 million against our cap.
3. We "stretch" Jason Terry's contract over 5 years. His annual cap hit is $2.14 million.
4. We "stretch" Brandon Bass contract over 5 years. His annual cap hit is $2.67 million.
5. (I'm not sure if this is allowed:) We "stretch" Pierce's contract over 3 years. His annual cap hit is $1.67 million.
Under those circumstances, we'd have 6 players under contract, totaling approximately $31.4 million. Add in $6.5 million in dead money for waived players, around $2.5 million for "incomplete roster charges", and say $1.5 million for a draft pick.
Assuming a $60 million cap, that would leave us about $18 million in cap room, and a $2.575 million room exception. Does anybody think it's worth it?
EDIT: Also, we could actually clear a small bit more, if we decided to waive Terry or Green. We'd be limited to carrying around $9 million in dead money.