Salary Cap Future

[hwangjini_1]

First, let's assume that the cap stays right around 56 million dollars and doesn't rise or fall too much. So, what is the true financial flexibility of the team in the next few years? I'll get this going with some assumptions of my own, then we can mess around with it as we all come to consensus on different options. For now, I will assume no major blockbuster trades.

Observation:
After next season, if we extend Rondo and make no other moves, we will still be over the cap. Rondo is one of our few pieces whose value is actually going up, so I'm assuming he will get an extension. I gave him a reasonable 5 year deal, starting at 8 million with 10% raises. Probably the low end of what he'll get.

Ensuing Assumptions:
Since we are over the cap if Rondo signs such an extension, and the only players under contract going into the 2010-11 season are: KG, Pierce, Rondo, Perk, Walker, Giddens, the #58 pick from this draft, the 22-30 pick from the 2010 draft, and the 50-60th pick from the 2010 draft, they'll need more players. Of course, they're over the cap. So the can only offer the MLE. On the one hand, in this 2010 offseason there are a lot of very good free agents. On the other hand, there will be a lot of teams with a lot of cap room, so the likelihood of the C's outbidding anyone using just the MLE is very small. Thus, let's say the C's use their bird rights to sign Ray to a 3 year 24 million dollar extension, a significant paycut.

Additionally, let's assume that Danny knows there's no cap space coming soon, so he locks up Davis this offseason (2009) at a reasonable 5 yr/14 mil deal (2.5 with 5% raises). Obviously, we're also in the hunt for a title next year, so let's say we sign Sheed or McDyess to a reasonable, 4 yr. 13 million dollar deal (3 mil with 5% raises). And, because the window of opportunity is closing, let's assume the C's continue to make these reasonable MLE deals for the next couple seasons.


Now the 2011 offseason rolls around.  Perk will still be young when his contract is up, so let's say he signs a deal starting at 6 mil per year with 10% raises in the 2011 offseason. Even if Ray's extension had only been for 1 year, with reasonable extensions for Rondo and Perk and with a few bargain MLE deals thrown in, the C's are still at the cap limit! Knowing this, they use bird rights to extend Pierce for 8 mil per year, and knowing this would be the case they've already given Ray his 8 mil per year.

What's amazing is that if the C's end up making all of the above "reasonable" deals to keep the core together (major discounted short deals for Ray and Paul, reasonable extensions for Rondo, Perk, and Davis, signing their rookies (at a low estimate), and making some cheap MLE signings (with longer-term money in order to have something with which to entice the MLE players), the Celtics will still be at the cap when KG's deal expires, when Ray is 37, Pierce 35, and KG 36. How many stars have maintained their effectiveness to those ages? What are the odds that all 3 of our stars are able to do so, considering we've already seen obvious slippage?

I'm not necessarily advocating blowing up the C's, I'm simply pointing out that these are the factors to consider when stating things like "just sign Ray to a nice discount extension when his contract expires," or "lock up Baby for a reasonable price" or "go ahead and sign a cheap MLE deal for multiple years." Such moves are certainly nice at the time, but pretty soon you're staring at a 2012 offseason in which there have been no high draft picks, there is not (and hasn't been) any cap room with which to add a player entering his prime, the core of the team has an average age of 36. I think this is what many people are thinking about when they consider trading allen for younger pieces. There is literally no way for the foreseeable future to replace ray's salary slot or his production without trading him, since free agency is realistically out of the question for several more years as long as the C's continue adding pieces in order to win now. Therefore, it's not so much that the C's need to get players better than Ray if they trade Ray now, they need to get talent from a team trying to shed money, since the C's arent going to have any flexibility anyway, and the talent they need to get needs to be close to Ray now and better than Ray when Ray is 35-37.



To be honest, without trading Ray this offseason, I can see the C's making a deep playoff run next year, then be mired for 3 years or so in the 5-7 seed spot with no chance at a stud rookie or a title.




(I know it's hard to read charts on this blog; i'll try to toy with it to get it readable.)

Name       2008-2009                  2009-2010           2010-2011            2011-2012            2012-2013

Garnett    $24,750,000.00     $16,400,000.00     $18,800,000.00     $21,200,000.00

Pierce    $18,077,903.00     $19,795,712.00     $21,513,521.00     $8,000,000.00     $8,000,000.00

R Allen    $17,388,430.00     $18,776,860.00     $8,000,000.00     $8,000,000.00     $8,000,000.00

Rondo    $1,646,784.00           $2,623,326.00       $8,000,000.00    $8,800,000.00    $9,680,000.00

Perkins    $4,078,880.00        $4,250,000.00     $4,390,208.00     $6,000,000.00     $6,600,000.00

Scala    $3,206,897.00     $3,413,793.00

L Powe    $797,581.00

G Pruitt    $711,517.00     $729,005.00

G Davis    $711,517.00     $2,500,000.00     $2,625,000.00     $2,756,250.00     $2,894,062.50

T Allen    $2,500,000.00     $2,500,000.00

Giddens    $957,120.00     $1,028,880.00     $1,100,640.00     $1,986,655.00     $2,979,982.00

House    $2,650,000.00     $2,862,000.00

Walker    $542,114.00       $736,420.00         $854,389.00           $916,100.00

2009-2010 MLE                $3,000,000.00    $3,150,000.00     $3,307,500.00     $3,472,875.00

2010-2011 MLE                                                 $3,000,000.00     $3,150,000.00     $3,307,500.00

2011-2012 MLE                                                                                 $3,000,000.00     $3,150,000.00

2012-2013 MLE                                                                                                                  $3,000,000.00

2009-10 2nd                         $600,000.00         $600,000.00           $600,000.00

2010-11 1st                                                           $1,200,000.00     $1,320,000.00     $1,452,000.00

2010-11 2nd                                                           $600,000.00         $600,000.00       $600,000.00

2011-12 1st                                                                                         $1,200,000.00     $1,320,000.00

2011-12 2nd                                                                                           $600,000.00     $600,000.00

2012-13 1st                                                                                                                          $1,200,000.00

2012-13 2nd                                                                                                                       $600,000.00

Total   $78,018,743.00    $79,215,996.00     $73,833,758.00    $71,436,505.00    $56,856,419.50

Edit:
Red=Team Option
Green=Estimate (often an underestimate, i.e. the 1st round picks will likely be more expensive as the team slips; they were based loosely on Giddens' salary at the 30th pick)
Blue=Player option

wow. very good work. thanks for a thoughtful piece. now i have reread it since there is so much info. but that is a good thing...to find something on the web worth reading twice is rare.

thanks and tp.

[QuinielaBox]

Man, thats a heckuva job on that future spreadsheet.

My philosophy is to go all out for a championship in 2010. If that means letting Davis go and signing up McDyess so be it. We also need to see what Scal's and Tony Allen's expiring deals can net us. Remember it is a buyers market for FA's and a sellers market on players with expiring deals. Too high a supply and low demand dictates bargains this summer working in the Celtics favor.

Good luck to Eddie if he tests the FA market this summer. Shooters are a dime a dozen.

Boston stands to gain little from the draft the next couple of years.

A lot depends on Wyc's budget. Hopefully, he understands that a 18th championship will add 5 times the value of his franchise that an added luxery tax will (Positive future cash flow, Baby!!).

[hwangjini_1]

Man, thats a heckuva job on that future spreadsheet.

My philosophy is to go all out for a championship in 2010. If that means letting Davis go and signing up McDyess so be it. We also need to see what Scal's and Tony Allen's expiring deals can net us. Remember it is a buyers market for FA's and a sellers market on players with expiring deals. Too high a supply and low demand dictates bargains this summer working in the Celtics favor.

Good luck to Eddie if he tests the FA market this summer. Shooters are a dime a dozen.

Boston stands to gain little from the draft the next couple of years.

A lot depends on Wyc's budget. Hopefully, he understands that a 18th championship will add 5 times the value of his franchise that an added luxery tax will (Positive future cash flow, Baby!!).

i will agree. i doubt this team with its big 3 has much chance to win beyond the next 2 years.

davis is nice, but he is not bringing in any championships. once the big 3 fall apart or lose their elite skills, the celtics will sprial down quickly.

at that point, davis, powe, or walker are not about to carry this team any where important.

hate to say it, but the future is now. ainge should go for broke and build now now.

when the team falls apart, then start rebuilding again and hope mchale and wallace are still GMs someplace in the nba.

[Fan from VT]

you have made some heroic assumptions about future spending.

Good defensive centers like Perk have been getting $8 million to $12 million per year.

It was estimated that Davis would get about $5 million per year before his great play in the playoffs. Now he could get MORE than that also.

Rondo was called a TOP 5 point guard by most NBA commentators in the playoffs. Top 5 point guards get MAX. Contracts. Next year that would be about $14 million for someone with Rondo's years of service.

So our financial commitment to "staying where we were this season" is higher than you state.

[And thats without replacing Powe, Marbury, Moore etc.]

If we stand pat do we think we can win another championship?

yes, I intentionally UNDER estimated the spending, to show how tricky Ainge's job is becoming in terms of running a reasonably priced roster.

[snively]

Boo to cap space.  Let's just keep the players that are good enough to build around at any cost (Rondo's good enough, IMO) and sign the supporting players to tradeable contracts (Perk, Powe, Old Big 3)

[WedmanIsMyHero]

Great work on the spreadsheeet.  I agree with Hobbs and others that the Celtics should do what they have to do to try and win a title in 2010.  However, after that, the prospects for the Celtics winning a title are very, very small.  The Big 3 will age, just like the original Big 3 aged, and the Celtics will sink into mediocrity.

You don't want cap space for its own sake, but unless you have a transcendent star, which the Celtics will not have in a few years once the Big 3 have aged, you either try to get one in free agency or through the draft.

If you don't have a transcendent star, you don't win a title.  Every championship team except the '04 Pistons proves this.  As the Big 3 ages (i.e. after 09-10), the key is to try and get someone who can compete with D-Wade, Carmelo, Dwight Howard, LeBron, and Kobe.

If the Celtics can't do that, they will never win a title while those guys are in the league.  I hate to be pessimistic, but there is a not insubstantial chance that the Celtics are in for a really rocky ride after next year, unless they shed salaries and try to free up more cap space.

Boo to cap space.  Let's just keep the players that are good enough to build around at any cost (Rondo's good enough, IMO) and sign the supporting players to tradeable contracts (Perk, Powe, Old Big 3)

[paintitgreen]

My thoughts:

1. Rondo won't come that cheap, though I also don't think he'll cost anything in the max range. He is very fortunate to be coming up in the 2010 summer though, because a lot of teams will be trying to clear room and when pretty much every big star stays put, the teams who saved up will have to spend it somewhere - a talented young point guard isn't a bad fallback for a team overpaying. But I think Rondo likes it here and I think, if you combined it with a Ray Allen extension, so that Rondo's favorite teammate sticks around a couple more years, I think a 5-$55 million contract is realistic. For Ray, I think about 3-$25-27 or 4-$30-32 seems like a pretty solid deal. You'd have your starting backcourt set for two more years with that (I think Ray becomes a sixth man around 2011-12).

I don't think that Davis deal is realistic, I've been thinking shorter term (so he gets back out in free agency in a couple years) with a little more per year makes more sense. Something like 2-$6-7. I also think a 3-$7-8 deal for Powe makes sense too. Lately I've been thinking a sign and trade combining Davis with expiring deals of Scal and TA for some better bench players (either a center or a big 3 who can shoot, defend and play some small ball minutes at the 4 under a longer deal with a cash-strapped team as the centerpiece) would be a good way to max out the trade value of Davis and Scal. TA is just filler - he sucks but has $2.5 mil expiring.

Also, when we extend Perk, I think he's gonna be getting more than a $7 mil average, I think you're looking more at 5-$45 or something in that neighborhood. 

Other than that, I like your thought process and appreciate the work.

[RebusRankin]

I agree we need to go all out for 2009/2010. However I don't think its over after next year. I think we can get two more years out of the big 3 and in 2011 we will still have two nice pieces in Rondo and Perkins. Plus KG, Pierce and Ray will still have value.