I think it's possible we could get both Posey and Maggette

[indeedproceed]

I think it depends on how much the ownership is willing to spend. That is probably determined by how much they see they have made and are making by winning.

I could see it happening this way:

Maggette takes the full MLE.

With Pollard, House & TAllen off the books that's about $5mil. So if we then match a Posey offer sheet for $6 mil a year we are not that much futher in the hole financially...fill in the other two spots with lle and/or Vet min contracts...

It's possible.   

But we can't do that. Simply put, the league wouldn't allow it.

We have 5.8 Million we can spend on one or a combination of players

We have 1.91 Million we can spend on one player

We can sign any player to the vet minimum

If we had extended a qualifying offer to TA, we could have retained him without affecting our MLE or LLE, but resigning posey or house would absolutely require the MLE and/or LLE in the case of House.

While whether or not we use the MLE and LLE to sign players is the owner's prerogative, how much total we have to spend on players is not. Thats mandated by the league, and its the same for every team over the salary cap. This is completely unrelated to the luxury tax.

[LarBrd33]

I think it depends on how much the ownership is willing to spend. That is probably determined by how much they see they have made and are making by winning.

I could see it happening this way:

Maggette takes the full MLE.

With Pollard, House & TAllen off the books that's about $5mil. So if we then match a Posey offer sheet for $6 mil a year we are not that much futher in the hole financially...fill in the other two spots with lle and/or Vet min contracts...

It's possible.   

Posey is not a restricted free-agent, we can't match any offer sheet.

Man i'm surprised how confused a lot of people are about this stuff.  Matching Posey's offer sheet?  People just don't get it.

[Roy Hobbs]

Posey isn't a restricted free agent, so there is no offer sheet, and we have no right of first refusal.

[LarBrd33]

Ok I might not have all the figures entirely right, but I'll try to explain it (and people can correct me), but I'm pretty sure I have the general idea.

Every year most teams over the cap get the Mid Level Exception (like 5.8 million) and Low Level Exception (1.91 million)

So being that we are over the cap the most we can offer Maggette (the same with any team over the cap like the Spurs) is the full Mid Level Exception.   You can also offer him a multi-year deal which basically gives like an 8% raise each year.  I haven't done the math, but I think the most we could offer Maggette works out to like 5 years 32 million.

As for Posey... I'm pretty sure last year we just used part of our Mid Level Exception to sign Posey. We gave him like 3.2 million. 

That leaves us with a couple options with Posey.  #1 - we could sign him to a new deal using this year's MLE (meaning we couldn't also bring in Maggette)... or... we can just work with his previous contract.   Since he made 3.2 million last year I believe we could offer him a 20% raise for his first year and it would be 8% each year after that.    So the first year of his new contract could be like 3.8 million and then a 8% raise each year after that.   

Someone did the math earlier and apparently that means the max we could offer Posey right now (without using this year's MLE) would be like 5 years 22 million.

So in theory we could offer Maggette the MLE and a max 5 years 32 million.... while giving Posey a progression on his current contract... 5 years 22 million.   

There is another aspect of it though.   Once a player has been on your team for 3 years you have his "bird rights" and can basically offer him any kind of contract.   Think of Tony Allen for example... I'm pretty sure if the Celtics wanted to they could give him a contract right now where he'd make 12 million a year.  It's because we own Tony's bird rights.    So since Posey has been on our team for 1 year already, we could logically offer him a 2 year deal.  If we were to use the progression of his current contract and not offer him this year's MLE he could make like 3.8 this year and 4.1 next year.   Offer him a 2 year contract worth about 8 million dollars.  Then after those 2 years we would have his full bird rights and be able to offer him whatever the heck we wanted.  It's just a matter of whether or not Posey wants to take a someone's full MLE right now or take another pay cut to play for us.   I mean, if things worked out over the next two years and Posey was still as valuable as he is right now... we could then say "thanks posey... here is a big fatty 3 year 20 million dollar contract"

So in recap... here is what I would do if I were Ainge:

Offer Maggette the full MLE at whatever length he is comfortable with.

Offer Posey a 2 year deal starting at 3.8 million (the max we can offer without giving him the MLE).   Then put the pressure on Posey to perform well over those 2 years.  If he does, we will own his Bird rights at the end of the contract (he will have played on Boston for 3 years) and be able to offer him a massive contract regardless of our cap situation.



I'm sure someone like Roy Hobbs can correct my mistakes and clear up the options even more.

[Roy Hobbs]

Looks like a pretty solid assessent to me, LarBrd33.

[pearljammer10]

I agree with Hobbs on your assessment LarBrd...Fax that bit of info to Ainge ASAP...

[timepiece33]

Offer Posey a 2 year deal starting at 3.8 million (the max we can offer without giving him the MLE).   Then put the pressure on Posey to perform well over those 2 years.  If he does, we will own his Bird rights at the end of the contract (he will have played on Boston for 3 years) and be able to offer him a massive contract regardless of our cap situation.

So, he's supposed to expect us to take care of him when he is 32 or 33 with a long term contract above the MLE?  That sure seems like a leap of faith.

He'd be better off with a 3 year contract starting at the MLE AND IMO, he gets it.  Too many suitors not to expect one to offer that.   As a Celtic fan, I am comfortable offering him a 3 year deal at the MLE.   A 4 year deal becomes more questionable ... but then you are looking at Michael Pietrus as the best case scenario.

[D Dub]

Unless one of these guys is going to play backup pg, I see little reason to sign both.