The Celtics are in a tough spot. There aren't many stars in bad situations and with the pending cap increase, few teams will have trouble locking up the guys they want to keep. Also, the team has not been successful enough on the court to attract players who want to win.
Their best options may be the only available ones: Continue looking for lottery luck for at least this season, then acquire FAs who might be better than other teams think (Evan Turner types) and/or overpay for a young FA that other teams may not be willing to go so high on (Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Wesley Matthews, Greg Monroe, etc.). Since we're a bad team and the cap is going to increase, this probably means paying in the 12-16 million range.
They don't really have any other options. Stars want to go to teams ready to win now. Young stars will mostly be locked up by their original teams. Pending cap increase helps winning teams keep the excess talent they have and perhaps sign more. It's really not a good time to be a bad team that does not already have franchise players in place.
Another thing that would hurt is the potential playoff realignment. If they just take the 16 best teams the Celtics won't even be able to tell free agents "well in the East anybody could make the playoffs - it's wide open!"
Good points.
Sadly, the events of the summer of 2007 may have been something that we may never see again.
Looks live Silver wants to make this happen, but it is very unlikely he will secure enough votes. So, luckily for us we ll retain this advantage for the foreseeable future.
