2018-2019 Celtics potential rotation

[slightly biased bias fan]

Horford/Baynes/Williams
Tatum/Morris/Theis
Hayward/Ojeleye/Nader
Brown/*Smart/
Irving/Rozier/Wanamaker

Who will make the 15 man rotation? Yabusele? Allen? Bird? Larkin if he comes back? Ring chasing free agent?

*If Smart re-signs

[knuckleballer]

Looking at that rotation is basketball p0rn.

It's too early to give up on the Dancing Bear.  I don't expect anything from him at this point, but we need to give him another year.  I've seen enough from Nader and would rather give Bird a shot.

My only concern is players like Morris and Rozier getting upset over not getting enough minutes.

[CelticsElite]

This team is going to be like a video game

[Celtics4ever]

Hayward/Ojeleye/Nader

I am hoping Nader goes the way of the dodo!

[Roy H.]

Hayward/Ojeleye/Nader

I am hoping Nader goes the way of the dodo!

I didn’t realize this, but Nader is only $400k guaranteed. He can be “stretched” and we’d owe him virtually nothing this year.

[Celtics4ever]

I didn’t realize this, but Nader is only $400k guaranteed. He can be “stretched” and we’d owe him virtually nothing this year.

Nothing is about the effort he gives on defense.

[celticinorlando]

I hope Nadar is stretched. He is not going to do much for this team and the C's can get an actual player not a body.

[dreamgreen]

Yabu will be here unless traded he has guaranteed $ + I keep hearing they think he can become a player.

I'm hesitant to bring Smart back if he can't fit into his role = he can't jack up shot after shot! But we do need a little more guard depth looking at that roster.

[celticinorlando]

Yabu will be here unless traded he has guaranteed $ + I keep hearing they think he can become a player.

I'm hesitant to bring Smart back if he can't fit into his role = he can't jack up shot after shot! But we do need a little more guard depth looking at that roster.

Agree. Yabu and Nadar are just bench filler. Semi unless he improves his shot won't get much time. I still think Boston adds a shooter on the cheap at some point, although the market is drying up quickly.

I worry about bench scoring when Rozier, Smart and Morris all play together. They all seem to want to shoot lazy 3s

[detour]

I place Yabu over Nader, and I think ultimately we will have to let Smart go. I can see Smart getting paid about 10 m per year by a team that needs defensive identity and leadership (Suns?). We can pick up a cheap 3pt shooting SG, and we'll probably start with 14 players to keep our flexibility.

So it goes like:

Horford/Baynes/Williams
Tatum/Morris/Theis
Hayward/Ojeleye/Yabu
Brown/FA SG
Irving/Rozier/Wanamaker

My SG candidates in the UFA market, whom I believe we can get with the non-taxpayer MLE (8.8 m USD if I'm not mistaken):

Wayne Ellington: Good 3PT shooter, 6.3 m USD last year
Lance Stephenson: Lol why not, 4.2 m USD
Seth Curry: Coming off injury, a gamble tbh. 3 m USD

[bellerephon]

Horford/Baynes/Williams
Tatum/Morris/Theis
Hayward/Ojeleye/Nader
Brown/*Smart/
Irving/Rozier/Wanamaker

Who will make the 15 man rotation? Yabusele? Allen? Bird? Larkin if he comes back? Ring chasing free agent?

*If Smart re-signs

This is too rigid a way of looking at the rotation. I think it will be more like this:

Kyrie/Smart/Rozier/Wannamaker
Brown/Smart/Rozier
Hayward/Tatum/Brown/Morris
Tatum/Horford/Theis
Horford/Baynes/Williams

[Vermont Green]

If I understand correctly, we have 13 players under contract plus Robert Williams who we will almost certainly sign.  These players are as follows:

1.   Gordon Hayward (Wing)
2.   Al Horford  (Big)
3.   Kyrie Irving (PG)
4.   Jayson Tatum  (Wing)
5.   Aaron Baynes  (Big)
6.   Marcus Morris  (Big)
7.   Jaylen Brown  (Wing)
8.   Terry Rozier  (PG)
9.   Guerschon Yabusele  (Big)
10.  Abdel Nader  (Wing)
11,  Semi Ojeleye  (Big)
12.  Daniel Theis  (Big)
13.  Brad Wanamaker  (PG)
14.  Robert Williams*  (Big)

Now don't nit pick me on players that are "tweeners", I just assigned what i felt was the most natural position for each player.  That give us:

Point Guard       3  (Irving and Rozier main rotation, Wannamaker deep bench)
Wings (SG/SF)  4  (Brown, Tatum, Hayward main rotation, Nader deep bench)
Bigs                 7  (Horford, Baynes, Morris, Theis main rotation, Williams, Ojeleye, Yabu bench)

The cost for these players (assuming $1,800,000 for Williams) is $113,365,579 per Spotrac numbers, over the cap but under the Tax by about $8,500,000.  The Non-Taxpayer MLE is about $8,600,000 and still available to us.  I of course do not fully understand all of the cap options but it looks to me that we are not going to go into the tax this season and we can use nearly all of the Non-Tax MLE, most likely on Smart but if he gets a higher offer, then someone else.

By the straight roster position numbers, it seems we are heavy on Bigs but in reality, only Baynes, Horford, Theis, and Williams are "real" bigs with Morris, Ojeleye, and Yabu being tweeners.  Morris will likely get some main rotation minutes at the wing and as a big and I am not expecting much from Ojeleye and Yabu at either big or wing.

The whole point of this is that I think the picture for 2018 is pretty clear, barring a big trade.  Most likely we sign Smart to a short contract in the $8.0M range, possibly with early out for him or he takes the qualifying offer (about $6.0M).  If we sign Smart for $8.0M, we don't have much in season flexibility as we would be right against the tax.

If we don't sign Smart, I expect us to wait and see and not rush to spend the MLE unless something really good presents itself.