Lonzo Ball...You tell me

[Surferdad]

So Ball and Langford replace Smart and Kemba.  Team gets worse, IMO.

[Birdman]

Ball would be a great fit with Tatum & Brown

[A Future of Stevens]

Cs need a microwave off the bench.

Kemba

Kemba is more air fryer

I am no expert on air fryers, but isn't the whole point that they can heat up to 300+ degrees almost instantly?

[CptZoogs]

Cs need a microwave off the bench.

Kemba

Kemba is more air fryer

I am no expert on air fryers, but isn't the whole point that they can heat up to 300+ degrees almost instantly?

Good point.  They're great for chicken thighs too!

[CptZoogs]

So if we were to get hardcapped, does that only affect the 21-22 season?  Or would there be ramifications down the line? 

Would a double sign-and-trade with Ball and EF trigger it as well?

[Sophomore]

So if we were to get hardcapped, does that only affect the 21-22 season?  Or would there be ramifications down the line? 

Would a double sign-and-trade with Ball and EF trigger it as well?

Hard cap lasts a year. Only triggers for the team that receives a signed and traded player, not for the team that sends. So, if Boston finds a trade partner and Fournier is on board, Boston could sign and trade Fournier and not be hard capped. But if they take Ball in by sign and trade they’re hard capped.

[td450]

I agree Lonzo would be a great fit for this team.

I do think there was a window last year where that could have been done and we didn't make it happen. I hope Stevens is able to be more aggressive. I still don't understand how Ainge went from one of the league's most aggressive GM's to where he was when he left. Something about the Kyrie/IT trade broke something deep inside him.

I would hope we could avoid Bledsoe. I'm OK taking back a bad contract, but he's not a guy I'd want around the team.

[Moranis]

i wont tell you it wont happen. but i will tell you that if it does happen the celtics become hard capped, and they would prefer not to go there.

This is not a rhetorical question: What’s the problem is they become hard-capped?

My guess is something to do with the luxury tax.

It’s a salary rule, but it’s different than the tax. With the tax, as long as you have the rights or exceptions, you can pay as much as you like. Want to pay $10 million in tax, or $50M or even $100M? There are ways that can happen. One reason we talk about maybe going deep into the tax is that the Cs have Bird rights for some expensive players and a bunch of traded player exceptions. Those (and a few other things) give the team flexibility to spend.

The hard cap is what it sounds like - hard limit a team can’t exceed no matter what. No mid-level exception, no Bird rights, no traded player exception. No nothing. Try to go above and the league disallows the trade. The hard cap is triggered if a team receives a signed and traded player (which Ball would be).

Next year, with Tatum’s big salary increase, the Cs start the year pretty close to where the hard cap will be. The analysts who follow this stuff (Smith, Karalis) say any realistic scenario that acquires Ball is hard to find, but they haven’t really shown their numbers so I can’t give chapter and verse. The gist is they might need to shed a lot of salary and at best it would seriously limit the team’s flexibility to pick up other pieces they need.

Yeah the only real way to do it is to not bring back Fournier and trade Walker out with no additional salary coming back (it could be a 3-team trade when we bring Ball in, send Walker to some team either in a pure dump or where they give up something to the Pelicans).  The team  isn't better in the short term and is probably only slightly better in the long term, which means it isn't worth doing.

[Who]

So if we were to get hardcapped, does that only affect the 21-22 season?  Or would there be ramifications down the line? 

Would a double sign-and-trade with Ball and EF trigger it as well?

Hard cap lasts a year. Only triggers for the team that receives a signed and traded player, not for the team that sends. So, if Boston finds a trade partner and Fournier is on board, Boston could sign and trade Fournier and not be hard capped. But if they take Ball in by sign and trade they’re hard capped.

Can they just sign Fournier first?

Then do the sign and trade for Lonzo afterwards?

Be hard capped for a year and back to normal the next summer. Does that work?

[Who]

I would hope we could avoid Bledsoe. I'm OK taking back a bad contract, but he's not a guy I'd want around the team.

I am curious what that means. Do you think he is a bad influence in the locker room? If so, why?

I am not aware of anything along those lines.

[Sophomore]

So if we were to get hardcapped, does that only affect the 21-22 season?  Or would there be ramifications down the line? 

Would a double sign-and-trade with Ball and EF trigger it as well?

Hard cap lasts a year. Only triggers for the team that receives a signed and traded player, not for the team that sends. So, if Boston finds a trade partner and Fournier is on board, Boston could sign and trade Fournier and not be hard capped. But if they take Ball in by sign and trade they’re hard capped.

Can they just sign Fournier first?

Then do the sign and trade for Lonzo afterwards?

Be hard capped for a year and back to normal the next summer. Does that work?

The Fournier hard cap comes off next year. I only brought him up as a contrast. We don’t get a new cap if we sign him and trade him out. We do get one if NOP signs Ball and trades him to us.

As to how the numbers would work, I defer to Moranis. Sounds like he knows them better than I do.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Dad aside, I still don't like him and he's a bad contract waiting to happen. Avoid at all cost. If anything wait until his contract is settled and trade for him then if the price is right, but even so I don't care for him at all.

[Celtics4ever]

Come on Lonzo, your dad hates us, come the Celtics it would be the ultimate revenge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!