Fournier is not coming back based off the latest and greatest. Just awful.
https://twitter.com/murf56/status/1421538433042898946?s=21
https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/07/31/0731-bh-s-fournier/
Yep. Funny how Boston and NY are both in active negotiations despite the anti-tampering period.
$20 mil a year is a lot but wouldn't the C's still have to do that deal rather than let him walk for nothing?
Not necessarily. Part of what the Cs have been doing with all these moves is get rid of players who are too expensive and create financial flexibility going forward (Dunn and Richardson have expiring contracts).
Flexibilty is great but the team is worse this year.
At this point, we should just trade Smart for a matching expiring contract and a future 1st. If we are going to let him go anyway, it would be nice to add a future pick. It’s not like we are trying to climb the standings next season.
If that's true it's just another wasted years off Brown and Tatum's prime. 
Brown and Tatum are still 2 years or so from entering their prime, at a minimum.
Heck, it can be argued that Giannis Antetokounmpo still hasn't reached his prime at 26 years old. Most consider NBA stars in their prime between the ages of 27 and 32.
But we should be trying to be competitive though, no? Another season of
.500 ball because the pieces around them are not very good just makes me queasy.
The team should at least be making a case as to why they should spend their primes in Boston. So far the message is ownership is willing to build around them, but not if it means they have to spend money.
Yeah this is the kind of risk adverse mentality that may convince Tatum and Brown to look elsewhere.
If the Celtics land Beal in free agency, the Jays are not going to care one bit that management decided to go all in for a title in 2022-23 rather than 2021-22.
If for all we know, Beal probably wants to stay in Washington. The Wizards did well getting out of Westbrook's contract.
If the numbers in the other thread are correct, we'd have to clear every single player from our books other than Brown, Tatum, Pritchard and Nesmith, and stash our #1 pick, and we *still* wouldn't have quite enough for a max contract for Beal.
So, it sounds like it's not really in the cards. All the talk about flexibility, etc., is really about getting the folks to stay invested in the team while Wyc refuses to fund a competitive team.
It's doable, but we'd have to gut our team in the process. What did you expect? We already have one max contract (Tatum) and one close-to max contract (Brown). Of course we'd have to clear the books. That's usually the price you have to pay for a legit big 3. I mean, the Lakers have just 4 guaranteed contracts right now: their big 3 + Gasol. They did it via trade, but they gutted their team anyway.
Btw, Westbrook is a terrible fit on the Lakers! I absolutely loved that trade from a Celtics perspective! 
To add Beal, our team would be:
Room exception / Vet min / Vet min
Tatum / Vet min / Vet min
Brown / Nesmith / Vet min
Beal / Vet min / Vet min
Pritchard / Vet min / Vet min
That team isn't contending for a long, long time.
It seems more sensible to actually build a competitive team around players that other teams might actually want in trade.