Welcome back, Green Kornet!
I'm less enthusiastic about giving Hauser the spot, but we'll see how he does. I would have just kept him on the two-way and signed him in the off-season.
My hope with Hauser is that they actually signed him to a deal with a non-guaranteed year 2 for next season. Feels like the type of detail that gets overlooked in Woj tweets.
Based on various websites, it looks like Hauser did indeed get signed for a second year. Next year is a team option, with $300k guaranteed if the C’s pick up that option.
Makes sense I guess. I’m just wondering why we didn’t keep him on the two-way, and then give him a two year minimum deal (or more, if we dipped into the MLE).
Because his prorated salary is $250k less than a vet free agent, and that might be decisive as to staying under the luxury tax. We were required to add two contracts that weren’t 10-days on Friday, so Hauser was the cheapest guy we could add who was in our system.
Where's the tax situation now?
Depends what bonuses you want to assume. I've got it at $1.217 million assuming Jaylen makes the All-Star team but misses his team performance bonuses (49 team wins and 2nd round of playoffs. I'm pretty sure those are two separate bonuses each worth $482k, but it might be a single bonus of $964k). This also assumes that Derrick White hits his games played bonus (70 games) of $500k but misses his all-defense ($250k) and 3-pointers bonus ($500k). He's on pace for games, not for 3s. All-defense is a crap shoot, of course, but my guess is no. I think Smart will make it from the Celtics, and they probably aren't going to give the C's two All-Defense backcourt members.
So if Jaylen is not added to the All-Star game this weekend, the C's should be in the clear of the tax, and I would look for them to add 1-2 players coming out of the All-Star break. If he is, the C's will likely go with 10-day contracts the rest of the way to meet the minimum roster requirements, with some signings the last day of the season to be eligible for the playoffs. This strategy could change if Jaylen misses 3 more games or the C's fall below the 49-win threshold. They have to go 16-8 the rest of the way to reach it, which is a high bar but certainly not impossible given how they've played of late. Long story short, it's possible signing Hauser instead of even Brodric Thomas is the difference between avoiding the tax and being a taxpayer.
