A lot may depend on what we do with Grant. If we keep Grant, then I think we are fine with the big (PF/C) rotation of Porzingis, Horford, RWill, Grant, Kornet, and maybe a 2-way player to add. If we sign Grant, the focus should be a Richardson or Oubre type of player, a G/F wing type. But if we don't sign Grant, we may need to address back up PF first.
Free agency is going to be interesting. Oubre for example is coming off of a $12.6M contract, essentially a non-taxpayer MLE. Is he going to be happy with some or all of the taxpayer MLE ($5M or less)? Is he going to have any other options? I don't see where the money is going to come from for players like this (Grant included).
As to the Celtics, we probably are not even going to be able to offer the full non-taxpayer MLE. There will be fill out the roster holds added to our current salary of about $173M (the second apron I believe is $179.5M). We got out of having a first round pick (and guaranteed contract) but we still have so little room to maneuver, basically all we can do is sign/match Grant and offer min contracts, and of course sign draft picks.
I am not sure how it works for Begarin. Can we sign him even if we are over the second apron? And how about Davison, can we sign him if we are over? I guess we can to min contracts?
Yes, we can sign any player we have rights to, within certain parameters. We can actually give Davison a small raise over the minimum, because we have his non-Bird rights. With Begarin, Walsh, and Madar, there is rumor of an exception for second-round picks in the new CBA, but I’ve yet to find details of how much that exception is for.
Thanks, that makes sense. I know you have said this also that I think people should prepare for signing Grant and then rounding out with Walsh, Davison, Bergarin, and maybe Griffin or some other very much at the end of their career vet min guys.
Grant is better than anyone we can realistically get to replace him at PF. I hope he stays. His perimeter defense at PF could be very valuable to have if slower bigs like Porzingis and Timelord struggle to defend high quality PFs.
The problem is, if we sign Grant:
1) We pay a level of tax Wyc probably isn't comfortable with;
2) We enter year one of the 2nd apron repeater tax;
3) We lose the MLE to upgrade at wing
4) We'd have to trade him or another chunk salary next season to get under the more punitive second apron.
I've made this point before, but I continue to think the c's should, for this year, not be afraid to go over the second apron.
1) Losing the MLE doesn't really matter. Its a 5.0 million salary vs the 10 year vet min of 3.2 million. The difference in player you'll get with the tax MLE is minimal, maybe nonexistent.
2) There are no other team building penalties this year for being over, but in the following years there are. The C's, really any team, are pretty unlikely to go over the 2nd apron for more than a year or two at most once those kick in. With that in mind I'd not sure the "repeater" status really matters, because in effect I expect the c's will treat the 2nd apron as more or less a hard cap once the penalties kick in.
3) The only REAL reason not to go over the 2nd apron this year is your point #4, which is you'd have to dump a salary next year to avoid the 2nd apron. Thats a fair point. But whether that's a good idea all depends on the contract grant signs. If you sign him to a contract that you think will have value a year from now then you should be able to move him pretty easily to some rebuilding team with cap space becasue he's only 24 years old and a great shooter and teams always want.
I don't think Grant should automatically be gone, if the contract he gets is reasonable match it.
Topic: Celtics free agent pick ups: (Read 5601 times)