Our bigs going forward

[Who]

I don't think that Bulpett is connected any more, and Heavy.com tends to be sensationalist, but:

But per Heavy?s Steve Bulpett, sighting front-office sources, revealed roughly what Kornet could land in free agency.

?Kornet?s clearly in for a payday,? said the source to Bulpett. ?Steven Adams got three years at $13 million per, and (Daniel) Gafford got $60 million over three years. The non-taxpayer mid-level exception is around 13 million; I?ll be surprised if Kornet doesn?t come in close to that.

?He scouts well. He?s still definitely a backup, but the question is what he?ll do when he gets more minutes than he did with the Celtics. He was playing for the minimum, and he?s going to do much better than that. I think he?s looking at $10 million per.?

Good luck to whatever team pays Luke that.

I think Kornet is a minimum contract player still. He is just surrounded by quality teammates who make him passable.

Kornet might have a chance at around $5mil a year. That is about what the mini-MLE ($5.7mil) is. So maybe he gets the mini-MLE from someone.

Kornet has 8 years now under his belt. Minimum contract for that is roughly $3mil. I'd say that is his range $3-6mil. If he gets more than that, he is being grossly overpaid.

[blink]

I don't think that Bulpett is connected any more, and Heavy.com tends to be sensationalist, but:

But per Heavy?s Steve Bulpett, sighting front-office sources, revealed roughly what Kornet could land in free agency.

?Kornet?s clearly in for a payday,? said the source to Bulpett. ?Steven Adams got three years at $13 million per, and (Daniel) Gafford got $60 million over three years. The non-taxpayer mid-level exception is around 13 million; I?ll be surprised if Kornet doesn?t come in close to that.

?He scouts well. He?s still definitely a backup, but the question is what he?ll do when he gets more minutes than he did with the Celtics. He was playing for the minimum, and he?s going to do much better than that. I think he?s looking at $10 million per.?

Good luck to whatever team pays Luke that.

So if the market for Luke is really in the $10 million range, we probably don't have the ability to keep him, unless we move Hauser and Niang?

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Kornet is no Steven Adams or Daniel Gafford. Bitazde or Landale's contract is the ceiling. Richards or Drummond's contract is a reasonable comp.

I'd be willing to give him long-term security on a 2-3 year contract, but the number should not be more than 5-8 million per year.

[keevsnick]

I don't think that Bulpett is connected any more, and Heavy.com tends to be sensationalist, but:

But per Heavy?s Steve Bulpett, sighting front-office sources, revealed roughly what Kornet could land in free agency.

?Kornet?s clearly in for a payday,? said the source to Bulpett. ?Steven Adams got three years at $13 million per, and (Daniel) Gafford got $60 million over three years. The non-taxpayer mid-level exception is around 13 million; I?ll be surprised if Kornet doesn?t come in close to that.

?He scouts well. He?s still definitely a backup, but the question is what he?ll do when he gets more minutes than he did with the Celtics. He was playing for the minimum, and he?s going to do much better than that. I think he?s looking at $10 million per.?

Good luck to whatever team pays Luke that.

So if the market for Luke is really in the $10 million range, we probably don't have the ability to keep him, unless we move Hauser and Niang?

If its 10 million, probably not. But I'm skeptical he'll really get 10 million. He's probably worth that in a vacuum but somebody actually has to actually....

1) Need a center
2) Not want to give those center minutes to a young guy
3) Have the full MLE to spend
4) Does not have other targets with that full MLE

Now it only takes one team, but Kornet was in a similar spot lats year and resigned here. Comparing what a guy will get in free agency to what players who are re-signing with their teams on extension a year out isn't necessarily a fair comparison. With liberal extension rules teams can often pay guy more on extension then they'll even get in free agency, and they do so because those guys become tradeable matching salaries.

I think a contract more in line with the taxpayer MLE is a good target for a Celtics extension. They have bird rights so they could do something like a three-year deal at a number just over the tax-mle which i think would still be good value for Luke.

[Birdman]

Not a fan of Luke as he is not starter material

[blink]

Not a fan of Luke as he is not starter material

I don't think we have much of a choice.

[Vermont Green]

I think a contract more in line with the taxpayer MLE is a good target for a Celtics extension. They have bird rights so they could do something like a three-year deal at a number just over the tax-mle which i think would still be good value for Luke.

I have been plugging in $6M for Kornet in my salary forecast spreadsheet.  I hope Keevsnick and others are right that this is the ceiling for his market.  I also agree that if it gets much higher than that, he probably is not coming back.  I think we could sign and trade Kornet if a team had a TPE they wanted to use on him (more 2nd round picks, whoo hooo).

[Vermont Green]

Not a fan of Luke as he is not starter material

I don't think we have much of a choice.

Only the starter for the lost season (2025-26) or gap year as people like to call it.  Who cares.  We would need to find a better solution for the start of 2026-27 and then Kornet can go back to being a very reliable bench guy.  That is why you sign Kornet now.  Even if you don't think Kornet is a starter, once he is gone, he will be hard to replace.

[Birdman]

If 25-26 gotta be a ?lost? season, can Celtics get someone on a one year deal or 2 like Andre Drummond, Thomas Bryant, Moritz Wagner or Charles Bassey on a cheap contract? Rather do that then give Kornet 8-10 million a year deal