Just to continue down this road a little more. Presumably the Celtics will cut Banton over the summer. If they were somehow able to make a Hauser-Murphy trade happen, and replaced Banton on the roster with pick 40, they would be about $1.5 million over the tax. At the deadline, it would likely not be difficult to move 1 or 2 players from the list of Scheierman, Harper Jr., Walsh, Williams, and Shulga who had fallen out of or were never in the rotation and replace them with a rest-of-season signing, ducking under the tax.
I know there are people out there who want a center (and I am among them), but a world where we swap out Hauser for Murphy, stay under the tax, and get rid of the repeater before some extensions kick in the next two seasons is the type of move that both both extends the title window while making a title itself that much more possible.
And now I am done because I know that Murphy is not going to shuffle up to Boston no matter how hard I might wish it.