OTOH, we have 21 million coming off the books in 2010. Considering that we have no first-round draft pick next season, and that we will be resigning some players along the way, that still leaves ~10 million to play with. I cannot stress how huge this will be. It will give the team the option to add a quality player to add to an aging but very skilled group of veterans. In addition, the team will have Bird rights on Allen, so when we're done with free agents, he can be easily resigned.
Please read my post above. If we go into 2010 with *only* Pierce, KG, Perk, Giddens, and Rondo (unsigned, meaning he's playing for the qualifying offer) we have less than $7 million in cap space. To get that cap space, we would need to renounce *all* of our own free agents. If you sign *any* player for more than the rookie minimum, that amount would go down even further.
(Also, in order to be able to use that cap space, we'd have to renounce both the MLE and LLE.)
I forgot to count Rondo's qualifying offer, true.
On the other hand, the cap is unlikely to stay at $58 million, so another 1-2 million will probably come from there. Likewise, I don't see many free agents that will command significant money. The bottom line is, the future flexibility argument is as moot as people think it is.
I don't think you're fully comprehending my post, kozlodoev (which I can't blame you for, since the CBA is fairly complicated).
* Right now, our payroll is approximately $49 million in 2010.
* To that, we need to add something called a "cap hold" to Rondo's 2009 salary. That's going to be right around $6 million (for reasons explained in the 2008 Salary Cap FAQ in the Celtics Talk forum).
* We need to further add a "cap charge" equal to the rookie minimum for the number of players needed to get our roster to 12. That's going to be around $3.6 million.
* Thus, our payroll *for salary cap purposes* will be around $58.6 million going into 2010.
* If the cap goes up to around $65 million (a reasonable projection) that means that in terms of "cap space", we'd have about $6.4 million.
* Teams can't have both cap space and the MLE / LLE. That means we'd have to renounce the MLE if we wanted to take advantage of the $6.4 million.
So, in 2010, we're really not in all that advantageous a position in reference to the salary cap. 2011 is a different story, of course, but for 2010, it's impossible for us to get any real room.
(Keep in mind this is an off-hand explanation; the figures may be off slightly, but they're close. Check out the FAQ for more precise details.)