Green's qualifying offer withdrawn.. He is a UFA Sigh... Good for him I guess

[Yoki_IsTheName]

Yeesh.  Future is looking murkier and ominous..

Rajon Rondo, Brandon Bass, Paul Pierce, and tons of cap room.

Never under estimate the power of 34 million dollars of cap room. And that's with Bass accepting the player option. That's tons of money to offer to players, even if KG and Ray wanted to play for one more year, for about 5 million each of course, offering more than that with be ludicrous IMH. That would still be 24 million to work with.

There could be some solid FA's out there who, combined together could be a deadly team to put along Rondo and Pierce and Bass, KG and Ray (assuming again that they're here.)

Let's say Celtics have 20 million of cap room to work with and the names that can collectively be signed with it.

Chris Kaman (older but still solid),
Spencer Hawes (playing really good right now),
Wilson Chandler coming back from China (above average player with defense),
Landry Fields (solid),
Nick Young (scorer but a little problem on defense),
Boris Diaw (solid too and coachable)

I can see 4 of those 5 being signed along the 20 mil cap room range. There could probably some names I forgot as well. Plus two first rounders in next years loaded draft. I'm not worried about the future at all.

[heitingas]

Never under estimate the power of 34 million dollars of cap room. And that's with Bass accepting the player option. That's tons of money to offer to players, even if KG and Ray wanted to play for one more year, for about 5 million each of course, offering more than that with be ludicrous IMH. That would still be 24 million to work with.

There could be some solid FA's out there who, combined together could be a deadly team to put along Rondo and Pierce and Bass, KG and Ray (assuming again that they're here.)

Let's say Celtics have 20 million of cap room to work with and the names that can collectively be signed with it.

Chris Kaman (older but still solid),
Spencer Hawes (playing really good right now),
Wilson Chandler coming back from China (above average player with defense),
Landry Fields (solid),
Nick Young (scorer but a little problem on defense),
Boris Diaw (solid too and coachable)

I can see 4 of those 5 being signed along the 20 mil cap room range. There could probably some names I forgot as well. Plus two first rounders in next years loaded draft. I'm not worried about the future at all.

Our cap room is much less than that,it's 21 million at the most, if Bass opts out and our rookies and bradley removed,we have our 1st round picks to sign too.
A max free agent should get 18.5M so that leaves cap room to use on ray allen to be able to sign longterm.

[P2]

So we basically traded away Perk and Nate for nothing, and now we're headed in the same direction with Bass. So at the end of this season it's Perk + Nate + Fat Baby for nothing! Honestly, it's getting close this season, but next season I don't think we'll make the playoffs. Our best chance to get another ring was in 2010, we blew it, and now we can wait for the doom to come for us.

[JSD]

So we basically traded away Perk and Nate for nothing, and now we're headed in the same direction with Bass. So at the end of this season it's Perk + Nate + Fat Baby for nothing! Honestly, it's getting close this season, but next season I don't think we'll make the playoffs.

Don't discount the cap space. Team's get locked into mediocrity by investing their money into solid/good but NOT great players. I applaud Ainge for resisting this temptation.

[Yoki_IsTheName]

Never under estimate the power of 34 million dollars of cap room. And that's with Bass accepting the player option. That's tons of money to offer to players, even if KG and Ray wanted to play for one more year, for about 5 million each of course, offering more than that with be ludicrous IMH. That would still be 24 million to work with.

There could be some solid FA's out there who, combined together could be a deadly team to put along Rondo and Pierce and Bass, KG and Ray (assuming again that they're here.)

Let's say Celtics have 20 million of cap room to work with and the names that can collectively be signed with it.

Chris Kaman (older but still solid),
Spencer Hawes (playing really good right now),
Wilson Chandler coming back from China (above average player with defense),
Landry Fields (solid),
Nick Young (scorer but a little problem on defense),
Boris Diaw (solid too and coachable)

I can see 4 of those 5 being signed along the 20 mil cap room range. There could probably some names I forgot as well. Plus two first rounders in next years loaded draft. I'm not worried about the future at all.

Our cap room is much less than that,it's 21 million at the most, if Bass opts out and our rookies and bradley removed,we have our 1st round picks to sign too.
A max free agent should get 18.5M so that leaves cap room to use on ray allen to be able to sign longterm.

Hoopshype.com has the cap space at 34 mil though.

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/boston.htm

Either way, 20 mil or 34 mil is enough to get 2-3 solid players to help us be competitive. Most of the teams other than the bad one's are tied into salaries, and Boston with all this cap room could be looking like a good place to play for right now.

[heitingas]

34M is our payroll next season,the cap is 58M.

[BudweiserCeltic]

So we basically traded away Perk and Nate for nothing, and now we're headed in the same direction with Bass. So at the end of this season it's Perk + Nate + Fat Baby for nothing! Honestly, it's getting close this season, but next season I don't think we'll make the playoffs. Our best chance to get another ring was in 2010, we blew it, and now we can wait for the doom to come for us.

We didn't make the trade in order to have Green for the future. We traded for him because we were thin at the 3 position and the added cap flexibility. Whether we kept Green for the future or not was never the reason the trade was done. And the 1st round pick we got also.

[kozlodoev]

Just a hunch that after this season some team will offer him the full MLE to be a backup C in the rotation, and we'd probably match.

Match? What are you talking about? First, he's not unrestricted, and second, no-one (including us) is paying 5 million for a backup center who's playing ~10 minutes per game.

[TheReaLPuba]

People need to relax.

It was a bad game.

Every team has a few of them each season.

Get over it.

This team still isn't fully healthy yet and when it is and we get on a roll it's still a Championship caliber team.

[Celtics4ever]

Perk was not going to sign here anyways.  BTW his RPG are down to 5.3 per game this season so is he the same player he once was?

[Inside-Out]

Just a hunch that after this season some team will offer him the full MLE to be a backup C in the rotation, and we'd probably match.

Match? What are you talking about? First, he's not unrestricted, and second, no-one (including us) is paying 5 million for a backup center who's playing ~10 minutes per game.

You know, I didn't think he would be restricted, either, but Shamsports showed a QO for next year.  Unless I was reading it wrong...  

But I think he'll play those 10 min this season and prove he can handle backup duties.

And $5M is less than we paid JO or Sheed to backup Perk, or Gortat was paid to back up DH.  I'm pretty sure if he has a good season, a 3-5M MLE offer is quite possible next season.

[Inside-Out]

Perk was not going to sign here anyways.  BTW his RPG are down to 5.3 per game this season so is he the same player he once was?

Well, since his peak RPG season avg is only 8.1 and his career avg is only 6.1, AND he's still not playing 30 minutes/gm, I'd have to say he quite possibly IS the same player.

[kozlodoev]

People need to relax.

It was a bad game.

Every team has a few of them each season.

Get over it.

This team still isn't fully healthy yet and when it is and we get on a roll it's still a Championship caliber team.

No-one would be worried if it were "a few", but in our case half of the games are bad.

[tyrone biggums]

My thought is that people don't like to move around all over the place when they're in a pretty good situation as-is. 

So there's a home court advantage with UFA's, I think, especially like Bass and Green, and either might get $5-8M per year.

Rondo  11M
Pierce 16M
JGreen  6M
Bass  8M
Bradley 2M
JJJ  1M
Steimer 5M
EMoore  0.5M
Ray  5M
KG  10M
TOTAL:  $64.5M

Can we milk it a couple more years?

Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.?! If Steimer gets the MLE next year, we have a lot more issues than the team getting older.

[Yoki_IsTheName]

34M is our payroll next season,the cap is 58M.

oh, okay then. but still. 20 mil is good enough to get Ray and KG back for cheap. And 2 good players.

I'm liking Hawes in how he plays right now, i'd offer him 6-7 mil for that, and we'd still have the MLE.