I have a feeling next year's team might look a lot like this year's team. Or at least, like this year's team was supposed to look before Green's heart issues. And that's probably a good thing (?).
First off, according to Hoopshype, if the Celtics renounce all their free agents they have about $35M in committed salary next year with Rondo, Pierce, Bradley, Bass and JJJ under contract. (I thought Moore might have signed a two year deal as well, but I'm not sure). I'm thinking Bass opts in at his $4M per year b/c he seems to like playing for the Celtics, and will likely be rewarded with a bigger payday down the road. See
http://hoopshype.com/salaries/boston.htmThat leaves about $23M in cap space (if the cap is around $58M). I think it's a foregone conclusion that the team signs Jeff Green. He appears to be part of the "family." Since they offered him $9M before the heart issue, I'll bet he receives a similar offer, with a lower staring salary and some options in case of health problems. So I'm just going to roll with a $7M number. That puts the team at about $42M.
I have a hard time seeing KG and Ray Allen going anywhere. They'll negotiate "wink-wink" discount deals with Ainge when the dust settles on the free agent market.
So, I see the starting five looking like:
Rondo
Pierce (moving to shooting guard)
Green
KG
(Center to be signed).
With Bradley, Ray Allen, Moore, Bass and JJJ as signed bench players.
Clearly the team should go after a new starting "big" alongside KG (bye-bye JO), and there appear to be a lot of players on the free agent list next year that could fill that role. Looking at Hoopshype, the following players are of interest:
Dwight Howard (pipe-dream)
Roy Hibbert (restricted)
Brook Lopez (restricted)
Chris Kaman
JaVale McGee (restricted)
Omer Asik,
Mehmet Okur
Hasheem Thabeet (team option)
Kosta Koufos (restricted)
Tim Duncan (Ha!)
J.J. Hickson
Jason Thompson (restricted)
Marreese Speights (restricted)
Anthony Randolph (restricted)
Ersan Ilyasova
Jason Maxiel (player option)
Ian Mahinmi
I deliberately left off a few ancient guys (Camby, Nazr Mohammed, Ben Wallace) in hopes Ainge will look to get younger.
I may be a homer, but I think you add one of the marquee bigs above, or a couple of the lesser guys, and the Celtics are still a contender. Thoughts?