Will the C's renounce all free agents this offseason?

[KGs Knee]

As a team that paid the luxury tax this year, Boston would only have a $3 million MLE instead of the $5 million MLE that non-tax-paying but over-the-cap teams get, even if they don't project to be over the luxury line this year.

I'd say I mostly agree with everything else you said in your post, except the part I've quoted.

If I'm reading this right, it seems you're suggesting the specific version of the MLE we would have to use next season is based on this season's luxury tax status.  Meaning, if the C's are over the tax-threshold in the 2011-12 season (which they are), we would only have the mini-MLE to use in the 2012-13 season.

I'm pretty sure this is wrong.  I'm pretty sure it's based on the specific season you're actually in.

[JSD]

That's a good point about the MLE.


What gives them the ability to use the big MLE under the new rule? Is it being over the cap but under the LT?

Exactly.  If they are over the cap (or just choose to use cap holds rather than cap space), then they get to use the MLE, they get to take back 150% (or $5 million extra) in trades, and they also get the LLE, as long as they do not go more than $4 million over the luxury tax threshold.

Ok sure, I'll concede, that adds to the value of not renouncing or only situationally doing it under the guise of staying in contention. But isn't anyone else worried about the quagmire of being mediocre in this league? How are we going to acquire a top player using this method? I can't help but feel like we are delaying the inevitable; that is, we need to be bad before we are good again.

[Chris]

That's a good point about the MLE.


What gives them the ability to use the big MLE under the new rule? Is it being over the cap but under the LT?

Exactly.  If they are over the cap (or just choose to use cap holds rather than cap space), then they get to use the MLE, they get to take back 150% (or $5 million extra) in trades, and they also get the LLE, as long as they do not go more than $4 million over the luxury tax threshold.

Ok sure, I'll concede, that adds to the value of not renouncing or only situationally doing it under the guise of staying in contention. But isn't anyone else worried about the quagmire of being mediocre in this league? How are we going to acquire a top player using this method? I can't help but feel like we are delaying the inevitable; that is, we need to be bad before we are good again.

I think the problem with mediocre isn't actually with being mediocre, it is with overpaying mediocre players on longterm contracts, which kills your flexibility to get better.

And I think Danny will not use his cap space, purely so he can avoid this trap. 

[slamtheking]

They haven't used cap space for years, which is why they still have small cap holds for guys like Olowokandi, Dana Barros, Mark Bryant, Roshown McLeod, and a big hold ($8.3 mil) for Krstic.

can you clarify this statement?  How are they still carrying cap holds on these players? 

Cap holds, as I understand them, apply to your FA's that are still unsigned and active.  The assumption is that the cap hold represents the financial slot these players will occupy on the team's roster when/if they resign with the team.  This doesn't go away until the player resigns with the team, signs elsewhere or stops playing. 

I can't imagine Danny would allow these long-retired players to continue to count against the team's cap when they should have been renounced (if that's even necessary) long ago. 

[Lucky17]

http://www.shamsports.com/whatthedeuce.htm

Question: What is a cap hold and why may I want to ask that?

Answer: Your team's free agents have what is called a "cap hold." This is an amount of money that is charged to your team's salary cap number, even though the player isn't under contract. This is a deliberate ploy that exists to close a loophole; if cap holds didn't exist, it's theoretically possible for a team to have its entire roster become free agents at the same time, have their entire cap to spend on other team's free agents, and then use Bird rights to re-sign their own ones afterwards. And that would be disingenuous. This way, your free agents eat into your cap room, forcing you to prioritise a bit better. And the players below have cap holds (also known as "free agent amounts") that have not yet been renounced, making them technically interesting. Technically.

If you waive a player, they are automatically renounced, and so will not have a cap hold. If a player signs with another NBA team, they also no longer have a cap hold to their former team. And if a player retires (by which I mean he properly retires, sending official retirement paperwork to league and everything, and not just informally saying that they've retired), then their free agent amount is removed too. However, players often don't formally retire until they're eligible for their NBA pension, and the reason for that (other than laziness) is that many of them still have cap holds with NBA teams, which means that they can still be incorporated into sign and trades as salary filler for trades. It would be an extremely impossible thing to imagine had it not already happened: at the 2007 trade deadline, Aaron McKie and Keith Van Horn were both signed and traded to complete deals while being unofficially retired, earning them 7 figures worth of free cheddar. And all they had to do was not file the retirement paperwork. It's implausible, but it happens. (Similarly, if a player's contract with an NBA team expires without him going through waivers, and he then signs with a non-NBA team, he will continue to have a cap hold until he's renounced.)

These cap holds can stick around for years if the team remains over the salary cap in that time. And, as you'll see below, they do. There's some players from the late 90's on here, for God's sake. However, when teams have set themelves up for cap room, they renounce these basically useless free agent amounts to maximize how much room they have. For example, in the summer of 2007, Milwaukee, Orlando and Memphis all figured to have cap room, and so they renounced all their free agents who weren't under contract. These included players from previous years; Orlando renounced Darko Milicic, Grant Hill, Andrew DeClercq, Stacey Augmon, Jaren Jackson, Mark Jones, Shawn Kemp, Sean Rooks, Bo Outlaw and Olumide Oyedeji; Milwaukee renounced Reece Gaines, Jermaine Jackson, Ervin Johnson, Toni Kukoc, Jiri Welsch, Ruben Patterson, Brian Skinner, Jared Reiner and Earl Boykins; and Memphis renounced Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Junior Harrington, Lawrence Roberts, Mike Batiste, Antoine Carr, Kevin Edwards, Antonis Fotsis, Dahntay Jones, Will Solomon and Doug West. The randomness of those players should help illustrate the randomness of some of the players listed below, and why they're still here. (As you will no doubt see, Indiana hasn't had cap space for a while.)

[JSD]

That's a good point about the MLE.


What gives them the ability to use the big MLE under the new rule? Is it being over the cap but under the LT?

Exactly.  If they are over the cap (or just choose to use cap holds rather than cap space), then they get to use the MLE, they get to take back 150% (or $5 million extra) in trades, and they also get the LLE, as long as they do not go more than $4 million over the luxury tax threshold.

Ok sure, I'll concede, that adds to the value of not renouncing or only situationally doing it under the guise of staying in contention. But isn't anyone else worried about the quagmire of being mediocre in this league? How are we going to acquire a top player using this method? I can't help but feel like we are delaying the inevitable; that is, we need to be bad before we are good again.

I think the problem with mediocre isn't actually with being mediocre, it is with overpaying mediocre players on longterm contracts, which kills your flexibility to get better.

And I think Danny will not use his cap space, purely so he can avoid this trap. 

Good point. But the other more important problem is not having direct access to high end propects for relatively cheap money through the draft lottery.

[paintitgreen]

They haven't used cap space for years, which is why they still have small cap holds for guys like Olowokandi, Dana Barros, Mark Bryant, Roshown McLeod, and a big hold ($8.3 mil) for Krstic.

can you clarify this statement?  How are they still carrying cap holds on these players?  

Cap holds, as I understand them, apply to your FA's that are still unsigned and active.  The assumption is that the cap hold represents the financial slot these players will occupy on the team's roster when/if they resign with the team.  This doesn't go away until the player resigns with the team, signs elsewhere or stops playing.  

I can't imagine Danny would allow these long-retired players to continue to count against the team's cap when they should have been renounced (if that's even necessary) long ago.  

Cap holds only hurt you if they prevent you from using cap space you would otherwise have. The Celtics haven't had or wanted to use cap space for a long time - well before the New Big Three even. So keeping these holds on the books never hurt them. They don't have to pay the salary, and it doesn't count on their actual payroll for luxury tax purposes. They're already over the cap anyway, so it doesn't matter to have a bunch more "holds." Keeping the holds just allows them to retain Bird rights.

In the case of guys like Dana Barros, it's ridiculous, but there's just no reason to renounce those rights if you don't have to. If, say, Nenad Krstic wants to come back next year, and a team over the cap wants to sign him but he wants to be paid $6 mil, the Celtics could work out a sign and trade because the Celtics hold his Bird rights and can sign him for up to $8 mil without using their cap space. Unlikely to be a factor, but you never know when it could help.

As a team that paid the luxury tax this year, Boston would only have a $3 million MLE instead of the $5 million MLE that non-tax-paying but over-the-cap teams get, even if they don't project to be over the luxury line this year.

I'd say I mostly agree with everything else you said in your post, except the part I've quoted.

If I'm reading this right, it seems you're suggesting the specific version of the MLE we would have to use next season is based on this season's luxury tax status.  Meaning, if the C's are over the tax-threshold in the 2011-12 season (which they are), we would only have the mini-MLE to use in the 2012-13 season.

I'm pretty sure this is wrong.  I'm pretty sure it's based on the specific season you're actually in.

This is based only on my reading of various breakdowns of the new CBA so I could absolutely be wrong. But this interpretation actually makes sense. How can the league know in the summer of 2012 whether or not a team will be over the luxury tax level at the end of the 2012-13 season? For example, a team may still be $3 million under the luxury level after signing a guy with the $5 mil MLE. That contract is made. But then it may sign two guys to minimum contracts and during the season make a trade that adds $3 million in salary. Or the MLE signing may occur when a team is only a couple million over the cap, but then the team resigns a couple of its own free agents for $25 million. Then it's a tax paying team. But it has already signed a contract with that player to pay him $5 million even though it should only have been able to use $3 million. That contract can't be voided midseason.

That's why if the league is going to differentiate between the MLE a tax paying team can use, and the MLE a non-tax-paying team can use, it has to be based on the previous season, not the current one. That's the closest season for which the league can be certain whether or not the team was over the luxury tax level. (Note: this same logic wouldn't apply to using the "under-the-cap" MLE. Whether or not a team was under the cap to sign players is known with certainty during the summer. That MLE applies only when the team has used all of its cap space, and thus is right at the cap limit, and otherwise only has the minimum contract available to sign ANY player, whether the player was on its roster last year or another team.)

[ManUp]

Doesn't the league now force you to use something like 85% of your capspace?

[Marcus13]

I don't see the point.  There's not really better options out there.  I think it's much more likely he brings back a majority of them at smaller salaries

[Chris]

That's a good point about the MLE.


What gives them the ability to use the big MLE under the new rule? Is it being over the cap but under the LT?

Exactly.  If they are over the cap (or just choose to use cap holds rather than cap space), then they get to use the MLE, they get to take back 150% (or $5 million extra) in trades, and they also get the LLE, as long as they do not go more than $4 million over the luxury tax threshold.

Ok sure, I'll concede, that adds to the value of not renouncing or only situationally doing it under the guise of staying in contention. But isn't anyone else worried about the quagmire of being mediocre in this league? How are we going to acquire a top player using this method? I can't help but feel like we are delaying the inevitable; that is, we need to be bad before we are good again.

I think the problem with mediocre isn't actually with being mediocre, it is with overpaying mediocre players on longterm contracts, which kills your flexibility to get better.

And I think Danny will not use his cap space, purely so he can avoid this trap. 

Good point. But the other more important problem is not having direct access to high end propects for relatively cheap money through the draft lottery.

Absolutely, but that is a major crapshoot.  The chances of succeeding by tanking a season are incredibly low, and it is much easier to rebuild by building assets, maintaining flexibility, and making smart, patient moves. 

I think there is certainly a scenario where they go into tank mode, but it is plan D or E, because the downside of that are so horrendous, and the upside doesn't show itself very often. 

[slamtheking]

They haven't used cap space for years, which is why they still have small cap holds for guys like Olowokandi, Dana Barros, Mark Bryant, Roshown McLeod, and a big hold ($8.3 mil) for Krstic.

can you clarify this statement?  How are they still carrying cap holds on these players?  

Cap holds, as I understand them, apply to your FA's that are still unsigned and active.  The assumption is that the cap hold represents the financial slot these players will occupy on the team's roster when/if they resign with the team.  This doesn't go away until the player resigns with the team, signs elsewhere or stops playing.  

I can't imagine Danny would allow these long-retired players to continue to count against the team's cap when they should have been renounced (if that's even necessary) long ago.  

Cap holds only hurt you if they prevent you from using cap space you would otherwise have. The Celtics haven't had or wanted to use cap space for a long time - well before the New Big Three even. So keeping these holds on the books never hurt them. They don't have to pay the salary, and it doesn't count on their actual payroll for luxury tax purposes. They're already over the cap anyway, so it doesn't matter to have a bunch more "holds." Keeping the holds just allows them to retain Bird rights.

In the case of guys like Dana Barros, it's ridiculous, but there's just no reason to renounce those rights if you don't have to. If, say, Nenad Krstic wants to come back next year, and a team over the cap wants to sign him but he wants to be paid $6 mil, the Celtics could work out a sign and trade because the Celtics hold his Bird rights and can sign him for up to $8 mil without using their cap space. Unlikely to be a factor, but you never know when it could help.

TP to you and Lucky for that info.  I had wasn't aware that inactive players would still count as cap holds.  I could understand the case with Krstic since he's still playing but didn't think the others still counted in any way.

[paintitgreen]

Absolutely, but that is a major crapshoot.  The chances of succeeding by tanking a season are incredibly low, and it is much easier to rebuild by building assets, maintaining flexibility, and making smart, patient moves. 

I think there is certainly a scenario where they go into tank mode, but it is plan D or E, because the downside of that are so horrendous, and the upside doesn't show itself very often. 

Yup, don't think it's plan A. The current Celtics team - which has won one championship, two Eastern Conference Finals and four division titles, was built using one top 10 pick (Pierce), a couple of big contracts for salary matching purposes (Szczerbiak and Ratliff), a top 5 pick, two past picks in the late teens (Jefferson and G Green), a past pick in the mid20s (Delonte) a bust former lottery selection of another team (Telfair), a past second round pick (Gomes), and two future firsts (that was the package that brought back KG, Ray and the second round pick used to take Davis), three more picks in the 20s (Rondo 21, TA 25 and Perk 27), a second rounder (Powe) and some value free agent signings using the midlevel exception and veteran's minimum (Posey, House, PJ Brown, Cassell). It wasn't all about lottery picks - it was about making good selections whatever the draft position, good trades using assets built up, and smart free agent signings.

[Jon]

I really think that not only will Danny not renounce the free agents right away, I think it's quite likely he brings a lot, if not all, of them back. 

The absolute worst thing DA could do would be do pull a Joe Dumars and blow all of his cap money on second tier free agents and condemn himself to perpetual mediocrity (or in Detroit's case, worse). 

So I really think he'd be totally on board with bringing back Ray, Paul, Bass, Pietrus, and Green, particularly on one year deals.  Now convincing the latter three to do this would be a tough sell; however, if Bass only finds MLE money out there, would he be willing to take a one year deal for 6-8 million.  And with Jeff Green, does anyone really expect some team is going to offer him a long term deal until he proves he can stay on the court? 

And by doing this, Danny does three key things:

1) He retains the value all of these players have.

2) He creates lots of expiring contracts.

3) He keeps the Celtics reasonably good.  And while that may not seem like a great draft move, it could be good for a free agent sell.  Do we really want free agents to start to associate Boston with the Charlottes and Tornotos of the world? 

[the_Bird]

I really think that not only will Danny not renounce the free agents right away, I think it's quite likely he brings a lot, if not all, of them back.  

The absolute worst thing DA could do would be do pull a Joe Dumars and blow all of his cap money on second tier free agents and condemn himself to perpetual mediocrity (or in Detroit's case, worse).  

So I really think he'd be totally on board with bringing back Ray, Paul, Bass, Pietrus, and Green, particularly on one year deals.  Now convincing the latter three to do this would be a tough sell; however, if Bass only finds MLE money out there, would he be willing to take a one year deal for 6-8 million.  And with Jeff Green, does anyone really expect some team is going to offer him a long term deal until he proves he can stay on the court?  

And by doing this, Danny does three key things:

1) He retains the value all of these players have.

2) He creates lots of expiring contracts.

3) He keeps the Celtics reasonably good.  And while that may not seem like a great draft move, it could be good for a free agent sell.  Do we really want free agents to start to associate Boston with the Charlottes and Tornotos of the world?  

I think this is mostly right, although I do think someone will pay Jeff Green.  Jeff Green's situation is weird because he's been a durable player except for the heart condition.  If he gets the medical clearance, I don't think he'll have to do as much "proving himself" as someone might who was coming off a knee surgery, for example.  If he has anything to prove, it's basketball-related, not health; is Green anything more than the basketball equivalent of an innings-eating fourth starter?

Priority, I think, will be to re-sign KG; something like 1 year, $10M.  He's worth that, and that's enough $$ to keep him from feeling like he needs to bolt to Miami or New Jersey.  

Ray Allen, I think walks.  He'll be in demand, he'll basically have his choice of MLE jobs.

Bass, I think (and kind of hope) walks, because he's going to demand at least a Big Baby-level contract.  He's good but not good enough to rebuild around.  He and Green kind of scare me, because those two guys have the potential - if Danny does something stupid - of being the equivalent of our Ben Gordon and Charlie V.  Good players who are apt to be overpaid, who aren't going to get any better, who aren't good enough to rebuild around.  And, I don't think either one re-signs for only one season.

[2short]

I really think that not only will Danny not renounce the free agents right away, I think it's quite likely he brings a lot, if not all, of them back.  

The absolute worst thing DA could do would be do pull a Joe Dumars and blow all of his cap money on second tier free agents and condemn himself to perpetual mediocrity (or in Detroit's case, worse).  

So I really think he'd be totally on board with bringing back Ray, Paul, Bass, Pietrus, and Green, particularly on one year deals.  Now convincing the latter three to do this would be a tough sell; however, if Bass only finds MLE money out there, would he be willing to take a one year deal for 6-8 million.  And with Jeff Green, does anyone really expect some team is going to offer him a long term deal until he proves he can stay on the court?  

And by doing this, Danny does three key things:

1) He retains the value all of these players have.

2) He creates lots of expiring contracts.

3) He keeps the Celtics reasonably good.  And while that may not seem like a great draft move, it could be good for a free agent sell.  Do we really want free agents to start to associate Boston with the Charlottes and Tornotos of the world?  

I think this is mostly right, although I do think someone will pay Jeff Green.  Jeff Green's situation is weird because he's been a durable player except for the heart condition.  If he gets the medical clearance, I don't think he'll have to do as much "proving himself" as someone might who was coming off a knee surgery, for example.  If he has anything to prove, it's basketball-related, not health; is Green anything more than the basketball equivalent of an innings-eating fourth starter?

Priority, I think, will be to re-sign KG; something like 1 year, $10M.  He's worth that, and that's enough $$ to keep him from feeling like he needs to bolt to Miami or New Jersey.  

Ray Allen, I think walks.  He'll be in demand, he'll basically have his choice of MLE jobs.

Bass, I think (and kind of hope) walks, because he's going to demand at least a Big Baby-level contract.  He's good but not good enough to rebuild around.  He and Green kind of scare me, because those two guys have the potential - if Danny does something stupid - of being the equivalent of our Ben Gordon and Charlie V.  Good players who are apt to be overpaid, who aren't going to get any better, who aren't good enough to rebuild around.  And, I don't think either one re-signs for only one season.

As far as Bass subject I agree, he's good but he has LOTS of defensive misses.  I like his offensive shooting but rest of o is suspect.  If he concentrates on the rebounding he is good.  Its amazing how we all sort of thought Davis was better than he was.  I knocked him regularly but bass is a big improvement (great trade ainge) but he still has lots of issues.
I'd rather sign Green (if healthy) as his all around game is much much nicer and he rebounds at about the same rate as bass anyways.  I however like jeff as sf with some minutes at running pf.