Can we just outright waive Fab Melo and/or Brooks?

[hwangjini_1]

Why would you not just trade for a future 2nd?

And what's so hard to understand about the word: project?

I saw that Fab Melo regressed during Summer League - he was overweight, slow, plodding (in a bad way), no situational awareness, no aggression;

Come on, he had the whole of April and May to improve and he did not.

let me take an unpopular position here. one does not have to embrace melo or engage in a melo-love-fest to concede that he has improved since was drafted. i am not stating that he is or will be great, or even nba quality.

but to say he has regressed is a blanket statement that ignores the evidence of the summer league. did you not see his right handed hook shoot? he starting developing that last season in the D league. that shot did not exist before. if he can consistently make that shot it is a real weapon. i dont see how opponents can block it.

he has poor court awareness, but at least now he has SOME court awareness.

boxing out - not consistent, but better than before, which is also a commentary on his earlier lack of boxing out. similar with rebounding.

he looks less mechanical now and is learning the game. there is a long, long way to go, but he is better.

again, i have come to neither bury nor praise melo. instead i am pointing out that he has improved in some facets of the game. whether it will ever be enough is another question.

this year is all about developing young talent. i hope the celtics put melo's butt on the court each and every night. that will answer for all time whether or not melo can improve enough to be an nba center.

[jambr380]

Lumping Melo and Brooks together is a leap. Brooks is a legitimate NBA scorer and an upgrade over Crawford.

Melo is not a project or a concept. He is a conundrum wrapped inside of an enigma.

I can't believe I am writing another post defending Crawford, but here it is...in his first three years with Washington, he averaged: 16.3, 14.7, and 13.2 ppg. In MarShon's first two years in NJ, he averaged: 12.6 and 5.4 ppg...they were both on crappy teams and MarShon's efficiency was slightly better.

This notion that Crawford just plain sucks is false. I see a bit of the grass is always greener with Brooks from Celtics fans. I agree that we probably don't need to develop both of them, but Brooks has not proven to be a more capable player / scorer than Crawford, yet.

[TripleOT]

I'd prefer to dump Crawford before Brooks.  Melo is looking like he will never contribute to the Cs.  I guess they will play him if they want to lose games, so he might contribute something to the Cs. 

[ssspence]

You'd still keep Brooks over Crawford. They're probably trying to find a home for Jordan as we speak....

[LooseCannon]

The Celtics could easily stretch someone and get under the cap enough to afford to waive a couple low money players and take on minimum contracts to replace them.

But it make it harder for the team to do a deal like accepting a trade deadline salary dump of a former first round pick with some upside by a team desperate to avoid the luxury tax.

[Tr1boy]

Can crawford be waived?

Can somebody explain why the celts cant waive wallace, if they wanted to?

[coco]

Lumping Melo and Brooks together is a leap. Brooks is a legitimate NBA scorer and an upgrade over Crawford.

Melo is not a project or a concept. He is a conundrum wrapped inside of an enigma.

Agreed.  Not sure why some fans want to get rid of Brooks.  The kid can score.  Heck, he might even end up being a steal.  Better than a bunch drafted before him that's for sure....

[LooseCannon]

Can crawford be waived?

Can somebody explain why the celts cant waive wallace, if they wanted to?

The Celtics can waive any player they want, clearing that roster spot, but any guaranteed money would still count against the cap.

The Celtics can waive Wallace and have his contract count against the cap, but only a moron would do that.  Arguably it would be horrible cap management to waive any player on a guaranteed contract unless it would make sense to get rid of that player and not even consider filling that roster spot with another player.

[kozlodoev]

The Celtics can waive Wallace and have his contract count against the cap, but only a moron would do that.  Arguably it would be horrible cap management to waive any player on a guaranteed contract unless it would make sense to get rid of that player and not even consider filling that roster spot with another player.

To clarify, this is true because you can't trade a player that's not on your roster, even if you're still paying their salary.

[erisred]

The Celtics can waive Wallace and have his contract count against the cap, but only a moron would do that.  Arguably it would be horrible cap management to waive any player on a guaranteed contract unless it would make sense to get rid of that player and not even consider filling that roster spot with another player.

To clarify, this is true because you can't trade a player that's not on your roster, even if you're still paying their salary.

Just another point, not saying I'd do it in this case, but, you can also "stretch" a contract when you waive a player. The stretch is 2 x YearsLeft + 1, so Wallace with 3 years left and owed $30 million could be "stretched" out to 7 years, or about $4.29 million a year over the next 7 years. That would certainly get the C's under the Lux Tax right now, but would saddle them with a roughly 4.3 million cap hit for the next seven years...and free one roster spot.

[kozlodoev]

The Celtics can waive Wallace and have his contract count against the cap, but only a moron would do that.  Arguably it would be horrible cap management to waive any player on a guaranteed contract unless it would make sense to get rid of that player and not even consider filling that roster spot with another player.

To clarify, this is true because you can't trade a player that's not on your roster, even if you're still paying their salary.

Just another point, not saying I'd do it in this case, but, you can also "stretch" a contract when you waive a player. The stretch is 2 x YearsLeft + 1, so Wallace with 3 years left and owed $30 million could be "stretched" out to 7 years, or about $4.29 million a year over the next 7 years. That would certainly get the C's under the Lux Tax right now, but would saddle them with a roughly 4.3 million cap hit for the next seven years...and free one roster spot.

Yes, the stretch provision was also discussed in the media re:Gerald Wallace, but I think it's more of a flexibility killer for us than swallowing hard and eating his  guaranteed money in 3 years.

[bfrombleacher]

Why would you not just trade for a future 2nd?

And what's so hard to understand about the word: project?

I saw that Fab Melo regressed during Summer League - he was overweight, slow, plodding (in a bad way), no situational awareness, no aggression;

Come on, he had the whole of April and May to improve and he did not.

I may have been a bit snappy in my other post, sorry about that.

But, really? He's always been a 2-3 year project.

And you're giving him the whole of 2 months to improve.

Perry Jones, Ezeli and Moultrie were the ones I wanted. I definitely would have liked to see Ezeli on the roster last year. Moultrie and Jones look like projects still, just different from Melo.

[kozlodoev]

Why would you not just trade for a future 2nd?

And what's so hard to understand about the word: project?

I saw that Fab Melo regressed during Summer League - he was overweight, slow, plodding (in a bad way), no situational awareness, no aggression;

Come on, he had the whole of April and May to improve and he did not.

I may have been a bit snappy in my other post, sorry about that.

But, really? He's always been a 2-3 year project.

And you're giving him the whole of 2 months to improve.

Perry Jones, Ezeli and Moultrie were the ones I wanted. I definitely would have liked to see Ezeli on the roster last year. Moultrie and Jones look like projects still, just different from Melo.

I think people realize he's a project -- but the fact that he's a project who hasn't shown any improvement over almost a year is what troubles them (certainly troubles me). He doesn't have to be NBA-ready, but there's been no discernible progress (if anything, I can also see regress -- his best came in the early NBDL games last  year).

[Mazingerz]

Why would you not just trade for a future 2nd?

And what's so hard to understand about the word: project?

I saw that Fab Melo regressed during Summer League - he was overweight, slow, plodding (in a bad way), no situational awareness, no aggression;

Come on, he had the whole of April and May to improve and he did not.

I may have been a bit snappy in my other post, sorry about that.

But, really? He's always been a 2-3 year project.

And you're giving him the whole of 2 months to improve.

Perry Jones, Ezeli and Moultrie were the ones I wanted. I definitely would have liked to see Ezeli on the roster last year. Moultrie and Jones look like projects still, just different from Melo.

Where do you see Fab Melo in 2015? Does he have the drive to improve himself?

IMHO we need to cut our losses as early as now as the warning signs are evident in his case;

Or I might regret letting him go later on and he becomes a beast in the NBA (which I'm around 80% sure that he will NOT  be)

[moiso]

Why would you not just trade for a future 2nd?

And what's so hard to understand about the word: project?

I saw that Fab Melo regressed during Summer League - he was overweight, slow, plodding (in a bad way), no situational awareness, no aggression;

Come on, he had the whole of April and May to improve and he did not.

I may have been a bit snappy in my other post, sorry about that.

But, really? He's always been a 2-3 year project.

And you're giving him the whole of 2 months to improve.

Perry Jones, Ezeli and Moultrie were the ones I wanted. I definitely would have liked to see Ezeli on the roster last year. Moultrie and Jones look like projects still, just different from Melo.

Where do you see Fab Melo in 2015? Does he have the drive to improve himself?

IMHO we need to cut our losses as early as now as the warning signs are evident in his case;

Or I might regret letting him go later on and he becomes a beast in the NBA (which I'm around 80% sure that he will NOT  be)

I see him hanging with Patrick O'Bryant in 2015.