Celts paid Memphis 1.66 mil to take Fab

[Boris Badenov]

The luxury tax this year is $71,748,000. Our projected payroll with Fab Melo would have been $72,531,029 (according to shamsports). That would make us $783,029 over the tax which would have resulted in a tax bill of $1,174,543.

Now we do not have to pay any tax so it still saves us money. Also we are now eligible to receive money from tax paying teams which would mean this trade would net the Celtics even more cash.

My understanding is that this also avoids the "repeater tax," and will free up the full $5m MLE for next year rather than the "tax-payer's MLE" of $3m.

One of the cap gurus should probably confirm or correct me, but that's my impression.

[rondoallaturca]

Memphis just traded Wroten (makes $200K less than Melo per year, for the same length) for a future 2nd rounder, without having to give up any monetary considerations. Yep...

[Birdman]

money well spent

[PhoSita]

Memphis just traded Wroten (makes $200K less than Melo per year, for the same length) for a future 2nd rounder, without having to give up any monetary considerations. Yep...

Mhm.

Wroten has actually shown more in his first year than Melo did, even though he's shown very little.

[rondoallaturca]

Mhm.

Wroten has actually shown more in his first year than Melo did, even though he's shown very little.

Big men traditionally develop much slower than guards, however. I'm not saying I had any excitement in Melo's future, but this just highlights how bad of a deal Ainge pulled off.

[TripleOT]

The Cs decided to take the bird in the hand and pay the ransom to get under the tax line.  With Philly $10m under the salary floor,one would have thought that they could have  made a deal there and not pay that much. 

[bfrombleacher]

I'm not saying I had any excitement in Melo's future, but this just highlights how bad of a deal Ainge pulled off.

Which part is bad?

The pick? We still have yet to see how Melo turned out.

The trade? The pick was attained in the first place by the Green trade. A "late first" for "a heck of a lot of money saved" is not a bad deal. Plus the pick was from the JG trade.

[goCeltics]

crappy deal

if your gonna do a salary dump trade and send cash your better off doing it later in the year, as the team salary is set for luxury tax purposes based on your roster on the last day of the season, therefore it doesn't matter when u trade the player so long as it's before the last day of the season for luxury tax purposes they have the same impact and also as the season proceeds naturally the remining salary on contract declines.

So instead of this they could have kept hold of melo till the trade deadline, at that point there would have been around maybe $800,000 left of melo's contract, at that point they could of traded him as well as the cash to cover his remaining salary to a team under the cap or a team with a large enough exception or as in a throw in a 3 way trade and for luxury trade purpose it would have had the same luxury tax impact that this trade had. Also by that time they could have found a better salary dump solution and found a suitor of one of wallace, humphries, bass, crawford, lee etc, and not need a deal like this in the first place.

this trade sucks, it's a penny pinching panick move.Hope Melo turns into something good that way it will teach Wyc & Co a valuable lesson.

[European NBA fan]

Melo might not have turned out how Danny had hoped for, but getting an unguaranteed contract for Melo plus cash is only a bad deal, if you believe that Melo is worth payting tax for. And just as with Shavlik, Danny (and the owners) decided no.

My guess is that there is something more to this trade, though. I believe that Melo simply doesn't fit in with a crowd where maybe half of them have exceptional basketball IQ, and none of the others are projects in the same way, that Melo is. It will be a problem at practice sessions where the rest of the team are working on some subtleties on defense or offense, and Melo is still working on some of the basics. He might fit better with a team that has everything in place, and just need him to perform in a specific role and learn from that.

Why not send him to the D-League to develop? Last season showed, that he could dominate on defense alone with his physical tools, and that the big guys in the D-League aren't enough of a challenge in that regard (the same goes for practice with the Red Claws). He would still become a better player, but probably not as fast as he needs to.

[JBcat]

I agree with some who have said it's better to do this now, as it could handcuff us negotiating for deals later on if teams know we desperately need to get under the tax.  We might have to throw in say 2 2nd round picks if we waited until the trade deadline.  At least now we can take a flyer on Donta Greene who has at least done something in the NBA.  If we don't like what we see we can always waive him by early January with no harm done. 

The other added benefit is it will also be easier to do a 1 for 2 type deal if we wish, and waive Greene.

I think this just gives us more flexibility for the 1st half of year.