Avery Bradley & Celtics Agree to 4-year, $32 million contract

[chambers]

There's gotta be health or performance bonuses in this deal.

Ainge locked him up awfully fast which makes me wonder if someone is interested in a sign and trade.

I'm baffled though, I would have thought Ainge would offer at least $10-11 million x 4 years to Lance Stephenson if Avery's getting this kind of bank.

Gotta wait out the rest of the off season because to me there's a decent possibility he's gone to Charlotte or New Orleans.

Bradley for Cody Zeller? Bradley for Kidd Gilchrist or Biyombo?

Bradley+Green+TPE+Clippers pick for Lance Stephenson @ $11 million per year?

I'm puzzled...

[Spilling Green Dye]

I like this contract, provided Bradley stays reasonably healthy.  One thing to keep in mind when you look at the $ is that the cap space will be going up a good amount once the new TV deal is in place, so players will be earning more on their deals then.  A $6 mil / year player will probably end up signing for closer to $8mil / year, etc. 

The last two years of this deal could be a bargain, which is a refreshing change from many of the deals in the league (and especially in baseball) where the last couple of years of a deal are way overpaid (Gerald Wallace, etc).

[D.o.s.]

Wow, overpaying for n injury prone undersized guard that doesn't rebound, pass or handle the ball well for his position. I wanted to keep Avery, but 6 million was a fair offer IMO. He got his contract, I hope to see a great deal of improvement in other areas besides shooting.

Couldn't you have also described Ray Allen like this during his career? With the exception Ray was 6'5 Avery 6'2, not saying Avery is Ray...but

Not a 23 year old Ray Allen.

[celticslove]

Then I guess we just have different opinions on what Green and bass are worth. I feel like Green is worth about 7 and Bass 5 or under. They're bench players.

What do you think about Luol Dengs contract?

Luol Deng is one of the better all around players at his position - he should get around $12-13m easily. Still doesn't make Jeff Green's worth it.

Yeah you guys and I will never see eye to eye I guess.

The Cavs really thrived last year with his skills huh?

So we're just ignoring all of the great, all star caliber seasons he had in Chicago and basing his worth on half of a season in Cleveland?

So did we thrive last year with Avery and Jeff? Because by that logic, they're definitely not worth the money.

agreed to this. even though Thibs over use this guy in Chi i still rank him over Green in terms of skills and $$.

[gpap]

Wow, overpaying for n injury prone undersized guard that doesn't rebound, pass or handle the ball well for his position. I wanted to keep Avery, but 6 million was a fair offer IMO. He got his contract, I hope to see a great deal of improvement in other areas besides shooting.

Couldn't you have also described Ray Allen like this during his career? With the exception Ray was 6'5 Avery 6'2, not saying Avery is Ray...but

I don't know about Ray's time in Seattle but in the 6 years he was in Boston, he stayed fairly healthy and didn't really miss any time at all.

The only exception was that final season in 2011-12 because of the bone spurs in his ankles.

[Snakehead]

Well there are no incentives.  Marc Spears says the contract is fully guaranteed.

That I don't love.

[LEHGOCELTICS]

I don't understand why we made him become a RFA if we were going to outbid the market anyway. Defeats the whole purpose of making someone a RFA. This puzzles me to no end.

If another team was dumb enough to offer him a contract like this, let him walk. Otherwise, you'll sign him for cheaper. How is this so difficult, DA? I'm really starting to have my doubts with Danny incessantly overpaying role players, i.e. Bass, Green, and now Bradley.

Doing stuff stupid like this is how you get mired in mediocrity and become a treadmill team like the Hawks.

[Evantime34]

Despite his drawbacks, Avery is underrated as a shooter and an off-ball offensive threat in general. Considering he's only 23 and may still improve, a 32M / 8yrs is deal not exactly hard to justify.

Underrated as a shooter? The only 2 shots he has in his arsenal is the corner 3 , and a pull up 15 ft J off the dribble . He is a horrible passer/playmaker , horrible at finish at the rim , and his defensive intensity isn't there like his first few years . Add to that all the injuries , and the amount of cap space this is taking up, this is just BAD IMO

http://stats.nba.com/playerShotchart.html?PlayerID=202340

Bradley shot 43.75% on right wing 3's and 47.37 on left wing 3's. He has 4 zones on the court that he shoots better than average and he is an average finisher at the rim. He was a good shooter last season and if he continues to improve like you would expect a 23 year old to then he will live up to his contract.

As to a waste of cap space, we still are going to have a ton of cap space after next year. Before resigning Rondo we will have $35 MM available after the Bradley deal (that is without factoring in for next year's cap increase) and if Jeff Green doesn't pick up his player option it will be $ 44 MM. We should be able to re-sign Rondo and add a maxish contract next year.

Even if $8 MM is a little much, when you are in the asset accumulation phase of rebuilding, letting assets walk away for nothing is a bad idea.

[Donoghus]

I'm not exactly sure what it means but I was waaaay more peeved at the Jeff Green contract signing at the time than I am at this moment with Bradley.

[oldtype]

Seems like a horrific move on its face but we have a good enough front office that I'm willing to offer them benefit of the doubt.

[RJ87]

Yep, that's basically what I came up with (some minor rounding differences).  Hopefully, though, the Celtics structured it to de-escalate over time, meaning it could potentially look like:

$9.01 million -> $8.33 million -> $7.66 million -> $6.98 million

The C's never do that.

no one will ever do that...don't you want a steady pay raise every year, and not a, you know...pay cut?

Either way - insert "re-signed Bradley for that much, signs that we are trading Rondo" comment

If I start see those threads pop up, I'm taking a break from CBlog until training camp starts

Andre Iguodala did it with GSW last year.

[nickagneta]

Not sure wht so many are decrying the deal as so bad. The salary cap increased by close to 10% and early estimates are that another large jump in the salary cap is expected next year. That type of number reflects a growing Basketball Related Income for the league which pushes up, eventually, min and max level and MLE contracts and everything in between.

If the salary cap grows another $6-8 million in the time of Bradley's contract, then his mid $8 million a year contract in his 4th year will actually be an underpayment, even if his performance in those four years doesn't change much from what we have seen in his career thus far.

This is not the league of the last CBA anymore. Increasing BRI is going to force owners to give more to the players and a mediocre to good player who's salary before seemed to be the right market at around the MLE has gone up.

Paying Bradley $7.3 million a year or so next year is about market value. By the end of the contract, if Bradley develops some more, he should be a decent bargain, given his performance, his contract and what will be happening throughout the NBA with regards to BRI and player's salaries.

[Snakehead]

I don't understand why we made him become a RFA if we were going to outbid the market anyways. Defeats the whole purpose of making someone a RFA. This puzzles me to no end.

If another team was dumb enough to offer him a contract like this, let him walk. Otherwise, you'll sign him for cheaper. How is this so difficult, DA? I'm really starting to have my doubts with Danny incessantly overpaying role players, i.e. Bass, Green, and now Bradley.

Could you show me what the other offers were?  I would love to see that information, haven't seen it.

Why would Ainge intentionally overpay everyone?  Please explain what you're saying there.

[TheBig3]

so does this mean we won't pursue guys like Isiah Thomas, Gordon Hayward and Lance Stephenson anymore? I mean, our guard rotation seems pretty much set.

What if the "fireworks" Wyc was talking was actually resigning Bradley, Humphries, and Bayless, and drafting Smart and Young?

With all the teams interested in Thomas, I don't think he was heading here....they can still pursue Hayward as he does play small forward assuming that they would move Green...

[Corey]

We started to see why he was ranked similarly to John Wall in high school. He's finally developing deeper jumpers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3J16jtTxUU

He's greatly improved.

His shot chart from 2012-2013:



His shot chart from 2013-2014: