I haven't seen any reporting on this but I have to think that Sully and his agent told Ainge they were not interested in a Zeller-type deal where he would essentially be a trade chip fighting KO for minutes off the bench.
Mike
He had signed the qualifying offer. Boston didn't have to do anything else. Boston let him go. So he didn't have to sign a Zeller type deal, Boston could have just kept him on the QO and waited to see if another team made a better offer and then decided what to do. That is the problem I have with not bringing him back.
Eh, even at that low cost, it might not make sense to keep him with how many bigs we already have. That would've then put us at 6 bigs that could deserve some sort of minutes - Horford, Amir, KO, JJ, Sully, and Zeller. I believe Brad just wants that four man group of Horford, Amir, KO, and JJ to take the majority of the big minutes, let alone when we go small with Crowder at 4, so keeping Sully even at that low cost might not have been beneficial and could have only led to locker room/playing time issues.