Possibly huge, understated opportunity cost for pursuing Hayward this summer?

[MetroGlobe]

I suppose this issue could be raised when pursuing any free agent.  But I feel like it's especially important this year because we will be gashing an already open wound (front court) in the pursuit of Hayward, potentially missing out on other FA options, and then STILL being left with no Hayward if he stays in Utah.

I've seen a few threads that touch on this topic. But I don't believe any of them included the list of FAs, while also considering a few important caveats about pursuing Hayward.

First, here is the list of FA bigs in order of quality (subjective) along with my prediction of approximate offers they'll receive on the market (also subjective):

Blake Griffin > $25M
Paul Milsap > $25M
Nerlens Noel > $25M
Serge Ibaka > $25M
Olynyk ~ $20M
Nikola Mirotic ~ $20M
Alex Len ~ $20M
Mason Plumlee ~ $20M
Zach Randolph ~ $20M
James Johnson < $20M
Jamychal Green ~ $20M
Taj Gibson < $20M
Nene < $15M
Alan Williams < $15M

Beyond those guys, the pickings are really, really slim. Some of these guys are restricted anyway and are going to re-up with their current teams, or sign FA deals shortly after midnight on 7/1.

Assuming Ainge is going to offer max to Hayward, and he takes a couple days to think about it, just about every other FA big will be off the board by the time he makes up his mind. Just for a moment let's assume he declines our offer and goes back to Utah. This means that not only would we have lost our bid for Hayward, but we will have also lost out on the chance to sign other FAs because they will have signed elsewhere already.

I see this as a really, really big deal. And one that never gets mentioned on this board. There is a HUGE opportunity cost involved in making a max offer to Hayward - we will have to renounce our own FAs, watch them sign elsewhere, while also crying in our coffee as every other FA signs with another team - and STILL potentially not sign Hayward.

This past season our biggest weakness was interior play. Pursuing Hayward means we will have to lose both Kelly and Amir to even make the max offer. Horford and Zizic will be the only bigs on our roster (can't even add Yabu).

So my question is, what are some options for us to upgrade our front court while also absorbing the opportunity cost of pursuing Hayward (regardless of whether or not we sign him)? Everyone keeps saying, "well just trade Bradley or Crowder". Ok, fine. But to whom, and for what players in return??

To even get to the max cap slot required for Hayward we need to trade Bradley while taking no salary back.  That means Crowder is our only real asset to trade for a big.  Therefore Danny needs to identify teams that meet the following conditions:

1. Willing to trade a big that makes < $10M
2. Has a desire to acquire a wing player like Crowder

Besides the oft-mentioned Richaun Holmes, are there any other options out there?

[arctic 3.0]

Who is #5 on your list?
Lol

[Roy H.]

We don't have to renounce our free agents until we need to utilize cap space.

What's your proposal? Should we rush to sign a mediocre big man to a huge deal just to make sure we don't lose out? While not even pursuing the best free agent on the market?

[Quetzalcoatl]

Blake Griffin > $25M
Paul Milsap > $25M
Nerlens Noel > $25M
Serge Ibaka > $25M
Olynyk ~ $20M
Nikola Mirotic ~ $20M
Alex Len ~ $20M
Mason Plumlee ~ $20M
Zach Randolph ~ $20M
James Johnson < $20M
Jamychal Green ~ $20M
Taj Gibson < $20M
Nene < $15M
Alan Williams < $15M

I mean how many of these guys are a net positive and can stay healthy?  None of these guys will be on a championship team anytime soon.  Griffin, Taj and Klynyk are the only ones who are interesting to me, but Blake is an injury risk, Taj is 1 dimensional who's strengths perfectly match our weaknesses and Olynyk is good but not really worth that payday.  I don't know, I'd rather be elite everywhere else than mediocre at C. 

[max215]

Who is #5 on your list?
Lol

Kelly Olynyk

[Roy H.]

The other thing: we'd have more than Crowder to trade. Assuming we trade AB to make space, we still have KO's cap hold. We can S&T him, renounce him to sign a FA for around $7.7 million, or trade Crowder for a guy making roughly $15 million (whatever amount we'd be under the cap after renouncing KO and moving Crowder). Or we can trade Crowder for a future pick, renounce KO, and sign a free agent for roughly $15 million.

[footey]

I think you are exaggerating the opportunity cost.

these FA's understand there is a pecking order, and where they stand in it. They just want to go where the most $$ is. And we have a lot to spend. If we strike out on Hayward, there will be another decent guy (e.g., Gibson) who probably is waiting in the wings for his opportunity.  The teams with the most cap room will all be chasing the same guy first (i.e., GH, BG), while the others wait on the side lines. Happens every year.

[MetroGlobe]

What's your proposal? Should we rush to sign a mediocre big man to a huge deal just to make sure we don't lose out? While not even pursuing the best free agent on the market?

No, not at all.  I'm trying to find out what other moves will happen in concert as either contingencies or backup options.  Because we can't go into the season with only Zizic and Horford as our bigs on this roster.  Pursuing Hayward means we'll likely lose out on the top ten guys from the list I posted (except perhaps KO).  So what is the fallback option?

trade Crowder for a guy making roughly $15 million

$15 million?  I thought it had to be 150% of his current contract.  That's only 10.5 million then, right?

Also, to make the max offer to Hayward, Kelly would already be gone.  He will have gotten an offer which we would decline to match.

[MetroGlobe]

If we strike out on Hayward, there will be another decent guy (e.g., Gibson) who probably is waiting in the wings for his opportunity.  The teams with the most cap room will all be chasing the same guy first (i.e., GH, BG), while the others wait on the side lines. Happens every year.

We actually don't have a lot to spend.  We could potentially create spending room, but there is a huge cost of doing so, personnel wise.  But just know that we cannot add Hayward and someone like Gibson.  It's an either-or situation.

[Roy H.]

What's your proposal? Should we rush to sign a mediocre big man to a huge deal just to make sure we don't lose out? While not even pursuing the best free agent on the market?

No, not at all.  I'm trying to find out what other moves will happen in concert as either contingencies or backup options.  Because we can't go into the season with only Zizic and Horford as our bigs on this roster.  Pursuing Hayward means we'll likely lose out on the top ten guys from the list I posted (except perhaps KO).  So what is the fallback option?

trade Crowder for a guy making roughly $15 million

$15 million?  I thought it had to be 150% of his current contract.  That's only 10.5 million then, right?

Also, to make the max offer to Hayward, Kelly would already be gone.  He will have gotten an offer which we would decline to match.

If we trade AB, we would still have room for KO's cap hold, meaning we can sign both Hayward and KO.

But, assume KO gets an offer we don't like. We renounce him, meaning we now have roughly $7.7 million in cap space. We can then utilize that cap space and Crowder's salary to trade for someone making $14 - $15 million.

[MetroGlobe]

If we trade AB, we would still have room for KO's cap hold, meaning we can sign both Hayward and KO.

But, assume KO gets an offer we don't like. We renounce him, meaning we now have roughly $7.7 million in cap space. We can then utilize that cap space and Crowder's salary to trade for someone making $14 - $15 million.

This is radically different from what I read here today: http://www.celticshub.com/2017/05/26/looking-forward-celtics-future/

"Getting to Max Space

It’s widely assumed that the team will be making a play for a max free agent. The clearest paths to that all require making sacrifices, most directly impacting Bradley, Olynyk, Zeller, and Yabusele. In all these scenarios I’m waiving Jordan Mickey because he’s not playing and cheaper alternatives for the end of the bench will exist. Waiving Demetrius Jackson costs cap space in most instances because of his $650k guarantee, so where necessary I assume he’d be tradable. Worst case, you could stretch the $650k down to $217k.  The max contract for Gordon Hayward and Blake Griffin starts at $30.3M."

[Roy H.]

If we strike out on Hayward, there will be another decent guy (e.g., Gibson) who probably is waiting in the wings for his opportunity.  The teams with the most cap room will all be chasing the same guy first (i.e., GH, BG), while the others wait on the side lines. Happens every year.

We actually don't have a lot to spend.  We could potentially create spending room, but there is a huge cost of doing so, personnel wise.  But just know that we cannot add Hayward and someone like Gibson.  It's an either-or situation.

It depends.  I'm not saying it's worth it, but we could trade AB and sign Hayward. Then, renounce KO and trade Crowder to make space to sign Gibson. Or, if OKC has Bird rights (I think they do) we could offer a S&T.

[Roy H.]

If we trade AB, we would still have room for KO's cap hold, meaning we can sign both Hayward and KO.

But, assume KO gets an offer we don't like. We renounce him, meaning we now have roughly $7.7 million in cap space. We can then utilize that cap space and Crowder's salary to trade for someone making $14 - $15 million.

This is radically different from what I read here today: http://www.celticshub.com/2017/05/26/looking-forward-celtics-future/

"Getting to Max Space

It’s widely assumed that the team will be making a play for a max free agent. The clearest paths to that all require making sacrifices, most directly impacting Bradley, Olynyk, Zeller, and Yabusele. In all these scenarios I’m waiving Jordan Mickey because he’s not playing and cheaper alternatives for the end of the bench will exist. Waiving Demetrius Jackson costs cap space in most instances because of his $650k guarantee, so where necessary I assume he’d be tradable. Worst case, you could stretch the $650k down to $217k.  The max contract for Gordon Hayward and Blake Griffin starts at $30.3M."

You read it incorrectly, I think. Look at Option 6.

[MetroGlobe]

Option 6?  I don't see an Option 6.  CTRL+F isn't helping me either.

[johnnygreen]

I can connect the dots to see the interest in Hayward, but it also doesn't really make sense based on the players we have at the positions that he plays. SG - One year remaining for Bradley, with possibly Markelle Fultz taking over. SF - team friendly contract with Crowder, with Jaylen Brown ready to take over. Now I can see signing Hayward as upgrades over Bradley or Crowder. However, the issue for me comes with Fultz and Brown, as they're the young, cheap star players that need playing time. Danny seemed to indicate that he wants to keep Thomas, which will most likely be at max money. So that means, we will have Thomas and Horford signed to max contracts after next season. To me, Danny needs to pick his spots wisely to spend that cap space and a 4-5 year commitment at max money makes no sense for Hayward, when Fultz and or Brown could be potential all-stars during that time frame.