If we move Bradley, isn't the Hayward addition... less of an addition?

[CelticsElite]

Lol why didn't Ainge just keep #1 pick and draft Markelle Fultz. Start him at the 2. Getting rid of Bradley would have been better in that scenario.

And then we wouldn't have to deal with the logjam at SF.

because Fultz doesn't play defense and he's slow. You can see this live on summer league right now. He just airballed a 3

[hwangjini_1]

Lol why didn't Ainge just keep #1 pick and draft Markelle Fultz. Start him at the 2. Getting rid of Bradley would have been better in that scenario.

And then we wouldn't have to deal with the logjam at SF.

Reason 1. Ainge believed that Tatum was better than Fultz.

Reason 2. Ainge got his choice of player AND a draft pick that MIGHT be a top five pick next year.

[blink]

Well nothing has happened yet.  There seem to be more rumors about Smart and Crowder and that is fine with me.  I am actually ok if DA wants to see how things go this year with IT's hip recovery and keep AB for the time being.  AB is our best defending guard, I think you think long and hard before you deal him versus Smart or Crowder.

I think moving Crowder for a starting 4 is the best move right now.  We are loaded at the wing right now.  GH, JB, JT in a year might all be better than Crowder.  Balances the roster really well and leaves us stacked and improving in the back court.

IT, MS
AB, JB
GH, Tatum, Nader
(Traded 4), vet min big
AH, Zizic

[pearljammer10]

The package of AB, Crowder and two non brook or LAL/SAC picks is good enough to net a legit starting big man next to Horford...Who that is remains to be seen but I'd first look to move Bradley and two firsts. Add Crowder is that sweetens the return.

If we can keep Crowder.

IT/Rozier
Brown/Smart/Vet min SG with Length
Hayward/Crowder
AB Trade Return/Tatum
Horford/Vetmin/ Zizic

[RockinRyA]

Lol why didn't Ainge just keep #1 pick and draft Markelle Fultz. Start him at the 2. Getting rid of Bradley would have been better in that scenario.

And then we wouldn't have to deal with the logjam at SF.

Sigh.

Signing Fultz will actually make getting rid of Bradley more mandatory because of the logjam at the 1-2 and coz you know, the salary? If having the number 3 pick already has us having salary cap problems, what more with the number 1?

[goCeltics]

If they moved bradley for zero money to make way for hayward they should still have around 7 million in cap money to spend. they wouldn't be getting nothing for him

[Surferdad]

Lol why didn't Ainge just keep #1 pick and draft Markelle Fultz. Start him at the 2. Getting rid of Bradley would have been better in that scenario.

And then we wouldn't have to deal with the logjam at SF.

and have a worse team too.  Bradley is better than Fultz until further notice.  That notice may not come for a while.  This is not about avoiding logjams, it's about having the best team possible. 

[loco_91]

Bradley is pretty overrated on both ends by most fans. The reason is that:
-On defense, if you only watch the ball (which most fans do) you don't see that he misses rotations and only see that he can hound ball handlers (which he's amazing at). He's a very good but not all-NBA level defender, and the stats back that up.
-On offense, he benefits a ton from Brad's genius. Brad runs tons of plays to get him open either cutting to the basket or running off screens. He's grown into that role, but he isn't that great a shooter and he also isn't very good at dribbling + passing. Run those same plays for Hayward who is better at literally everything on offense, and you won't miss AB one bit.

[__ramonezy__]

With how many assets we have we can afford to make one expire. The question posed by OP is a good one, especially if the target is GS. At this moment, AB is the best two guard on our roster by a mile and a respected player and defender. I would keep him for the year to keep him around our young players to properly groom them. If he plays his way out of our team then congratulations to him and I wish him well.

But don't preempt it, make it happen

[hodgy03038]

Now that we have our prize in GH I am worried. We have no bigs. We are talking about moving 1-3 of AB, Smart & Crowder. AB & Smart we can't lose because without them we have no perimeter defense. Although I am least fond of Crowder and he plays a crowded position he did play decent defense. We are talking about being slightly over the tax line by a million or two or $300,000 (I hear different variations). So let's say we are 3 million over the cap how much of a penalty would that be? Can't we pay a small penalty to keep our core guys here? Without most of them we aren't going to be the same. I don't understand the tax penalty and severity but it seems there are many teams that don't care about it but we do. Are we a big market team that is going for it or are we a small market team that is just trying to profit and hope we can do it within the guidelines?

[loco_91]

Now that we have our prize in GH I am worried. We have no bigs. We are talking about moving 1-3 of AB, Smart & Crowder. AB & Smart we can't lose because without them we have no perimeter defense. Although I am least fond of Crowder and he plays a crowded position he did play decent defense. We are talking about being slightly over the tax line by a million or two or $300,000 (I hear different variations). So let's say we are 3 million over the cap how much of a penalty would that be? Can't we pay a small penalty to keep our core guys here? Without most of them we aren't going to be the same. I don't understand the tax penalty and severity but it seems there are many teams that don't care about it but we do. Are we a big market team that is going for it or are we a small market team that is just trying to profit and hope we can do it within the guidelines?

No, you can't go over the cap by paying a penalty. You're confusing the cap with the luxury tax. The main way to go over the cap is by re-signing your own players to bigger contracts using their Bird rights, and if you go too far over the cap by doing so you enter LT territory. LT will be a factor next summer, but this summer only the cap is a factor.

[hodgy03038]

Now that we have our prize in GH I am worried. We have no bigs. We are talking about moving 1-3 of AB, Smart & Crowder. AB & Smart we can't lose because without them we have no perimeter defense. Although I am least fond of Crowder and he plays a crowded position he did play decent defense. We are talking about being slightly over the tax line by a million or two or $300,000 (I hear different variations). So let's say we are 3 million over the cap how much of a penalty would that be? Can't we pay a small penalty to keep our core guys here? Without most of them we aren't going to be the same. I don't understand the tax penalty and severity but it seems there are many teams that don't care about it but we do. Are we a big market team that is going for it or are we a small market team that is just trying to profit and hope we can do it within the guidelines?

No, you can't go over the cap by paying a penalty. You're confusing the cap with the luxury tax. The main way to go over the cap is by re-signing your own players to bigger contracts using their Bird rights, and if you go too far over the cap by doing so you enter LT territory. LT will be a factor next summer, but this summer only the cap is a factor.

TP for your explanation. Now the next question would be how can a S&T of Hayward improve this transaction for us? I guess I am thoroughly confused about this whole process because wouldn't a salary match be more difficult with a maxed player being traded? How is that different salary cap wise? I guess the bottom line is I hope that Danny & company have backup plans to make this all work without losing too much of our core.

[loco_91]

Now that we have our prize in GH I am worried. We have no bigs. We are talking about moving 1-3 of AB, Smart & Crowder. AB & Smart we can't lose because without them we have no perimeter defense. Although I am least fond of Crowder and he plays a crowded position he did play decent defense. We are talking about being slightly over the tax line by a million or two or $300,000 (I hear different variations). So let's say we are 3 million over the cap how much of a penalty would that be? Can't we pay a small penalty to keep our core guys here? Without most of them we aren't going to be the same. I don't understand the tax penalty and severity but it seems there are many teams that don't care about it but we do. Are we a big market team that is going for it or are we a small market team that is just trying to profit and hope we can do it within the guidelines?

No, you can't go over the cap by paying a penalty. You're confusing the cap with the luxury tax. The main way to go over the cap is by re-signing your own players to bigger contracts using their Bird rights, and if you go too far over the cap by doing so you enter LT territory. LT will be a factor next summer, but this summer only the cap is a factor.

TP for your explanation. Now the next question would be how can a S&T of Hayward improve this transaction for us? I guess I am thoroughly confused about this whole process because wouldn't a salary match be more difficult with a maxed player being traded? How is that different salary cap wise? I guess the bottom line is I hope that Danny & company have backup plans to make this all work without losing too much of our core.

It's been suggested on the forum (not sure where) that the C's could make  S+T work only sending out Jackson and Rozier (and re-stashing Yabu). I don't think this is correct; most likely we'd still need to trade AB/Smart/Crowder. The reason it could make sense is that the Jazz are one of the relatively few good teams with cap space now that they've lost Hayward, so they would be interested in any of those 3 guys.

Another option might be to use Olynyk in some sort of two-way sign and trade. This seems like a possibility based on my understanding of the rules; the total amount of salary we'd need to send out, including Olynyk's new salary, would have to be:

(max contract - $100k) / 175% = $16.9M

which is well within Olynyk's expected salary range. For a deal like this to work, we'd probably have to send a 1st round pick or some other asset to Utah, as they would want something in exchange for helping us.

[obnoxiousmime]

The other posters have covered why trading Bradley isn't a bad move, primarily because it's a good shot we lose him anyway in a year. What I'd like to theorize is that the Celtics have already been preparing for this move, specifically shifting Brown to SG to take over Bradley's spot.

Pelton has already pointed out in his recent Tatum+Brown piece that Brown has been assigned to guard the opposing team's primary ballhandler/playmaking guard in two summer league games. We also found out earlier this week from Brown himself that he "was asked" to be at the practice facility when Hayward was visiting, where they briefly talked. This, after "official" reports indicated the Celtics' pitch was Horford and Thomas only. It looks like the Celtics wanted Brown there to at least meet Hayward but not in a publicized manner, probably because they didn't want to promote the perception that Bradley and Crowder may not be guaranteed to be part of their future. Of course, both players themselves certainly can read between the lines and know what the deal is.

[bellerephon]

Now that we have our prize in GH I am worried. We have no bigs. We are talking about moving 1-3 of AB, Smart & Crowder. AB & Smart we can't lose because without them we have no perimeter defense. Although I am least fond of Crowder and he plays a crowded position he did play decent defense. We are talking about being slightly over the tax line by a million or two or $300,000 (I hear different variations). So let's say we are 3 million over the cap how much of a penalty would that be? Can't we pay a small penalty to keep our core guys here? Without most of them we aren't going to be the same. I don't understand the tax penalty and severity but it seems there are many teams that don't care about it but we do. Are we a big market team that is going for it or are we a small market team that is just trying to profit and hope we can do it within the guidelines?

No, you can't go over the cap by paying a penalty. You're confusing the cap with the luxury tax. The main way to go over the cap is by re-signing your own players to bigger contracts using their Bird rights, and if you go too far over the cap by doing so you enter LT territory. LT will be a factor next summer, but this summer only the cap is a factor.

TP for your explanation. Now the next question would be how can a S&T of Hayward improve this transaction for us? I guess I am thoroughly confused about this whole process because wouldn't a salary match be more difficult with a maxed player being traded? How is that different salary cap wise? I guess the bottom line is I hope that Danny & company have backup plans to make this all work without losing too much of our core.

It's been suggested on the forum (not sure where) that the C's could make  S+T work only sending out Jackson and Rozier (and re-stashing Yabu). I don't think this is correct; most likely we'd still need to trade AB/Smart/Crowder. The reason it could make sense is that the Jazz are one of the relatively few good teams with cap space now that they've lost Hayward, so they would be interested in any of those 3 guys.

Another option might be to use Olynyk in some sort of two-way sign and trade. This seems like a possibility based on my understanding of the rules; the total amount of salary we'd need to send out, including Olynyk's new salary, would have to be:

(max contract - $100k) / 175% = $16.9M

which is well within Olynyk's expected salary range. For a deal like this to work, we'd probably have to send a 1st round pick or some other asset to Utah, as they would want something in exchange for helping us.

I'm not a cap expert, but my understanding is that a S + T involving Jackson and Rozier and stashing Yabu does indeed work. The hold up would be that it essentially gives Rozier away for nothing. The Celts are exploring trades involving Bradley, Crowder, and Smart because not only would that clear the space they need, but they would also want to get an asset in return. They are not going to trade one of those three just for space, they will get something valuable too. I don't think Utah gets any pick in a sign and trade, they would not be helping us, they would get a player.