cl2117 wrote:Hal14 wrote:celtxman wrote: I'm talking about literally giving Simons away if the salary space gained now will result in championship pieces before next year. So think trades and TPE being used before the trade deadline or even after the season. I'm willing to concede this season only and nothing more. I will be at the front of the line in being critical if they are not ready or worse, able, to win a championship trust me.
That's a big "if".
There is also a big "if" as to whether Simons is at all a positive value for us at his cap number.
No one wants him right now given his cost vs. on court value. We can keep him for the year but next year we either lose him for nothing or have to pay him and while it'll likely be a much much lower cap number he still might not be a positive value. Keep in mind that for him to be available at a cap number whereby we are getting good value, he likely has to be mediocre to poor this year otherwise he'll have other bidders.
I'm happy adding value to him for a worthwhile upgrade, but haven't seen a good proposal yet that makes sense for us. I'm also happy to trade him for a lesser package that saves us money and/or gets us salaries that are more useful for us down the line. The latter option seems like there are a lot more possibilities than with the former.
Keeping him feels like the worst option. If he plays well, he's likely going to stay as an overpaid/undersized scoring guard with no defense. If he plays mediocre to poor, we can keep him at a reasonable cap number but have a guy who didn't shine in a year in our system and isn't going to be a valued trade chip either.
I'm not too worried about the cap number piece.
JB and Jrue on their extensions are overpaid relative to what their on court value was. But we still won a title with them.
We just lost to a Knicks team in the playoffs who had Towns, who's overpaid.
In 2023 we lost to the Heat in the ECF..a team with a similar player to Simons (Herro) who's making more $ than Simons is.
Jamal Murray is also probably a bit overpaid. Also a similar player to Simons. But he helped Denver won a title in 2023.
The Warriors when they won the title had Klay who was probably overpaid. Draymond was probably a little bit overpaid. They had Poole, a similar player to Simons - and a few months after winning the 2022 title, they gave Poole an extension for more $ than Simons is making now. Sure, they later traded him but Poole helped GS win a title and Simons could fill a similar role for the next Celtics championship team. And if Draymond didn't punch Poole in the face, who knows, maybe GS would have kept Poole instead of trading him.
Bottom line, lots teams who make deep playoff runs have at least 1 or 2 guys who are overpaid.
We also don't know what Simons' cap number would be on his next contract. That's also an unknown piece. Maybe his next contract he is making $30mil a a year, maybe it's $8 mil a year..or somewhere in between. We don't know. What we do know is that Brad has probably had some of those conversations this summer with Simons and his agent about what that number might be. So if Brad moves him, part of it might be because Simons wants more $ than Brad wants to give him..and if we don't trade Simons, part of that decision might be because the 2 sides are pretty close in terms of what Simons wants and what Brad wants to offer him..
cl2117 wrote:Keeping Simons seems as fraught with risk as trading him for package X. Both are big unknowns.
Eh, I think that's false equivalency.
Trading him for package X is literally a *complete* unknown. We have no idea what the package would look like. And especially if the package is just some 2nd round picks and some guys on expiring contracts and the hope is that we use that cap space to sign some guy to the MLE or TPMLE, again it's a complete unknown because we have no idea who that player is that we could acquire to fill that spot on the roster and we can't force a FA to sign with us. It's very much out of out control, if Player X is who we want to sign to fill that roster spot, what if that player signs elsewhere? Then we're stuck and don't have enough talent around the Jays to compete for another title.
But with Simons, it's less of an unknown. We don't have to guess who that player might be who we could maybe sign or trade for, we know who that player is. And we don't have to hope that another team trades a good player to us or that a good FA chooses to sign with us - Simons is here right now on the roster.
And while it's somewhat of an unknown how Simons would fit here in Boston, we do have 7 years worth of data/film that shows us how good he is at the NBA level. We also know that NBA players typically peak somewhere between their age 27-30 season and keep getting better until then. So Simons best basketball is likely ahead of him.
We also know that he's a good shooter, can shoot it on high volume so will likely fit well in an offensive system in Boston that has shown more 3's in recent years than any team has in NBA history.
