sam_I_am wrote:sully00 wrote:Fierce1 wrote:
I don't know if the Celtic owners will be willing to be a tax payer next season.
If the Celts keep Horford then the Celts' player salaries will be somewhere around 150m next season.
It's true that what Al provides is difficult to replace, but the Celtic owners have a reputation of being cheap.
I think Wyc understands the lux tax system because he helped design it. The idea is to pay it for championship team not pay it as the cost of doing business because that is stupid.
Boston was a tax payer in 2018 one of 5 teams. In 2019 there were 4 teams the last 2 years have been 7 teams with some outrageous bills being racked up by GS and BRK. Most teams are over one year and then under again this year the bill is over 600 million dollars 50% of which will be distributed to teams under the tax.
I think Boston is willing to pay the tax for a star talent to pair with the J's to try and win a title. I am not sure Al Horford is going to be that guy. In a short sample Theis' numbers are back to being the fantastic stuff they were his first time around so I am not sure how much Boston loses be giving Al's mins to Theis and Grant Williams.
Turning Al's money into another max or near max player is the prudent if somewhat cold-hearted thing to do.
I think Al/RW combination of agility, strength, shot blocking and passing is the unique ingredient making this team special right now. I don’t think Theis or GW next to RW can bring such an elite interior wall of defense against elite NBA offenses that we are seeing from Al/RW. I think they do come close making them perfect rotation players but we would need to replace Al with somebody better than Theis to get past second rounds of playoffs in my opinion. Of course Al is declining and not worth his max salary…but is cutting him to save a mere 12 million really worth it? I don’t think so. I do also agree with trading him for a better younger max player if that were possible.
I'm just saying...who are you getting to equal his impact on the floor? Not saying it's not possible but you don't just trade Al to trade Al. That's dumb. If you have an obvious deal of course he's movable. I just highly doubt such a deal will come along unless you are including significant assets along in a deal to move him. The kind of team that would want Al are gonna be in exactly the same situation as us and thus, probably not inclined to give up much in return.
