It's a Tragedy to see the Deadline's Over Post Trade Thread

[Andrew McCeltic]

Again: this team is f*cked. No flexibility. Keeping Fournier, then Smart, and extending Rob Williams, we’re in the tax with no filler contracts to trade for depth or pair with assets to get someone better.

The only hope is that Nesmith and Langford emerge and you can get something for a 30 year old Fournier, like a young power forward and a center on a bad contract.

F*cked? We have all our draft assets, we have 2 young all-stars, dumping Kemba will give us some flexibility, and we still have some of the TPE.

I'd consider TT filler.

We need to hit on a few mid-round draft picks (past or future) but we're far from f*cked.

“Draft assets” will be mid to late first round picks, and even when you hit on a player they usually take 1-3 seasons to develop. And “dumping” Kemba - say, to a team under the cap - would leave us with about seven million in cap space and no spare contracts to trade. We need him to play well and then we need someone to bail us out the way Brooklyn did for Pierce and KG, giving up real value because they overestimate an aging veteran. Or there’s Andrew Wiggins.

[zoyathedestroya]

Wanted to stand pat and just play the young guys, get a high-ish pick, but we couldn't/wouldn't do that so now, I just want more enjoyable basketball the rest of the season if that's not too much to ask. I think Kornet and Wagner would be better towel-wavers from the bench.

[CelticsPride18]

Horford was traded with 3 years left on his deal.

[darrendaye]

Play out this year, hope for the best, whatever. Nothing I've seen leaves me excited. But lookin ahead to this offseason where I expect Fournier to be re-signed with Bird Rights, the pieces I like and would like to keep...

Kemba (not giving up picks to move him) / Pritchard
Smart / Fournier
Brown / ???
Tatum / ???
??? / R Williams

That's the main 10 man rotation. I have 4 ??? spots. In order to fill those spots we have the following trade chips:

Nesmith
Langford
G Williams
Our 1st round pick
Future picks

The pure salary matching trade pieces are as follows:

Thompson's $9.7M expiring deal
$11.05M left on
$4.767M Kanter TPE
$5M Theis TPE

In free agency we will have the tax payer's MLE and the bi-annual exception to use, along with minimum salary deals of course. Bird rights on Semi as well, though I really hope he isn't re-signed unless it's 3rd string depth. Also bird rights on Wagner and early bird rights on Kornet should either emerge as worthy to re-sign as 3rd string depth or somehow break out into more the rest of the way here.

Ainge needs to be aggressive about finding the right players who fit the role and accept it. Doesn't necessarily have to be vets, but those are generally better bets to be good fits for that.

For all those wondering why people like @dangercart are claiming we are **** it's basically this:

If Fournier walks and tatum misses all nba we are less than 2 million below the tax next year for just twelve players.

So bringing back fournier as currently constituted is next to impossible unless you believe the c's are going 20 million into the tax. They are not.

So okay how do you fix that? You could dump kemba, but at roughly 75 million owed over two years that's an albatross. You are talking like two firsts just to move off the deal for the privilege of resigning fournier. You could dump tt but you'd need to replace him on the roster anyway since you need a decent backup due to robs health issues. You no longer have the financial flexibility via a large tpe to add a big wing which you still desperately need.

In short you are financially jammed up with no way out except to shed talent on a team that nobody thinks is good enough as is.

But how would this be any different if they had traded for Barnes? Or even saved and used the full TPE in the off-season? This was always going to be the scenario. And this is coming from someone who littered the trade threads with posts about not making any trades. The cost was 2 2nd round picks for half a season. I just don't see how Gordon or Barnes on the team is such a game changer in terms of convincing the owners to pay significant lux tax for that team.

[djFan71]

Anyone that can't see these moves are the first in "righting the ship" or "getting back on course" is delusional. It's not perfect, the team is still flawed, but much less so than yesterday.

Any insight on what the team thinks of Romeo/Nesmith? Bringing Fournier in and planning to resign him isn't a huge vote of confidence that either will be major contributors.

I assume something like "like Romeo a lot, he just needs to get healthy", and "Aaron has a lot to learn but we're real excited about his potential"? But, they didn't want to rely on either hitting their ceiling.

[hugepatsfan]

Dumping Kemba's contract for "flexibility" would be insanity.

We avoided the tax this year. There are no repeater rate concerns anymore. Our clock on that is reset. Kemba will be expired before e ever reach repeater rates. His contract shouldn't stop us from making any rotation upgrades with mid tier players. And creating salary space for a max with Brown/Tatum isn't really practical without absolute gutting the roster down to just those 3 and rookie scale guys.

The only way it makes sense to dump Kemba is the following scenario:

BOS gets: star player
Other team gets: Kemba + assets

The example is the Cp3/Westbrook trade. At the time, Westbrook was viewed as an asset to HOU while CP3 a bad contract. So HOU had to give up extra compensation beyond the normal cost to acquire Westbrook for OKC taking that on. (And obviously he turned it around and flipped back positive but that was after the fact.)

So for anyone who wants Beal or any other star, you're better off holding onto Kemba until then and then dumping him as part of that trade/sign&trade to make it salary matching. That way you don't have to clear the roster to bare bones.

[GoCeltics123]

Fournier isn’t walking after the season, as LBF is saying.

He’s going to be really good for the Jays on and off the court.

We sure? Were are 132M/2M below the tax with 12 guys undercontract. If someone offers him 15M+, it gets really tough for us tax wise.

I think this summer will be all about trying to dump Kemba, which would make things easier.

Hopefully Kemba and Cam Newton ball out in their last year here

[JediMasterRevan]

We have to give lots of consistant minutes to rob, nesmith, pritchard and langford cause like it or lump it. Championship contension is based on them getting better in a hurry.

[djFan71]

Dumping Kemba's contract for "flexibility" would be insanity.

We avoided the tax this year. There are no repeater rate concerns anymore. Our clock on that is reset. Kemba will be expired before e ever reach repeater rates. His contract shouldn't stop us from making any rotation upgrades with mid tier players. And creating salary space for a max with Brown/Tatum isn't really practical without absolute gutting the roster down to just those 3 and rookie scale guys.

The only way it makes sense to dump Kemba is the following scenario:

BOS gets: star player
Other team gets: Kemba + assets

The example is the Cp3/Westbrook trade. At the time, Westbrook was viewed as an asset to HOU while CP3 a bad contract. So HOU had to give up extra compensation beyond the normal cost to acquire Westbrook for OKC taking that on. (And obviously he turned it around and flipped back positive but that was after the fact.)

So for anyone who wants Beal or any other star, you're better off holding onto Kemba until then and then dumping him as part of that trade/sign&trade to make it salary matching. That way you don't have to clear the roster to bare bones.

Yep. And he can still score. If they manage his knee right, he can still be a valuable, but overpaid, scorer. Most of the dump scenarios make the team worse while losing assets and not gaining much flexibility.

[Andrew McCeltic]

Horford was traded with 3 years left on his deal.

No injury issues, his last year is partially guaranteed, his problem in Philly was glaringly obviously fit, not decline, and the Sixers had to give up a 1st and Maledon to unload him.

[LarryBirdsFingr]

Anyone that can't see these moves are the first in "righting the ship" or "getting back on course" is delusional. It's not perfect, the team is still flawed, but much less so than yesterday.

Any insight on what the team thinks of Romeo/Nesmith? Bringing Fournier in and planning to resign him isn't a huge vote of confidence that either will be major contributors.

I assume something like "like Romeo a lot, he just needs to get healthy", and "Aaron has a lot to learn but we're real excited about his potential"? But, they didn't want to rely on either hitting their ceiling.

Intriguing players, both still too unknown to make a decision from either side, ours and other teams.

[PierceFan4ever]

One of Nesmith or Langford (preferably both) need to step up and bring something of value to this team. Both cannot end up looking like Semi Ojeleye or worse, a James Young type player. One of them need to jump next level and at least become a valuable asset like Timelord is starting to become. May not be this season but one of them definitely gotta step it up by the start of the next.

[djFan71]

Anyone that can't see these moves are the first in "righting the ship" or "getting back on course" is delusional. It's not perfect, the team is still flawed, but much less so than yesterday.

Any insight on what the team thinks of Romeo/Nesmith? Bringing Fournier in and planning to resign him isn't a huge vote of confidence that either will be major contributors.

I assume something like "like Romeo a lot, he just needs to get healthy", and "Aaron has a lot to learn but we're real excited about his potential"? But, they didn't want to rely on either hitting their ceiling.

Intriguing players, both still too unknown to make a decision from either side, ours and other teams.

Thanks, makes sense.

[Andrew McCeltic]

Again, you’re banking almost entirely on Langford or Nesmith turning into starting caliber players. Or, I guess, Grant turning into a scorer who can maneuver around larger players in the post. We have limited flexibility and limited upside.

[Patsfan1081]

Dumping Kemba's contract for "flexibility" would be insanity.

We avoided the tax this year. There are no repeater rate concerns anymore. Our clock on that is reset. Kemba will be expired before e ever reach repeater rates. His contract shouldn't stop us from making any rotation upgrades with mid tier players. And creating salary space for a max with Brown/Tatum isn't really practical without absolute gutting the roster down to just those 3 and rookie scale guys.

The only way it makes sense to dump Kemba is the following scenario:

BOS gets: star player
Other team gets: Kemba + assets

The example is the Cp3/Westbrook trade. At the time, Westbrook was viewed as an asset to HOU while CP3 a bad contract. So HOU had to give up extra compensation beyond the normal cost to acquire Westbrook for OKC taking that on. (And obviously he turned it around and flipped back positive but that was after the fact.)

So for anyone who wants Beal or any other star, you're better off holding onto Kemba until then and then dumping him as part of that trade/sign&trade to make it salary matching. That way you don't have to clear the roster to bare bones.

Will take prob two firsts to get a team to take Kemba let alone return a good player.

[djFan71]

Again, you’re banking almost entirely on Langford or Nesmith turning into starting caliber players. Or, I guess, Grant turning into a scorer who can maneuver around larger players in the post. We have limited flexibility and limited upside.

Not really. You're definitely hoping one becomes a quality rotation player. But you have 7 starter quality already: Smart, Jays, Kemba, Fournier, TT, Rob.

If either of those 2 pan out to 25 mpg guy and PP does too, you're in solid shape. Big thing as always is we need our stars to turn out to be superstars.

[LarryBirdsFingr]

Acquiring another big that compliments rwIII or is better than him is next priority, has to feel like long term, no?

[hugepatsfan]

For all those wondering why people like @dangercart are claiming we are **** it's basically this:

If Fournier walks and tatum misses all nba we are less than 2 million below the tax next year for just twelve players.

So bringing back fournier as currently constituted is next to impossible unless you believe the c's are going 20 million into the tax. They are not.

So okay how do you fix that? You could dump kemba, but at roughly 75 million owed over two years that's an albatross. You are talking like two firsts just to move off the deal for the privilege of resigning fournier. You could dump tt but you'd need to replace him on the roster anyway since you need a decent backup due to robs health issues. You no longer have the financial flexibility via a large tpe to add a big wing which you still desperately need.

In short you are financially jammed up with no way out except to shed talent on a team that nobody thinks is good enough as is.

I don't see it the same at all. I'm not going to sit here and say our cap situation is "clean" or anything. But having avoided the tax this year and thus removed ANY AND ALL CONCERNS ABOUT REPEATER TAX RATES EVER KICKING IN BEFORE KEMBA'S DEAL EXPIRES, a point that I cannot stress enough, I do not see this big financial crunch.

NBA luxury tax is not crippling. Repeater tax rates are. We don't have to worry about that. I see no reason to believe that we're going to be pinching pennies in '21-22 or '22-23. Remember, in addition to the contracts we have on the books now, ownership was ok with Ainge offered Hayward a contract in the reported range of $25M/year before CHA came in over that. They were ok adding that much salary to the books we have now. Because a backloaded deal for Hayward would have still kept us below the tax line this year and thus removed any worry about repeater rates. Those have always been what's crippling, not regular tax. We are in the clear.

I just do not see significant financial crunch the next two years when it comes to adding role players. The issue is going to be if we want to trade for a star. Dipping below the cap to sign one outright is not practical when you crunch the numbers, even if Kemba had never been signed in the first place. The only path we have to acquiring another star is via trade and I just do not think we have the assets for that.

[Andrew McCeltic]

Again, you’re banking almost entirely on Langford or Nesmith turning into starting caliber players. Or, I guess, Grant turning into a scorer who can maneuver around larger players in the post. We have limited flexibility and limited upside.

Not really. You're definitely hoping one becomes a quality rotation player. But you have 7 starter quality already: Smart, Jays, Kemba, Fournier, TT, Rob.

If either of those 2 pan out to 25 mpg guy and PP does too, you're in solid shape. Big thing as always is we need our stars to turn out to be superstars.

Quality rotation players won’t make this roster significantly better - there has to be a path to upgrade the core. You can’t trade Nesmith for someone like John Collins.

And yeah, the other possibility is that Brown and Tatum might have major leaps left in their game. Tatum probably does. But they’re both developing horrible habits this season - hopefully they play better with better spacing.

[Patsfan1081]

Anyone that can't see these moves are the first in "righting the ship" or "getting back on course" is delusional. It's not perfect, the team is still flawed, but much less so than yesterday.

Any insight on what the team thinks of Romeo/Nesmith? Bringing Fournier in and planning to resign him isn't a huge vote of confidence that either will be major contributors.

I assume something like "like Romeo a lot, he just needs to get healthy", and "Aaron has a lot to learn but we're real excited about his potential"? But, they didn't want to rely on either hitting their ceiling.

Feels like BB and the tight ends Only Ainge used consecutive lottery picks on them.