Free Agent, Trade, Buyout, Extension & Conversion Thread, 2025 con't

[cl2117]

Pit it in the other thread but it probably makes more sense here, this is my total tear down plan:

BOS in: #3, Dame Lillard, Daniel Gafford (expiring), Adem Bona, Julian Phillips, Jevon Carter (expiring)
BOS out: Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis (expiring), Jrue Holiday, Xavier Tillman (expiring)

Celtics reset their salary cap situation (shave $39m off the books and easily get below both aprons and the tax) and go for a single year tank with the aim to bounce back in '26/27 when both Tatum and Dame have 100% recovered.

Draft at #3, #28 and #32. Play all your rookie scale guys the kind of minutes that they never would normally get and hope that one or two can develop into a viable rotation piece. Likely end up with a top 5-10 pick the following year to add to the mix as well. Look to either extend Gafford as the C of the future or trade him mid-season for assets (LA for Knecht/Maxi for example). Come back the following year with:

Lillard/ Pritchard
White/ Scheierman
Bailey (drafted #3)/ Hauser/
Tatum/ Walsh/ Phillips
Gafford/ Queta/ Bona

#28, #32 and a lotto pick from 2026 added in. Dame will be expiring,C's will have most of their future picks and be below the 2nd apron. They could immediately try and start wheeling and dealing again by adding picks to Lillard's huge expiring salary or give that Tatum/Dame duo a year and then re-look at everything with a much cleaner cap situation.

PHI in: Jaylen Brown, Kyle Kuzma, Xavier Tillman (expiring)
PHI out: #3, Paul George, Andre Drummond (expiring), Eric Gordon (expiring), Adem Bona

Philly trade in #3 for win now pieces and hope to get a healthy year out of Embiid in the near term. Maxey/Brown/Embiid trio with the likes of McCain, Kuz, Oubre could be a problem in a now wide-open Eastern Conference.

Philly adds $13.5m to their cap here but should still be a below the apron team.

MIL in: Paul George, Klay Thompson, Nikola Vucevic (expiring), Andre Drummond (expiring)
MIL out: Dame Lillard, Kyle Kuzma

Milwaukee take on longer-term money to get guys who will be able to give Giannis a chance next year. While none of the names they're bringing in are all that exciting at this stage in their careers, with very limited options to add to their roster and Dame likely out for the whole year, you're swapping Kuz for PG, Klay, Vuc and Drummond. Ignoring the money owed to those guys that's still a pretty solid overhaul for this team.

Milwaukee adds $18.3m to their cap here but should still be a below the apron team.

DAL in: Jrue Holiday, Eric Gordon (expiring)
DAL out: Daniel Gafford (expiring), Klay Thompson (expiring), Brandon Williams (expiring)

Mavs take a chance on Jrue. Nico stays true to his "defense wins championships" mantra but also adds the perennial frontrunner for best teammate in the league with Holiday (underrated aspect given Flagg is entering a Kyrie/AD locker room). Eric Gordon comes along for the ride as a cheaper alternative to Klay.

Dallas save about $900k here.

CHI in: Kristaps Porzingis (expiring), Brandon Williams (expiring)
CHI out: Nikola Vucevic (expiring), Julian Phillips, Jevon Carter (expiring)

Chicago swaps Vuc/Carter for KP at the low low price of Jualian Phillips and eating Brandon Williams and they only add $200k to their cap here.

Boston get a clean cap re-set and a high pick
Philly get a veteran star for #3 and PG
Milwaukee get a lifeline in terms of keeping Giannis around
Dallas get a well rounded guard to hold things down next to Kyrie
Chicago get an unreliable upgrade at C for expirings and last year's 2nd round pick

[Froob]

Mavs seem like the best trade partner for Jrue. I wonder if there's any way to get Lively.

[ConstableGeneva]

Get Jokic/Giannis or Brad is out of a job.

[Froob]

Get Jokic/Giannis or Brad is out of a job.

maybe we are finally getting Omer Asik

[playa-hater]

I am not going to pretend to know how the money would work, but the one team that screams needing Jrue to me not mentioned is the Wolves. Similar age but Jrue > Conley. Fits their defense and can add leadership and Championship experience. On and off the ball with Edwards and Donte fits perfectly. Maybe Conley (filler?) and 17th pick? Might need a 3rd team to dump a salary for the Wolves to make work etc..

[165bows]

I am not going to pretend to know how the money would work, but the one team that screams needing Jrue to me not mentioned is the Wolves. Similar age but Jrue > Conley. Fits their defense and can add leadership and Championship experience. On and off the ball with Edwards and Donte fits perfectly. Maybe Conley (filler?) and 17th pick? Might need a 3rd team to dump a salary for the Wolves to make work etc..

Maybe Boston can steal Naz Reid lol

[mademan]

Mavs seem like the best trade partner for Jrue. I wonder if there's any way to get Lively.

That's an unreasonable target for Jrue. He's part of the Flagg core

[bigfoot_cryptozoology]

That's pretty bad...

Read on Twitter

[hugepatsfan]

Trade #1 (Jrue):

DAL gives: Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall, Dwight Powell, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, 2nd rounder(s)
DAL gets: Jrue Holiday

Why? Consolidate to a perfect roster fit for them. When Kyrie comes back, they'd have Kyrie/Jrue/Flagg/AD/Lively as starters and Hardy/Christie/Caleb Martin/PJ Washington/Gafford off the bench. Good, deep team. They can make plenty of follow up moves too. The deal is slight savings this year which avoids hard cap at 1st apron which would trigger if they took back more than they sent. It's also salary neutral next year since Klay/Marshall have 2 year deals. The big "cost" here is taking on year 3 of Jrue's deal, but they can use it in trades at that point since they'll have tradable picks and a cornerstone to build around in Flagg.

SAC gives: fake 2nd
SAC gets: Naji Marshall, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, 2nd rounder from BOS or DAL

Why? They need playable forwards who can hang on the defensive end, they get one for free on a sub-MLE deal in Marshall and a former 1st round prospect in Olivier-Maxence Prosper. They get a 2nd for their trouble of facilitating too.

LAC gives: fake 2nd
LAC gets: C Dwight Powell, 2nd rounder from BOS or DAL

Why? They have TPEs that fit him and could use a lob threat just to provide some easy offense with Harden for the regular season slog since they rest Kawhi so much. They get a 2nd for their trouble.

BOS gives: Jrue Holiday, future 2nd rounder
BOS gets: Klay Thompson

Why? Save $$$. This does most of the heavy lifting to avoid the 2nd apron this year and sets them up to avoid the luxury tax altogether next year. Sucks, but it is what it is.



Trade #2 (Porzingis)

LAL gives: Gabe Vincent, Maxi Kleber, 2 future 2nds
LAL gets: Nikola Vucevic

Why? Get a playable big man with some offensive juice for dead weight expiring deals. Deal saves $1M so doesn't hard cap them at the first apron.

CHI gives: Nikola Vucevic, Jevon Carter
CHI gets: Kristaps Porzingis, 2 future LAL 2nds

Why? Move Vuc for some 2nds and get back a higher risk but also higher upside center. If Porzingis is healthy, he could help them break through the play in. If not, maybe he helps them "bottom out" some. Carter makes the math work and makes this pretty salary neutral for CHI, with stillplenty of room below the tax.

BOS gives: Kristaps Porzingis, 2nd rounder
BOS gets: Gabe VIncent, Maxi Kleber

Why? Again, it sucks as a fan but cash is king here. This deal, combined with above Jrue deal, gets them below the 2nd apron and gives them some guys in Vincent/Kleber that are movable for further savings too.

BRK gives: nothing
BRK gets: Jevon Carter, future BOS 2nd rounder

Why? Get a pick for salary dump. Simple.



Trade #3

DET gives: nothing
DET gets: Maxi Kleber, #28 pick

BOS gives: Maxi Kleber #28 pick
BOS gets: nothing

Why? DET lands a 1st in a salary dump. On the court, Kleber does give them a stretch 5 which they don't have. Also gives them some salary filler for a midseason deal, which their roster kind of lacks beyond Fontecchio.



Trade #4

NOP gives: nothing
NOP gets: Gave Vincent, #33 pick

Why? Pelicans only have one pick this year. They get a guy who can sop up some minutes with Murray out for a bit and pick up a high 2nd to try and start adding some more youth.






At the end of all of these deals, BOS will have 11 players signed and be $6,577,068 below the luxury tax line.

White / Pritchard / JD Davison
Klay / Schierman
Brown / Walsh
Hauser
Queta / Tillman
(+ Tatum but obviously not playing)

They can sign one of their two way guys, Drew Peterson who played ok this year, a rookie minimum and a vet min to fill out the roster. Tough it out through a tanking year while staying below the luxury tax altogether. Next year you look to package Klay's expiring deal with Hauser and their presumably good 2026 1st rounder for a good long term piece alongside Tatum and Brown and try to run it back. Painful year but if they can find a good front court player with that trade offer then they'll be in terrific position for a bounce back and the finances will all be in order.

[celtics543]

Could we possibly trade Jaylen and White for a load of draft picks and young players? Then let KP expire at the end of the year and try to move Jrue for nothing. You'd have a ton of cap space, some high level rookies who got good minutes this year and hopefully are ready to go and the ability to move picks and young guys for a star next year when Tatum is back.

Kind of a complete reset where this year is all about value building in order to ship guys out for stars when Tatum is ready.

[vct33]

Sorry if this is addressed somewhere in the thread. I understand we need to shed some salary but we can't do that making dollar for dollar trades. What teams are potential trade partners who can take in more money than they send out?

[Gant]

Sorry if this is addressed somewhere in the thread. I understand we need to shed some salary but we can't do that making dollar for dollar trades. What teams are potential trade partners who can take in more money than they send out?

Read this article: https://medium.com/@rbernardoni/celtics-2025-offseason-preview-24a2d17e9d2a

A challenge that the last two CBA updates have created is that teams are punished severely for spending too much money but given fewer palatable ways to cut their spending.

Teams no longer have a reason to carry significant cap space into seasons and the salary floor has been hardened, resulting in fewer teams having planned roll-over of space from one season to the next. This offseason, only the Brooklyn Nets are projected to have notable cap space so there are not good options for even just giving productive players away to teams with cap space as a way to lower expenditures.

[Celts17Pride]

That's pretty bad...

Read on Twitter

That trade pretty much says forget the next 10 seasons.

[brackdan70]

That's pretty bad...

Read on Twitter

WTF Bill. Yeah that’s not worth it

[phincsfan]

That's pretty bad...

Read on Twitter

There’s a narrative out there that JT and White are good friends so that should play a part in keeping White around so to make JT happy.

Don’t know if Simmons factored that in with that trade because I didn’t watch the clip.

JT won’t be coming through those doors next season and White will be 32 when he does. Thats usually not a good number to be on in most professional sports.

If a GM is willing to part with a lottery pick this draft for a 31 year old I’m all in.

[31to6]

Trade #1 (Jrue):

DAL gives: Klay Thompson, Naji Marshall, Dwight Powell, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, 2nd rounder(s)
DAL gets: Jrue Holiday

Why? Consolidate to a perfect roster fit for them. When Kyrie comes back, they'd have Kyrie/Jrue/Flagg/AD/Lively as starters and Hardy/Christie/Caleb Martin/PJ Washington/Gafford off the bench. Good, deep team. They can make plenty of follow up moves too. The deal is slight savings this year which avoids hard cap at 1st apron which would trigger if they took back more than they sent. It's also salary neutral next year since Klay/Marshall have 2 year deals. The big "cost" here is taking on year 3 of Jrue's deal, but they can use it in trades at that point since they'll have tradable picks and a cornerstone to build around in Flagg.

SAC gives: fake 2nd
SAC gets: Naji Marshall, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, 2nd rounder from BOS or DAL

Why? They need playable forwards who can hang on the defensive end, they get one for free on a sub-MLE deal in Marshall and a former 1st round prospect in Olivier-Maxence Prosper. They get a 2nd for their trouble of facilitating too.

LAC gives: fake 2nd
LAC gets: C Dwight Powell, 2nd rounder from BOS or DAL

Why? They have TPEs that fit him and could use a lob threat just to provide some easy offense with Harden for the regular season slog since they rest Kawhi so much. They get a 2nd for their trouble.

BOS gives: Jrue Holiday, future 2nd rounder
BOS gets: Klay Thompson

Why? Save $$$. This does most of the heavy lifting to avoid the 2nd apron this year and sets them up to avoid the luxury tax altogether next year. Sucks, but it is what it is.



Trade #2 (Porzingis)

LAL gives: Gabe Vincent, Maxi Kleber, 2 future 2nds
LAL gets: Nikola Vucevic

Why? Get a playable big man with some offensive juice for dead weight expiring deals. Deal saves $1M so doesn't hard cap them at the first apron.

CHI gives: Nikola Vucevic, Jevon Carter
CHI gets: Kristaps Porzingis, 2 future LAL 2nds

Why? Move Vuc for some 2nds and get back a higher risk but also higher upside center. If Porzingis is healthy, he could help them break through the play in. If not, maybe he helps them "bottom out" some. Carter makes the math work and makes this pretty salary neutral for CHI, with stillplenty of room below the tax.

BOS gives: Kristaps Porzingis, 2nd rounder
BOS gets: Gabe VIncent, Maxi Kleber

Why? Again, it sucks as a fan but cash is king here. This deal, combined with above Jrue deal, gets them below the 2nd apron and gives them some guys in Vincent/Kleber that are movable for further savings too.

BRK gives: nothing
BRK gets: Jevon Carter, future BOS 2nd rounder

Why? Get a pick for salary dump. Simple.



Trade #3

DET gives: nothing
DET gets: Maxi Kleber, #28 pick

BOS gives: Maxi Kleber #28 pick
BOS gets: nothing

Why? DET lands a 1st in a salary dump. On the court, Kleber does give them a stretch 5 which they don't have. Also gives them some salary filler for a midseason deal, which their roster kind of lacks beyond Fontecchio.



Trade #4

NOP gives: nothing
NOP gets: Gave Vincent, #33 pick

Why? Pelicans only have one pick this year. They get a guy who can sop up some minutes with Murray out for a bit and pick up a high 2nd to try and start adding some more youth.






At the end of all of these deals, BOS will have 11 players signed and be $6,577,068 below the luxury tax line.

White / Pritchard / JD Davison
Klay / Schierman
Brown / Walsh
Hauser
Queta / Tillman
(+ Tatum but obviously not playing)

They can sign one of their two way guys, Drew Peterson who played ok this year, a rookie minimum and a vet min to fill out the roster. Tough it out through a tanking year while staying below the luxury tax altogether. Next year you look to package Klay's expiring deal with Hauser and their presumably good 2026 1st rounder for a good long term piece alongside Tatum and Brown and try to run it back. Painful year but if they can find a good front court player with that trade offer then they'll be in terrific position for a bounce back and the finances will all be in order.

c'mon Mike Zarren, stop posting on RealGM and get to work!

[redslastlaugh]

Jabari Smith is my LEAST favorite type of player we could acquire.
He is a top 3 pick, who has not panned out great but isn't a bust
But he's now due an extension and his agent is going to want a big number based on his reputation/potential as a recent top 3 pick.

If you got a guy at pick #21 or something who had Jabari's first 3 yrs, you'd be pleased
but that guy would be looking at Grant Williams money, 4yrs $60 million and Jabari is going to want 4 yrs > $100
not interested for the C's

[chrisab123]

That's pretty bad...

Read on Twitter

Tbf I’ve seen worse on this board.

[chrisab123]

Could we possibly trade Jaylen and White for a load of draft picks and young players? Then let KP expire at the end of the year and try to move Jrue for nothing. You'd have a ton of cap space, some high level rookies who got good minutes this year and hopefully are ready to go and the ability to move picks and young guys for a star next year when Tatum is back.

Kind of a complete reset where this year is all about value building in order to ship guys out for stars when Tatum is ready.

You could, but also be ready to ship an angry Tatum out when he asks for a trade. Then you’re more or less hoping to be where you are now in 5 years after the assets you get for Tatum Brown and White develop into hopefully Tatum Brown and White.

[Celts17Pride]

Brad Stevens just said the Celtics won't be in the top end of the draft in his press conference so take that for what it's worth. Stevens also said there could be fireworks around the draft but not for the Celtics so take that for what it's worth. Personally I don't take much out of these end of year GM press conferences because they never say much and it's all before they talk to the organization and other teams. Not to mention they are not going to tell the world what their intentions are for the off-season.