Parliament10 wrote:Hal14 wrote:Fencer reregistered wrote:
Check the rules again.
I think the offseason limit is 21 contracts, standard or two-way in any combination, except that two-ways may still be limited to their usual cap of 3.
I'm well aware of that. But the bottom line is, you need to trim it down to 15 by opening night.
We're already at 15 though. Plus we have our 3 2-ways spots filled. Anyone we sign at this point would just be an exhibit 10 or exhibit 9 training camp deal..which is reportedly what Bassey is signing.
Sure, we could sign him to a standard contract right now since we do have more spots open on the 21 man offseason roster. But that's just not something that teams typically do if they are already have 15 guys signed to standard contracts.
https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2025/07/brad-stevens-reveals-why-boston-celtics-made-surprise-addition-at-center.htmlBoston’s 15-man roster is currently full but there is plenty of flexibility for the team to bring in a player on a training camp contract.
You can sign more than 15 Standard Contracts.
Opening Day, is a ways away.
That is not something that teams typically do, though. Hence why Brian Robb (Celtics beat writer) says that if we signed Bassey, it would just be a training camp deal.
The 21 man offseason roster is typically made up of up to 15 on standard contracts, up to 3 2-ways and the rest exhibit 9 or 10 training camp deals.
No sense in signing a guy to a standard contract for guaranteed money with the chance that you have to cut him and then you're on the hook for that money paid to him. In that scenario it would just be an exhibit 9/10 deal instead, so there's no penalty for the team if they cut him.
Hell, we usually don't even reach the limit of 15 guys on a standard contract until we get to the end of training camp. Like a couple years ago, Vonleh and Justin Jackson got standard contracts at the end of training camp but before then we only had like 13 guys on standard deals (12 of them prior to Blake Griffin signing right before training camp).
And sometimes we go the whole season with just 14 guys on standard contracts, then convert a 2-way guy like JD with like 2 games left in the season.
Very rare for us to be at 15 standard contracts this soon in the offseason. It would be even more unprecedented for us to be at 16..
As the Brian Rob article says, maybe someone gets cut or we make some sort of 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 trade or 1 for 0 trade to open up a roster spot and then maybe sign Bassey. But we wouldn't sign him now to a standard contract, when we already have 15 of them filled. Again, it's not something that typically happens.
Situations like this are exactly why exhibit 9 and exhibit 10 deals exist.