BOS/LAL/WAS - Boston dumps salary, LA gets a scorer

[nate33]

Hat tip to ledell_gumbo on the Wizards board

Boston trades:
Anfernee Simons
2026 FRP (top 4 protected)

Boston receives:
top 55 protected SRP

LA trades:
Gabe Vincent
Maxi Kleber:

LA receives:
Anfernee Simons

Washington trades:
TPE and MLE
top 55 protected SRP

Washington receives:
Gabe Vincent
Maxi Kleber
BOS 2026 FRP (top 4 protected)

Basically, Boston dumps Simons into Washington's TPE's using the Lakers as an intermediary. Boston saves $28M and bunch more by avoiding luxtax payments and getting out of the repeater tax.

The Lakers turn two scrubs into a good player. This might give them flexibility to trade Reeves for a defensive wing. If nothing else, it gives them more firepower to get through the regular season without taxing Lebron.

Washington buys a FRP.

[psman2]

I don't think Boston gives up that pick just to duck the tax. They could just do the Lakers part and then spend a protected swap or 2nds to dump Kleber and give Hauser away into an exception. Or many other possible step down trades they could do now and at the deadline that likely gets them out of the tax and not cost them this much draft capitol.

However ---LAL needs to add value to be here if they even have the space to do this.

[Snakebites]

Surely it’s not that expensive to dump Simons, right?

[DNP-Old]

LAL is up against and hard caped at the 1st at apron.

[hugepatsfan]

2026 pick is probably going to be the singular most valuable asset Boston has to add to their core of Tatum/Brown/White. They can duck the tax if they wanted to by dumping Niang and Hauser instead. Or even just by not overpaying to dump the entire Simons deal which is already in excess of what they need to duck the tax and even more excess if they combined a Simons deal with one of the dumps above.

Basically, even if the value is fine for this, the Celtics front office would have to be pea brained simpleton morons to do this even if they did want to duck the tax. It’s just stupidly inefficient to pay to dump a $27M salary when you only need to clear like $18M and also have other easier to move contracts.

[TGW]

Surely it’s not that expensive to dump Simons, right?

The repeater tax if they keep Simons is north of 80mil, I think. So yea, I think for the owner, it's worth the savings.

[Snakebites]

Surely it’s not that expensive to dump Simons, right?

The repeater tax if they keep Simons is north of 80mil, I think. So yea, I think for the owner, it's worth the savings.

They’d probably prefer to take back a less expensive contract rather than dropping it in its entirety.

Incremental savings.

[nate33]

Surely it’s not that expensive to dump Simons, right?

It's real hard to dump salary outright.

Trading long contracts for expirings is typically low cost, but actually making a lot of salary go away instantly is tough. Teams are penalized for staying under the salary cap, so there's very few teams with the capability of absorbing salary.

[JimmyPlopper]

If I was Boston I would want better protection on that pick. Probably lottery protected

[nate33]

2026 pick is probably going to be the singular most valuable asset Boston has to add to their core of Tatum/Brown/White. They can duck the tax if they wanted to by dumping Niang and Hauser instead. Or even just by not overpaying to dump the entire Simons deal which is already in excess of what they need to duck the tax and even more excess if they combined a Simons deal with one of the dumps above.

Basically, even if the value is fine for this, the Celtics front office would have to be pea brained simpleton morons to do this even if they did want to duck the tax. It’s just stupidly inefficient to pay to dump a $27M salary when you only need to clear like $18M and also have other easier to move contracts.

Do you expect the Celtics to blatantly tank for a high lotto pick this year? Or do you expect merely an off year without Tatum where you win 44 games instead of 60.

I was assuming the later, and that the pick conveyed would be something in the late teens. If you are thinking the Celtics will be in the lottery, then I understand your reservations. Normally, I'd be okay with full lotto protection. The problem is, the Celtics have future picks encumbered so the pick obligation can't be rolled forward to 2027 if not conveyed in 2026.

[hugepatsfan]

Right now BOS is $20,260,950 over the tax with 15 players signed. Just look at the LAL piece of this deal. If they traded Simons for Vincent/Kleber then they'd be $15,082,379 over the tax with 16 players signed. They have two two non guaranteed guys in Jordan Walsh and JD Davison who they could waive and still be at 14 players while being $10,589,967 over the tax. At the deadline if they salary dumped one of the LAL guys - Vincent or Kleber - and replaced with a pro rated vet min deal then they'd be under the tax. Boom. Easy. And no way it costs an unprotected 1st from a team that has the worst front court in the league and looks to be mini-tanking to dump one of those guys midseason.

The WAS piece of this is just really silly structure that BOS would never go for.

[daoneandonly]

Washington is not getting a FRP from a team missing their best player and who traded 2 key guys away just for taking expirings.

[hugepatsfan]

2026 pick is probably going to be the singular most valuable asset Boston has to add to their core of Tatum/Brown/White. They can duck the tax if they wanted to by dumping Niang and Hauser instead. Or even just by not overpaying to dump the entire Simons deal which is already in excess of what they need to duck the tax and even more excess if they combined a Simons deal with one of the dumps above.

Basically, even if the value is fine for this, the Celtics front office would have to be pea brained simpleton morons to do this even if they did want to duck the tax. It’s just stupidly inefficient to pay to dump a $27M salary when you only need to clear like $18M and also have other easier to move contracts.

Do you expect the Celtics to blatantly tank for a high lotto pick this year? Or do you expect merely an off year without Tatum where you win 44 games instead of 60.

I was assuming the later, and that the pick conveyed would be something in the late teens. If you are thinking the Celtics will be in the lottery, then I understand your reservations. Normally, I'd be okay with full lotto protection. The problem is, the Celtics have future picks encumbered so the pick obligation can't be rolled forward to 2027 if not conveyed in 2026.

It doesn't make sense for them in either scenario. See my last post. It's just a silly way for them to shed salary. You have them paying to dump Simons at $27M when they can just cut WAS out, keep the LAL guys and salary dump one of them for what would obviously be less than their '26 1st. No matter where their pick lands this is just awful value for them to expand the deal to include WAS.

[djFan71]

Beyond the fact that there's no way that BOS pays their best pick for this, It's not legal for the Lakers.
If it was legal for LAL, BOS just takes Vincent and Kleber and saves the $5M on their own.

[Mavrelous]

I think WAS should hold out for a 1st, but I don't think this setup works, Lakers are hardcapped, and can't pull off this deal, and it's the wrong year for the Celtics to trade a 1st.

[nate33]

2026 pick is probably going to be the singular most valuable asset Boston has to add to their core of Tatum/Brown/White. They can duck the tax if they wanted to by dumping Niang and Hauser instead. Or even just by not overpaying to dump the entire Simons deal which is already in excess of what they need to duck the tax and even more excess if they combined a Simons deal with one of the dumps above.

Basically, even if the value is fine for this, the Celtics front office would have to be pea brained simpleton morons to do this even if they did want to duck the tax. It’s just stupidly inefficient to pay to dump a $27M salary when you only need to clear like $18M and also have other easier to move contracts.

Do you expect the Celtics to blatantly tank for a high lotto pick this year? Or do you expect merely an off year without Tatum where you win 44 games instead of 60.

I was assuming the later, and that the pick conveyed would be something in the late teens. If you are thinking the Celtics will be in the lottery, then I understand your reservations. Normally, I'd be okay with full lotto protection. The problem is, the Celtics have future picks encumbered so the pick obligation can't be rolled forward to 2027 if not conveyed in 2026.

It doesn't make sense for them in either scenario. See my last post. It's just a silly way for them to shed salary. You have them paying to dump Simons at $27M when they can just cut WAS out, keep the LAL guys and salary dump one of them for what would obviously be less than their '26 1st. No matter where their pick lands this is just awful value for them to expand the deal to include WAS.

Yeah, I see your point.

The Wizards could just absorb Niang and get Boston most of the way there. I'd probably do that for your ORL/DET/MIL SRP.

[brackdan70]

Hat tip to ledell_gumbo on the Wizards board

Boston trades:
Anfernee Simons
2026 FRP (top 4 protected)

Boston receives:
top 55 protected SRP

LA trades:
Gabe Vincent
Maxi Kleber:

LA receives:
Anfernee Simons

Washington trades:
TPE and MLE
top 55 protected SRP

Washington receives:
Gabe Vincent
Maxi Kleber
BOS 2026 FRP (top 4 protected)

Basically, Boston dumps Simons into Washington's TPE's using the Lakers as an intermediary. Boston saves $28M and bunch more by avoiding luxtax payments and getting out of the repeater tax.

The Lakers turn two scrubs into a good player. This might give them flexibility to trade Reeves for a defensive wing. If nothing else, it gives them more firepower to get through the regular season without taxing Lebron.

Washington buys a FRP.

Hell no from Boston. Not trading the highest upside pick they have had in 8 years in a great draft just to dump one year of Simons salary.
It’s just not anything that makes sense and not something Stevens would do.

[brackdan70]

If I was Boston I would want better protection on that pick. Probably lottery protected

I still don’t think they would do it. Maybe as a lotto protected swap, but they want a pick next year. Simon’s contract doesn’t hurt. They already have done the salary dumping they need to do.

[Snakebites]

Surely it’s not that expensive to dump Simons, right?

It's real hard to dump salary outright.

Trading long contracts for expirings is typically low cost, but actually making a lot of salary go away instantly is tough. Teams are penalized for staying under the salary cap, so there's very few teams with the capability of absorbing salary.

It is hard to drop salary outright, which is why they didn’t do it with Jrue.

Surely the better approach is to trade Simons for a smaller contract which would come at less of a premium? That first rounder is very valuable.

[brackdan70]

I’d consider amending this so one of Maxi/ Vincent goes to Boston and instead of 2026 1st to Washington they get Hauser as a positive asset.
Or if they don’t want Hauser they get the Bucks/Magic / Pistons best of 2rp.