1UPZ wrote:AtheJ415 wrote:1UPZ wrote:
Thomas is as good as Irving offensively and even with his lack of size is probably not too far behind Irving at all in the defensive side.
I suppose Celtics did not want to offer Thomas a 30 Million a year contract as a 27 year old, whilst Irving is under contract for 2 more years and would give Celtics an extra off-season to acquire another KEY piece before they would have to lock up Irving at 30+ million.
Celtics did this for financial flexibility... perhaps targeting Cousins in the off season next season... BOLD move. If I was them I would actually just go for Brook Lopez who would sign up for less and then they have more money for depth.
It doesn't give them flexibility though. They are projected to have NEGATIVE 5 million in cap space next offseason with Kyrie. Hayward is maxed, Horford is maxed, and Kyrie is mini-maxed at $20 mill/year. That is all of your cap space right there. There is no way to add Cousins unless they are trading one of those 3 or unless Cousins simply wants to go there so bad he takes something like league-minimum.
There are not teams out there with 4 stars except GSW, and that's because they got to take advantage of the fact that their MVP developed right after signing a long-term deal, and a record salary cap increase that the players refused to incur on a gradual basis and thus increased the cap by the equivalent of a max in 1 offseason.
I can see them off-loading Horford if Cousins comes... or package one of Brown and Tatum with a couple of other players. They want legit Big 3 for sure, Big 4 is bonus if they can do it. Thomas wanted 30+ million a year next off season, now Celtics can clear up more room more readily and easier to get another piece.
It's simply not true though. IT was at 7 mil and his cap hold was only $9.4 million next offseason, which would have given them an additional $11 mil in space next season relative to the $20 mill that Irving takes up in the cap. Add in Crowder ($7 mil) and Zizic ($2 mil) and you come to the realization that they are actually $2 million dollars worse next offseason with this trade than without as far as the cap goes. As a team at the cap marker, you care about bird rights, so avoiding that IT payment doesn't really matter as far as talent acquisition because they would have had to, and been able to, go over the cap to keep him regardless, and his cap hold was so low that it was never going to limit their offseason so long as they signed him last. All they had to do was make sure to sign IT last to add somebody (but that option is really gone regardless with the Hayward signing, which is why it was so imperative they add 2 stars this offseason, and why it is so inexcusable to miss out on all of Butler and George and Cousins imo).
And once you've come to the realization that they are worse off next offseason by $2 mil as far as cap dollars go, you realize that Kyrie is an FA the following offseason, and Kyrie will demand every bit as much, if not more, than IT will. So you will avoid paying IT $30 mill but probably pay Kyrie $32 or so, and with Kyrie's cap hold much higher (it will be at least $25 mil), that means you can't maneuver to sign somebody else before Kyrie the way you can with a late bloomer like IT.
Point being, they aren't signing Cousins. They still have 5 mill to dump just to get to the cap, and then would need to end up about $30 mil under to afford Cousins. They would have to offload Horford, but they could have done that anyways without trading IT, so I don't understand how anybody really thinks this affords them any flexibility financially. That logic doesn't hold in this trade. In fact, keeping those guys and then offloading Horford before FA, to then sign somebody into his space and then sign IT's extension over the top is the better way to go here.
Horford makes $29 mil next year and $30 the following year, and his play has fallen off so I don't see a bunch of teams rushing to grab his 33 year old self next offseason. They would probably have to trade one of their remaining 2 picks to dump him, if that would even do it, and even then another $6-7 mil needs to go, meaning trading Morris or Tatum or Brown on top of that.
Also, the alternative option of trading Brown or Tatum and a couple other players won't work. Their cap is now extremely top heavy, meaning if you combined every player on the team not named Kyrie, Horford, and Hayward, you couldn't get to Cousins's expected salary. Brown and Morris and Tatum and everyone else get to about $24 mil, which means they would have $19 mil to offer because they have negative $5 mil in cap space next offseason.
Point being, trading Horford is the only way they are adding another max caliber player, and they could have done that more easily with IT than Kyrie. Not paying IT $30 mil saves them from hitting the luxury tax a year early, but gives them 0 flexibility as far as talent acquisition in FA because they are operating above the cap with Kyrie anyways.
