Money has become the league’s loudest voice, and the Celtics are living with that reality right now.
This summer has already offered a few blunt examples. The Oklahoma City Thunder moved Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe, and Aaron Wiggins in three separate salary-dump deals.
The New York Knicks were squeezed so tightly by the second apron that they let Mitchell Robinson walk. The Minnesota Timberwolves made a smaller move, sending Josh Green to the Utah Jazz for Cody Williams and John Konchar just to get back under the second apron after signing Jonathan Kuminga.
That’s the part of the NBA that gets overlooked most often. It’s easy to point at cheap owners and blame them for every cautious move, but the real trap is the apron system itself. Once a team crosses into that territory, the roster-building rules start to close in fast.
A team sitting in the first apron loses a lot of flexibility. It can’t complete sign-and-trades, can’t use the bi-annual exception, can’t use trade exceptions, can’t sign expensive buyout players, and can’t take back more money than it sends out in a trade.
The second apron is even harsher. Teams there can’t aggregate salaries in trades, can’t send out cash, can’t sign players above the minimum, and can’t use any of the mid-level exception. In practice, that can turn even basic roster work into a near-impossible puzzle.
And that’s before the tax bill comes into play.
Ownership isn’t always the main reason teams avoid the second apron, but it matters. James Dolan recently said he is unwilling to dip into it.
The Nuggets have been steering clear of the aprons for years. And once a team keeps paying the luxury tax year after year, the costs can balloon quickly.
The key trigger is the three-out-of-four rule: if a team pays the luxury tax in three of the last four seasons, it gets hit with the repeater tax. That’s where the numbers jump in a big way. A $30 million contract can end up costing more than $200 million if a team isn’t careful.
So when Brad Stevens talked after the Jaylen Brown trade, the cap was the real issue he kept circling back to. The Celtics didn’t want two players eating up 70% of the cap, which was where Jayson Tatum and Brown were headed.
“I might be wrong. I’m not going to stand up here and be defensive about that, but the path looked a little bit more challenging with 70% of our cap and such a high percent of our usage tied into two players,” Stevens said. “And the reality in this era and in this day and age at the NBA, you could see it obviously, with the last couple of champions and some of the teams that were at the very top of the league, when it was all said and done at the end of this year, is that you have to do a great job and you have to have the optionality to do a great job of building out depth that can hopefully replace the irreplaceable individual.”
The problem for Boston is that, in the short term, the math still looks a lot like it did before. The Celtics still have two players taking up 70% of the cap. Paul George makes nearly as much as Brown, and he and Tatum are projected to account for around 68% of the cap over the next two seasons.
So even after the trade, the pressure point remains. The Celtics made the move to create more room to work, but the basic cap reality hasn’t gone away.
In Other News...
Derrick White Suddenly Feels Less Safe In Bostons Core
Derrick White has long looked like one of the safer pieces in Bostons core, the kind of player who fits almost anywhere because of his defense, decision-making and steady all-around game. Sports Illustrateds John Karalis recently underscored that point while also noting the tension around the Celtics cap situation, where even dependable contributors can become complicated fast when the financial picture tightens.
Whites recent shooting has added another layer to the conversation, since a swing in performance can change how a team views a player whose value is built on balance rather than volume scoring. None of that means Boston is preparing to move him, but it does make his roster security feel a little less automatic than it once did, especially with the Celtics already navigating a squeezed financial outlook. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Trade Return Rides On One Complicated Pick Twist
The Celtics return for Jaylen Brown is straightforward on the surface: Paul George, two first-rounders and two second-round picks from Philadelphia. But buried in the package is the kind of draft-night accounting that can shape a franchise years down the line, including an unprotected 2031 pick from the 76ers and a protected 2028 first from the Clippers that comes wrapped in swap rights and layered protections involving Boston and San Antonio.
For the Celtics, the second-round pieces add a little more value to the haul, too. They come in 2028 and 2030 and are structured as the most favorable of several teams selections, which is the sort of detail that can look minor now and matter later when front offices are hunting for flexibility. The headline of the deal is the star-for-star swap, but the real long-term intrigue sits in how those picks eventually shake out. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Just Got A New Eastern Conference Threat To Worry About
The Eastern Conference picture may be about to get a lot more complicated for Boston. With the NBA punishing the Clippers over the Kawhi Leonard trade, the path has opened for Leonard to return to the Toronto Raptors, and ESPNs Shams Charania reports the deal is expected to be finalized in the next few days. For a Celtics team already measuring itself against the conferences best, the timing matters.
Toronto with Leonard back in the fold is a very different problem than Toronto without him. Even with the obvious questions about his health and durability, his arrival would be viewed as a major upgrade and would put another proven playoff force back in Bostons lane. The Celtics do not need more contenders making the road harder, but this one has the kind of star power that can change the balance in the East quickly. [Read more 🡒]