Boston Celtics Offseason Primer: Free Agents, Draft, Salary Cap, Trades

After everything the Boston Celtics did this past season, it turned into a gap year after all. Everything they went through and accomplished is now information for Brad Stevens and his front office to process as they make decisions for next season.

There will be a lot of analysis of what those options are for Boston, but let’s start with a big overview to get you set for the offseason. Let’s go through everything to set the stage for them this summer.

The Money

Expected Salary: $188 million
Tax Line: $201 million
First Apron: $209 million
Second Apron: $222 million

The expected salary is the total of all the guaranteed contracts, including re-signing all of the players on team options. If the Celtics sign a free agent (or re-sign Nikola Vučević), that salary will be added to the $188 million. If the Celtics decline team options on a player, that number will be removed from the $188 million. If the Celtics keep their first round pick and sign him, that will be added to the $188 million.

Draft Picks

First round: 27th
Second round: 40th

Free Agents: Nine

They only have one unrestricted free agent on the roster: Nikola Vučević. He was making about $21.5 million this past season, and he has a cap hold of $32,222,222.

A cap hold is exactly what it sounds like: a number that represents what he could be paid, therefore a hold in that amount is placed on the salary cap, much like a deposit on a room at a hotel. It exists so teams can’t go under the cap, sign a bunch of free agents, then use Bird Rights to re-sign their own free agents to big contracts. The hold will come off the books when (a) he signs a new contract, in which case the new number goes onto the books, or (b) he signs somewhere else, in which case that hold goes away completely.

The Celtics don’t care about the cap hold. It won’t prevent them from doing business. The question for Vučević is how much he’ll get on the open market. I wouldn’t anticipate it being more than the taxpayer mid-level exception of $5,685,000.

His time in Boston was not very successful, but one can make the argument that the trade, change in role from starter to bench, and missed month after a broken finger never gave him a real chance. If Boston brings him back, it would likely be for somewhere between the minimum and taxpayer mid-level amount.

Eight of the free agents are players on team options: Baylor Scheierman, Neemias Queta, Jordan Walsh, Amari Williams, Max Shulga, Ron Harper Jr., and Dalano Banton. All of those players are on minimum deals making between $2.1 and $2.8 million. A couple of those players were signed as part of the “get under the tax” plan, so I would anticipate guys like Shulga and Banton to be cut, with maybe Shulga sticking around as a two-way guy. That could happen with others as well, but I’d expect at least Queta, Walsh, and Scheierman to get picked up. The Celtics have until June 29 to make these decisions.

Jon Tonje is a restricted free agent. He was on a two-way deal and became restricted as a result of the cost-cutting moves.

Exceptions: Seven

There are two kinds of exceptions: Traded Player Exceptions (TPEs), which allow teams to trade for a player without sending out a player in return, and Cap Exceptions, which allow teams to sign players without having cap space.

Boston has five TPEs: $27.7 million, $8.2 million, $4.7 million, $2.5 million, $2.3 million)

The $4.7 million exception is from the Jrue Holiday trade and expires July 7. The $8.2 million exception is from the Georges Niang trade and expires in early August. The two smallest ones were from the cost-cutting moves and expire in early February. The biggest is from the Anfernee Simons trade and also expires in February.

Teams have one year to use a TPE. Most of them expire without ever being used. They CANNOT be combined, so they can’t bundle four of those TPEs and get a $17 million player. They CAN split the exception into smaller pieces, though, and acquire, for example, two $4.1 million players into the $8.2 million TPE.

The Celtics have their $5.5 million bi-annual exception (BAE). Every team gets a BAE that can be used once every two years. Using it triggers a hard cap at the first apron.

They have the full mid-level exception of $15 million available. Using it will hard-cap them at the first apron, so keep that in mind when talking about using all these tools at Boston’s disposal.

Hypothetical: Let’s just say the Celtics decline the options on Banton and Shulga, that would cut $4.9 million from the cap, bringing them to $183.1 million. If they use the full mid-level to sign someone, that would hard cap them at $209 million while bringing their committed salary to $198.1 million. That would (a) bring them within $1.9 million of the tax line and $10.9 million of the first apron. That would eliminate the ability to use the full $27.7 million traded player exception unless they traded another player away.

The Celtics can elect to pay a free agent the taxpayer mid-level amount, which would not trigger the hard cap. You do not have to be a taxpaying team to use that exception.

There is a lot to consider when looking at Boston’s offseason. There are a number of ways the team could go. These are all the tools the team has to make itself better.

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