We'll see. I expect some free agents to tie up easily 30+M this season because the marketplace is crazy. I expect JR Smith to get no less than 12M/yr.
Thing is that Boston is unlikely to add more than one free agent because their roster is already full of rookie scale players and reasonably priced vets. To be brutally frank, I'm not expecting more than one major free agent signing from them this summer. And if Horford is non-committal when they talk to him, I fully expect them to roll over the cap space a year, find a bargain basement signing for the 4/5, like Larry Sanders, and then wait to strike next year. Again, they have no way of spending all $75+ million in '18 cap money unless they trade Crowder, Thomas, Bradley, et al for future picks, which I
really doubt happens.
No, I'm saying your approach - reserving cash for a future offseason - is imprudent and not proper cap management...
Take it up with Boston's front office as they did
exactly that last summer when the free agent pickings were slim. They brought back the existing roster with a team friendly 1+1 deal for Jerebko and added Amir Johnson on the same sort of deal so as to roll their cap space to this summer. Now that this summer's market looks to be fizzling, I expect them to do the exact same thing again, run back the existing roster while adding a player on a team friendly 1+1 deal and waiting for next summer to make their move.
To be clear: making plans with the expectation to have max space available for a hypothetical free agent is imprudent.
Again, Boston went into 2015 with the cap cleared for the summer market with the expectation of making a run at Kevin Love. When they couldn't close on anyone, they deliberately chose to leave themselves room this summer for
two max deals. But with the preliminary indications being that the big names are going to extend for a year and wait for the even bigger cap leap next year, I'm expecting Ainge to do exactly as he's been doing for the last two years.
You're theorising that Boston is going to go hog wild and max out their existing role players and then throw whatever money's left over at whatever guy they can spend it on, which would still leave them $20 million or so in 2017 cap space. You know what else? They can
still manufacture max space pretty easily by dealing Avery Bradley for future draft picks. So my point stands, they'll have plenty of room to offer Gordo a max deal next summer.
Bird rights are less restrictive because you don't have to worry about the cap at all. Being a good cap manager is about knowing how to avoid getting boxed in by circumstance, not simply having money lying around.
Given that the Celtics have done the exact opposite of what you keep insisting is "prudent" I still can't help but think you're confused as to how this works. Hayward + #3 is always better than just Hayward. And, to be brutally frank, given Utah's love of white stars, #3 probably isn't enough to get the deal done. Better to simply wait and let Brad Stevens recruit his former star next summer, and then just sign him outright, as they'll have plenty of cap space to do it, even
if they abandon their recent cap management and follow your more "prudent" plan.