Alternate Title: Summer of our Content(ment)
We have a League offseason thread, we have threads about our key players, we have an olympics thread, and lots of threads in the wake of celebrating last season... but there are going to be rumors and news about our team as the league scurries away to vacation and the business of the league proceeds to cook between now and the start of next season. So let's have a thread about the near future.
To kick it off, let's summarize what we expect to see from Brad, Zarren and co, now that he can't just sit around eating popcorn and watching a hundred games.
(1) Tatum supermax extension. He didn't sign it in the locker room during the celebration, but he could have. It won't be long now. I hope he won't insist on a bunch of non-financial terms in his favor - Brown allowing the last year to be guaranteed rather than a player option is helpful, etc.
(2) White extension. He's eligible for 4 / $125.9M tacked on after next year (cap hit: $20.1M), which is $31.5M AAV, plus performance bonuses which amount to another $1.3-1.8M per year (a growth of his existing terms). We all hope he takes it. If he rides out his next year without signing an extension, he will hit free agency, where he could get up to a 30% max contract (although I doubt a team would give him the full 5 yrs / $270M that he could theoretically get, and that Brunson might well seek the same way). He should make sure his next deal includes a cadillac dental plan.
(3) Sam Hauser. He has a club option for $2.1M next season. He had a great-shooting regular season, a rough first few playoff series, and then a pretty good performance in the Finals (I think we'd call 48% from 3 acceptable, no?). As posted by @DGreenwood in the White thread, Bobby Marks offered a prediction that we'd be comfortable keeping Hauser "maybe at 6 or 7 million dollars".
Hollinger thinks Sam will agree to terms: "In addition to Tatum, I’m hearing it’s very likely that Sam Hauser and Derrick White will join [Holiday and Pritchard in signing extensions]. Hauser has one year left for the minimum, on a team option, and will be extension-eligible this summer; he’s about to get more expensive, but Boston sees him as a keeper. One possible cap shenanigan would be to decline Hauser’s team option for 2024-25 and re-sign him for lower money and more years than in an extension that started in 2025-26. Doing so would increase the Celtics’ tax penalty in 2024-25 but lessen the impact of the repeater penalty and manage the second apron in the out years."
(4) Non-Playoff-Rotation staffing: Kornet and Tillman are both UFAs, albeit with Bird rights attached if we want to match an offer they get. Neemias Queta has a $2.2M club option that Stevens can exercise up until 6/29, so we'll get an answer on that soon (I think you take it, at the very worst he's tradable). I would expect Svi, Brissett, Davison, and maybe one of Tillman and Kornet to depart, leaving us with only minimum deals to offer to replace our depth. I haven't seen any good estimates of what Kornet and/or Tillman might get offered, but there's probably a point beyond which we don't match.
But that brings us an opportunity for the joys of the ring-chaser market: vets willing to take a minimum deal on a team that has huge championship equity. I threw some names down in the Brad thread, anybody as exciting as Obi Toppin or Nic Claxton is probably out of reach for us, but there is an odd Nic Batum or Kelly Oubre out there for us to at least pitch ideas to.
(5) The draft. It's Thursday. We have #30 and #54, as adequately covered elsewhere. I expect Brad to trade out of the first-rounder unless there's someone we really like as a long-term project. Can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket, at least every now and then. This is also a reminder to Jordan Walsh that he needs to show something this coming year or will likely be chucked for the next prospect off the conveyor belt.
(6) Olympics. Tatum and Jrue are going, Brown is a leading candidate to replace Kawhi once he officially withdraws (as are Brunson and a few others, so it's no sure thing). The USA doesn't play until July 28th, so JT and Holiday probably get at least a week or so to rest up before it's off to Paris for training camp. But our guys, whether 2 or 3 of them, are going to be worn the hell out by the time the gold medal game is over on August 10th. Hoping we can be more "rotation minutes" than "starter minutes" there. Does it affect whether we give them some extra vacation before training camp opens on Oct 1st? And that's not even considering the possibility of...
(7) Porzingis and his offseason of uncertainty. He said in the wake of the victory last week, perhaps brashly, that he's going to try to be ready for the Olympics. Radsoxfan and our other medical professionals were highly dubious. But let's suppose he does the smart thing and stays home. It seems like we'd really want to give him a full 3 months off or so. Will we have him join training camp on Oct 1st? Will we give him a few weeks into that where he's just walking around and joining for team activities but isn't going hard on that ankle until late October or November? We treated him with kid gloves this past season, it was almost enough, maybe we need to shave off even more recovery time for him this season. He's always going to be a glass cannon, just one Dereck Lively dirty shove from injury, no matter how careful we are.
----
So that's a lot that's coming for us as the team lays its groundwork to repeat. Let's keep posting news, or even credible rumors, as we hear about it.
We have a League offseason thread, we have threads about our key players, we have an olympics thread, and lots of threads in the wake of celebrating last season... but there are going to be rumors and news about our team as the league scurries away to vacation and the business of the league proceeds to cook between now and the start of next season. So let's have a thread about the near future.
To kick it off, let's summarize what we expect to see from Brad, Zarren and co, now that he can't just sit around eating popcorn and watching a hundred games.
(1) Tatum supermax extension. He didn't sign it in the locker room during the celebration, but he could have. It won't be long now. I hope he won't insist on a bunch of non-financial terms in his favor - Brown allowing the last year to be guaranteed rather than a player option is helpful, etc.
(2) White extension. He's eligible for 4 / $125.9M tacked on after next year (cap hit: $20.1M), which is $31.5M AAV, plus performance bonuses which amount to another $1.3-1.8M per year (a growth of his existing terms). We all hope he takes it. If he rides out his next year without signing an extension, he will hit free agency, where he could get up to a 30% max contract (although I doubt a team would give him the full 5 yrs / $270M that he could theoretically get, and that Brunson might well seek the same way). He should make sure his next deal includes a cadillac dental plan.
(3) Sam Hauser. He has a club option for $2.1M next season. He had a great-shooting regular season, a rough first few playoff series, and then a pretty good performance in the Finals (I think we'd call 48% from 3 acceptable, no?). As posted by @DGreenwood in the White thread, Bobby Marks offered a prediction that we'd be comfortable keeping Hauser "maybe at 6 or 7 million dollars".
Hollinger thinks Sam will agree to terms: "In addition to Tatum, I’m hearing it’s very likely that Sam Hauser and Derrick White will join [Holiday and Pritchard in signing extensions]. Hauser has one year left for the minimum, on a team option, and will be extension-eligible this summer; he’s about to get more expensive, but Boston sees him as a keeper. One possible cap shenanigan would be to decline Hauser’s team option for 2024-25 and re-sign him for lower money and more years than in an extension that started in 2025-26. Doing so would increase the Celtics’ tax penalty in 2024-25 but lessen the impact of the repeater penalty and manage the second apron in the out years."
(4) Non-Playoff-Rotation staffing: Kornet and Tillman are both UFAs, albeit with Bird rights attached if we want to match an offer they get. Neemias Queta has a $2.2M club option that Stevens can exercise up until 6/29, so we'll get an answer on that soon (I think you take it, at the very worst he's tradable). I would expect Svi, Brissett, Davison, and maybe one of Tillman and Kornet to depart, leaving us with only minimum deals to offer to replace our depth. I haven't seen any good estimates of what Kornet and/or Tillman might get offered, but there's probably a point beyond which we don't match.
But that brings us an opportunity for the joys of the ring-chaser market: vets willing to take a minimum deal on a team that has huge championship equity. I threw some names down in the Brad thread, anybody as exciting as Obi Toppin or Nic Claxton is probably out of reach for us, but there is an odd Nic Batum or Kelly Oubre out there for us to at least pitch ideas to.
(5) The draft. It's Thursday. We have #30 and #54, as adequately covered elsewhere. I expect Brad to trade out of the first-rounder unless there's someone we really like as a long-term project. Can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket, at least every now and then. This is also a reminder to Jordan Walsh that he needs to show something this coming year or will likely be chucked for the next prospect off the conveyor belt.
(6) Olympics. Tatum and Jrue are going, Brown is a leading candidate to replace Kawhi once he officially withdraws (as are Brunson and a few others, so it's no sure thing). The USA doesn't play until July 28th, so JT and Holiday probably get at least a week or so to rest up before it's off to Paris for training camp. But our guys, whether 2 or 3 of them, are going to be worn the hell out by the time the gold medal game is over on August 10th. Hoping we can be more "rotation minutes" than "starter minutes" there. Does it affect whether we give them some extra vacation before training camp opens on Oct 1st? And that's not even considering the possibility of...
(7) Porzingis and his offseason of uncertainty. He said in the wake of the victory last week, perhaps brashly, that he's going to try to be ready for the Olympics. Radsoxfan and our other medical professionals were highly dubious. But let's suppose he does the smart thing and stays home. It seems like we'd really want to give him a full 3 months off or so. Will we have him join training camp on Oct 1st? Will we give him a few weeks into that where he's just walking around and joining for team activities but isn't going hard on that ankle until late October or November? We treated him with kid gloves this past season, it was almost enough, maybe we need to shave off even more recovery time for him this season. He's always going to be a glass cannon, just one Dereck Lively dirty shove from injury, no matter how careful we are.
----
So that's a lot that's coming for us as the team lays its groundwork to repeat. Let's keep posting news, or even credible rumors, as we hear about it.
Last edited:
