Boston Celtics general manager Brad Stevens spoke in the team’s upcoming offseason, saying, “You don’t want to hurry and make a decision,” following the disappointing playoff exit.
The Celtics’ title defense ended in a disaster after falling to the New York Knicks in the second round.
Jalen Brown was also playing with partial meniscus tears, Christaps Porzingis continued to suffer from the prolonged effects of the mysterious virus’ disease, and the stars simply didn’t suit Boston.
We definitely saw the current Celtic score together on the floor with many roster changes expected to arrive this offseason.
In an exit interview with Stevens, he discussed how the front office approaches summer as Boston prepares to enter a new era.
“I like to give everyone a few days to take a deep breath, because you don’t want to make rashes or emotional decisions, and we can sift, sort and think about a lot of things.
“And we do that. So there will be a lot of people in the room, and we’ll spend the next few weeks doing that.”
Watch: Brad Stevens’ season end press conference
What does the new CBA mean for the Celtics roster?
The league is implementing rules changes for new collective bargaining agreements to make life difficult for high spending teams. The Celtics are projected to be around $20 million at this stage than the second apron line.
The new collective bargaining agreement means that teams remaining on the second apron for years at a time will freeze future first round picks (it is impossible to trade) and move behind the first round.
The second apron is a fierce penalty zone for a problematic team, and is a response to the recent high-paid “super teams.” Teams have no access to taxpayer Midlevel Exceptions and cannot use transaction exceptions created when combining payrolls from multiple players.
Celtics’ balloon pay and massive tax penalties are not a sustainable business model, so something ended up changing.
If Boston maintains all 12 players on contracts for next season, the total pay and luxury tax bill would be $500 million. This is the biggest in the league history.
With adjustments going on, it means reducing your Chris Tap Sporzingis or Julou Holiday pay as the Celtics aim to come under the second apron again.