If I can’t say I like the Celtics, I can at least say I admire them. That’s probably more important, frankly. There’s more than a little bit of jealousy in there. I don’t care to find out how many championships they have, but it’s way more than the Pistons. People want to go there. They seem to make good decisions. The fans are loyal, along with some other adjectives.
They just win a lot. I’m going to be immature and say I’m just a little tired of it. It didn’t seem like it was coming soon, but I was going to be relieved when I finally saw a season that didn’t involve both of the Jays. That happening so soon off of an injury was not the way I wanted it to happen.
And now this throws everything out of balance. It does not appear the championship window is open for the 2025-2026 season by most outside estimations. This year they were, and they went into the tax to try. But next year those luxury tax payments become obscene.
Brian Robb on Masslive.com goes into detail of what the Celtics salary cap sheet looks like for the following season next year. The two big numbers to know is that with the 14 players currently rostered, the Boston Celtics are looking at a luxury tax bill of $238 million and an overall spending amount on roster alone at $465 million. Compare that to $53.4 million and $246.7 for this year, respectively.
Robb went on to say, “These numbers are laughable at this point. No team in NBA history has ever spent more than $380 million during a season in payroll and luxury tax penalties. Boston isn’t going to fly past that by over $100 million in a year Jayson Tatum could miss entirely.”
In Robb’s estimation, the best thing to do is to try to get under the luxury tax to reset the repeater clock on the luxury tax rules in the CBA. If you don’t know what those are, I can’t help you — but Nevin Brown can.
To make it under the luxury tax, the Celtics would have to make significant moves
None of these moves are all that fun. Robb touches on it in the article, and it’s been mentioned elsewhere: if any part of the core are on the move it’s like Kristaps Porziņģis, Jrue Holiday, or both. In some worlds, Sam Hauser is included in one of those deals. Who knows if this would have to end up as a salary dump somehow.
In another world, Jaylen Brown is traded in a seismic shakeup. That’s uh … that’s a lot. Celtics fans seeing their incredibly talented core from the last two years fracture is hard enough, but to stomach an injury to your best player and then watch your second-best player go — players who just won you a championship, and you’ve been through so many ups and downs with. That just sucks.
But, long-term, these decisions might be in the best interest of the Celtics franchise. This is what was negotiated for in the new CBA. Things are working like they’re supposed to. Just like the electrical grid in Texas. You’re supposed to be charged $5000 when you’re freezing to death. That’s good, actually.