A tutorial on the 2024 Boston Celtics NBA trade deadline

The first trade season under the oppressive new 2023 collective bargaining agreement system is upon us. The new CBA’s severe anti-Celtics bias doesn’t imply the Celtics are powerless, but as the deadline approaches, we’ll have to contend with some new limitations.

We’ll begin by going over the trade regulations in general (including the new ones), followed by a breakdown of the Celtics’ tradeable assets, and lastly, some possible targets for them.

The NBA trade rules are getting more and more complicated.

The NBA’s CBA and the trading regulations have layers, akin to Shrek (or an onion), but let’s start with the fundamentals. The salary cap in the NBA is a soft cap. Put differently, you can review it (I apologize in advance for the excessive amount of times I’m going to use the phrase “in other words” in this piece). As per Spotrac.com and pretty much everything in this piece, the Celtics are about $51.3 million over the cap this season.

Being over the cap restricts the way you can structure deals, but it also important for other reasons that we shall cover later. Put simply, teams that are over the cap are required to balance the salaries of the players they are trading for and the players whose salaries are going out.

Still, it’s not a dollar-for-dollar match. If not, trading would be very difficult as you would only be able to exchange for players that have the exact same amount of money as the player you are giving up. Rather, as per the previous CBA, teams were allowed to retain up to 125% of their pay that was paid out. For teams who make more than a specific amount of money, the new CBA has regrettably changed this. The first apron, as it is lovingly called, is that threshold.

The CBA is set up so that the restrictions get more severe the more money you spend. The cap itself is, of course, the first threshold. After you surpass the $136 million soft cap.

Free agents cannot be signed without a special exception. When you reach the $165 million luxury tax barrier, you are required to pay the league for every dollar that exceeds the tax threshold. The first apron ($172 million) is then hit, followed by the second apron ($183 million).

There are distinct limits at each aprons. The Celtics are already well past the second apron, with total wages of roughly $187 million, therefore all of the restrictions apply, so we don’t need to worry about which apron each limitation applies to.

For trading purposes, the most significant apron restriction is that the Cs are not allowed to recoup 125% of their outgoing income. Rather, their options are restricted to 110% (which will drop to 100% on July 1st of this offseason and remain there going forward).

Let’s examine a basic illustration. I know it’s sacrilegious, but let’s say the Celtics trade Sam Hauser. This year, he brings in $1.9 million dollars. Sam’s financial outflow allows the Celtics to acquire a player in trade for about $2.1 million. Simple as pie.

Having covered the fundamentals, let’s examine the Celtics’ tradeable assets.

Brad Stevens’ arsenal

Firstly, these are all of the contracts that the Celtic has on file (according to Spotrac):

You’ll see that if you combine a few of the end-of-the-bench men, you can actually put together a pretty nice sum of money.

Together, Jordan Walsh, Svi Mykhailiuk, and Lamar Stevens have a tradeable salary of about $5.16 million, meaning we may reclaim a player who is now making about $5.676 million. That figure should be kept in mind for section 3.

We must solve the PPP, or the Payton Pritchard Problem, before continuing. Pritchard’s contract is known as a “Poison Pill Contract” because he was given a rookie extension this offseason.

It sounds far cooler than it actually is. In other words, Pritchard’s salary counts differently for the Celtics than it does for the team acquiring him in a trade, unlike in the Sam Hauser case.

The team that signs him will pay $6.8 million (average of his current contract plus all of the extension years) in addition to the $4 million he now receives from the Celtics. Trading Pritchard is extremely difficult, but not unfeasible.

A team with financial space has an easier time of it because they can simply take the extra cash and return a player earning up to $4.4 million to the Celtics. You’re not alone if you’re lost. The primary conclusion is that Pritchard is much less likely to relocate as a result of this than.

On to the draft selections now. Or “Brad Stevens’ not-so-secret obsession with second round picks,” as I like to refer to it. The image is from of Fanspo.com.

Actually, we owe San Antonio a 2028 first round pick, which is missing from this list. We still have a selection in 2028, though, because it’s a trade; it’s just not as good as our first or San Antonio’s. But there’s still more.

A franchise must have at least one first-round pick in every other draft according to the NBA’s Stepien Rule. Regarding the Cs, the 2028 swap and the 2030 first are off the table because we gave Portland our 2029 pick in the Jrue Holiday trade. Additionally, we are not allowed to trade two picks in a row, therefore we are unable to package the 2024 and 2025 first picks. After accounting for everything, the Celtics have the following tradeable.

Our last “asset” comes from our old pal Grant Williams. This is the Traded Player Exception worth $6.2 million. TPEs serve as a tradeable salary without requiring you to actually trade a player, to avoid getting into the technicalities of the system. Stated differently, the Celtics are able to acquire any NBA player earning $6.2 million or less without having to deal away a player in the deal.

They are incredibly helpful, but like with everything in the CBA, there is a significant constraint. The TPE cannot be merged with other contracts to recoup additional compensation, in contrast to player salaries. Let’s take Sam’s $1.9 million, for example. We were unable to reclaim a player earning, let’s say, $8.0 million by stacking his money with the TPE.

We were unable to reclaim a player earning, let’s say, $8.0 million by stacking his money with the TPE. We can still offer contracts to players who do not fit into the TPE, though, in order to reduce the salary we are taking on.

Therefore, in order to save some money (and a lot of luxury tax), we may utilize the TPE on someone who makes $5.9 million and send Svi with it. Thus, bear in mind that the player the Celtics are receiving must earn $6.2 million or less anytime the TPE is involved.

One other thing to consider: Boston has an open roster spot. That could be used to promote a current two-way player, say Neemias Queta for example. Or, Stevens could decide to make an uneven 3-for-2 or 2-for-1 without having to cut a player.

Let’s sum up what the Celtics have in their arsenal for the deadline (there’s no way they are touching the top-6, so they aren’t included here):

Players.

Draft Selections

Firsts – Two Seconds – Eight TPE – $6.2 M

Now let’s get to the enjoyable part.

The Celtics might target a couple different kinds of players.

Even while it’s entertaining to add up five or six wages and go shopping for some players who earn a respectable living, that is incredibly challenging to do in practice.

To complete the deal, the team receiving them must either have available roster places or be prepared to cut players. Owing to that challenge, I believe there is a far greater likelihood that the Cs are looking for contracts that fall within the TPE.

The Celtics are essentially restricted to players making $6.2 million or less, though they will almost definitely send away some men with the TPE.

Players like Pritchard who are poisoned must also be considered. That knocks out Isaiah Stewart and Deni Avdija, two of my personal favorite targets. However, let’s examine a few men who are currently available.

Larges

Nick Richards, worth $5.0 million, in Charlotte
Detroit’s Mike Muscala is worth $3.5 million.
Xavier Tillman ($1.9 million) – Memphis
Andre Drummond: $3.3 million from Chicago
A pair of wings

John Konchar – $2.4 million – Memphis
San Antonio’s Julian Champagnie is worth $3.0 million.

Reggie Bullock – $2.0 million – Houston
Atlanta’s Saddiq Bey is worth $4.5 million.

Not precisely an All-Star team, but the Celtics just don’t have a wide pool of players to choose from given their top-heavy wage structure and the CBA restrictions they must deal with.

That being said, the Celtics have enough picks to tempt one of these teams to trade them, and there are a few extremely intriguing players—Fontecchio, Tillman, and Bey, in particular—who might very well find their way into the starting lineup. The Celtics might just smack a seeing-eye single up the middle during trade season, but I don’t think they’ll hit a home run.