“What is it, like, hard or something?”

• Brad Stevens

without giving up a first rounder too

That’s not surprising. We knew that salary structure had a 2-year window. What’s surprising is we did all that and we’re still tied for the 2 seed

And still be 2nd in the East

And still being great contenders while doing it.

Getting under the second apron, while losing 5 key rotation players from the championship roster and somehow still being a top seed in the East while their best player out. Absolutely ridiculous. Masterclass from top to bottom - Brad, Mazz, Brown, the role players, everyone.

And also be the second seed with Tatum missing the entire year. Brad and Joe looking like geniuses rn

Coming up on PABLO FINDS OUT:

Communications show that Brad Stevens worked with Thiel and Musk to hack Tatums achilles last year in order to engineer the current situation

Honestly with injuries nothing really surprises me. You could tell me in 2 years “Imagine telling someone in Feb 2026 that the OKC Thunder would be a lottery team” and I’ll believe it because Id assume a significant player got injured and if affected the outcome.

Now imagine telling that same someone that they’d also still be a top 3 team in the East. With Tatum riding pine.

I mean it’s just getting under the first apron, Michael. What could it cost? The majority of our championship core?

And miss Jayson Tatum, and still be good.

Does Tatum having a season ending injury relieve the cap?

I think the idea that it would be hard for them to get under the first apron was premised on the notion that they wanted to continue to compete for titles. They’re better than a lot of people expected this year, but no one’s (rationally) thinking they’re anywhere close to a threat to win it all.

• got off 3 years of Jrue Holiday
• turned it into an expiring $20m contract, and fills positional need
• on top of that has a $27m TPE they can use all next year for offseason sign and trades, midseason trades, signing a player off of waivers, etc

He also traded for KP without giving up a single pick.

I do not know what the fuck the blazers and hawks were thinking. Gave them a get out of jail free card

He literally gave up the 31-33rd pick in next years draft to do this, stop sucking him off this was awful lol

Because 90% of them are small and a bunch are created all the time

The big ones tend to get used in one way or the other

For example, we literally just used a TPE to bring in Vucevic

90% is probably under selling it. 

I mean, you guys literally just used one for this trade.

The amount of podcasts I listened to talking about trade targets for the Gordon Hayward TPE was insane lol

They were way more valuable before the aprons came into play.

But still, you’re better off having them sitting around just in case vs not having them.

(allegedly excluding Ballmer)[please don’t sue me Steve]

And now we’re only about $250k from being under the luxury tax and playing twice as good. The NBA is weird.

You’re welcome everybody else!

He’s a better GM because he was a coach

He’s got a ring as GM, and pretty much every move he makes is a winner. Loved him as a coach, but he’s even better as a GM.

he is top 3 in both

Brad was an amazing coach he was dragging pretty mediocre Celtics teams to deep runs but past 3 years of GM has overshadowed any of that

He definitely is

Hard to say. The rosters he had to work with meant he was always at a disadvantage, Ainge just refused to use assets to improve the team.

Without a doubt yes

I dont think it means anything with respect to Tatum.

Vuc is probably a slightly better fit on a roster with Tatum anyway.

This….is not good.

it goes a step further, now that we are under the 1st apron we can sign buy out guys who make more than the MLE

we also haven’t used any of our MLE, so we can use the Taxpayer portion on buy out guys

“Real G’s move in silence like lasagna” - Lil Wayne

Jrue brings a veteran defensive mentor and culture. Brogdon was a 6MOTY and very efficient. RW3 was a young and elite shot blocker.

Hindsight is ²⁰⁄₂₀ but those trades weren’t that bad at the time they occurred.

Portland trades with Celtics or Clippers…it’s a fire sale.

The cap accounting is done at the individual team level, not for the trade as a whole.

So on the bulls books Vucevic’s contract was used to match Simons’.

But on the Celtics, the Porzingis TPE was used to match Vuc’s contract, and Simons counts as pure outgoing salary, so it generates a new TPE.

Jalen Smith stocks going up

Luxury Tax apron. Basically, the NBA is a graduated luxury tax.

I’m not sure of the exact numbers, so I’ll just do this as an example (again, just for purposes of explanation)

Hypothetically, let’s say the Luxury Tax is $100 million. Any team that spends over that limit has to pay Luxury Tax (for purposes of argument, let’s say, 15% on any money over that line)

The 1st Apron is where the Luxury Tax starts getting rougher, let’s say 120 million, not only do you pay a higher tax on that money (let’s say 25%), you start to run into restrictions on using the Midlevel exception to sign a player

The 2nd Apron is a whole passel of penalties.. (including being penalized draft position, a higher luxury tax, etcetera)

So, this part came out that while the difference in salaries is like $6 million, this move saved the Celtics TWENTY Million in Luxury Tax penalties.

edit: PATRON? I’d blame my phone’s spell check for changing Apron to Patron, but um.. I typed this on my computer)

Basically, the Porzingis TPE is extinguised by using it in this trade, but when the smoke clears, there’s a brand new TPE (for the Simons $27.5 million), that has its timer reset to one full year.

We already have Queta and Garza as backups + Boucher who never gets minutes for some reason. Ik Boucher is a PF but still.

Doubtful, though I was a big Gafford fan and would’ve loved to see him come to Boston. I’ve really just been looking for someone to do Timelord shit since he was traded

?

It doesn’t matter when a player was drafted. Jokic was drafted during a Taco Bell commercial and he’s the best player in the league now.

Simons being drafted 31-33rd doesn’t change the fact that the Celtics needed a legit starting C. I don’t understand your argument at all.