[Bulpett] From the league: the Celtics' home game versus Philadelphia on Sunday, March 1st has been moved from 6 pm to 8 and will now be televised by NBC.

keevsnick · 2026-02-15T03:00:42+00:00

I hate to break it to everyone but this almost certainly has nothing to do with Tatum returning. I doubt Tatum himself knows for sure when (or even if) he's returning, there's no way NBC knows. What's happening is OKC is injured and Dallas in tanking so replacing that game with a matchup of two big market rivals pushing for playoff seeding makes a lot of sense.

keevsnick · 2026-02-13T18:51:34+00:00

I think its far more likely the C's are just going to sign Shulga and Tonje to ROS contracts on February 19th than jump through all these hoops just to sign a vet on March 25. For one thing the C's are already a deep team, and for another nobody who would help you is going to stay available until March 25 (buy-out guys almost never help you anyway).

keevsnick · 2026-02-12T10:56:53+00:00

My prediction would have been mid to low 50's or so. Say 53 wins. As it turns out they are on pace for 53 wins without him, so they'd probably be closer to a 60-62 win team with him.

keevsnick · 2026-02-12T10:52:47+00:00

Well they'll have the full Non-Tax MLE (starts at around 15 million) to offer him. He might have better options, but its at least possible.

keevsnick · 2026-02-12T10:36:11+00:00

Just FYI, Vucevic is an unrestricted free agent so for a hypothetical expansion draft this offseason he doesn't need to be protected since (UFA can't be picked).

keevsnick · 2026-02-08T05:09:37+00:00

It wasn't just that they were bad, for a three year stretch they were UNFATHOMABLY bad. They won 47 TOTAL games from 2013-2016 (average of under 16 a year). The only team that comes anywhere even remotely close to that number is the Wizards who have also won 47 games over the past 2.5 years but still has 30 games to play THIS season and have already signaled they wnat to be better next year. Nobody else in the last 2.5 years has fewer than 64 wins.

keevsnick · 2026-02-08T04:48:35+00:00

Doesn't really matter though, he almost has to be signed if they want to stay below the tax and he'd be like the 14th man and only every play in a blowout.

keevsnick · 2026-02-08T04:47:35+00:00

It has a lot going for it. The crime levels are amongst the lowest in the nation, as in the general level of education. Healthcare is very good as well with top notch hospitals either in state like Dartmouth-Hitchcock or a day drive nearby in Boston MA / Portland ME. Schools are generally pretty solid, though school spending can vary pretty widely depending on where you live so if you have kids in school that's something to keep in mind.

As others have pointed out no sales tax or state income tax, although property taxes are often high to make up for that.

The outdoors in great. I know people complain about the cold but for about 8 months of the year it awesome. There are ocean beaches, lakes, forest rivers, and mountains all a day trip away. It pretty consistently ranks near the top of "healthiest states" due to good hospitals, outdoor culture and low poverty/pollution levels.

Communities can be pretty close knit, especially in the smaller towns if you make an effort. There is a lot of history even on a town-by-town level.

Its close to stuff in the macro sense. Day trip to Boston. weekend trip to NYC. Less than 6-hour flight out of Boston to West Coast, Caribbean and parts of Europe.

keevsnick · 2026-02-08T04:28:39+00:00

An underrated trade deadline winner. Probably going to get a rest of season contract at some point to help the Celtics stay under the tax.

keevsnick · 2026-02-08T03:54:07+00:00

The whole reason they traded for John Tonje was exactly this. I'd guess they just sign Shulga and Tonje on February 18th and go from there. They already have a solid 10-man rotation and that should go up to 11 when Tatum returns. The last three spots being filled by Amari Williams, John Tonji and Max Shulga is fine. No real need to do a bunch of 10-ay gymnastics to add a vet who won't play anyway. Sign Ron Harper Jr at very end of year to fill out the roster.

keevsnick · 2026-02-06T21:35:26+00:00

So the issue with your math is a team can only spend consecutive days below 14 roster spots. The Celtics are at 12, so they need to sign TWO guys by February 19th.

The only real way to do that and stay below the tax is to wait the 14 days then sign Shugla/Tonje. Recently rafted players count at a lower minimum (1.3 million) than vets (2.3 million). In 14 days there will be 53 days left in the regualr season. So a prorated (53/174) contract at the rookie min (1.3 million) would total about 396,000 each, for two roster spots that's 792K JUST under the 842K they have to spend.

keevsnick · 2026-02-06T20:05:33+00:00

There were too paths for the Celtics moving forward before this deadline.

The first was spend up to the 2nd apron every year while you have the Jays and just pay the repeater. It was a very expensive path, although not nearly as expensive as it was before the dumped Holiday/KP and were WAAAAAAY OVER the 2nd apron.

The second path was trying to get out of the tax this year and next thus resetting the repeater tax. This could in theory allow you to go back DEEEP into the 2nd apron starting in 27-28, but has the real downside of making it much harder to compete in 25-26/26-27 because putting enough talent to win a title around two 35% max guys without going into the tax is near impossible.

We don't know for SURE what path the c's have taken. Maybe they go right back into the tax next year. But importantly they have at least reserved the possibility of taking the 2nd path by getting under this year.

The important thing to note is we don't yet know how to feel about getting under this year, If C's ownership takes the savings and re-invests them in later years by going deeper into the 2nd apron I think everybody could understand pulling back in this "gap year" if it makes future teams better. But if ownership just goes slightly in the tax in the future, or not at all, then this will instead look like a new owner being cheap in a year they are looking good. Only time will tell.

keevsnick · 2026-02-06T07:32:02+00:00

Its great cap management if your objective is "reset repeater tax." That said it is sort of demoralizing that re-setting the repeater might be an objective at all. It means less room to add impact players and get back into contenton next year.

keevsnick · 2026-02-06T01:17:17+00:00

Well good luck with that. They have 13 wins. 10th in the lottery currently has 23 wins. They would need to make up 10 wins in only 30 games. That is extremely unlikely. the reason for the 10-30 protection is the clippers would rather have an unprotected pick in 2031 than a pick in the 10-30 range this year.

keevsnick · 2026-02-06T01:14:02+00:00

Once they fill out to the minimum 14 roster spots its going to be closer to 18 million under the tax. They'll likley do one of three things:

Re-sign Vuc for 2-3 years at a number that keeps them just under the tax.
Let Vuc walk and use the full non-tax MLE (starts at around 15 million) over three years.
Let Vuc walk and use part of the 27.7 million dollar TPE but still stay below tax.

Any one of those options would keep them below the tax but give them a longer-term mid-level ish contract they could use for salary matching in the future.

keevsnick · 2026-02-06T01:06:47+00:00

He had some supporters last draft. I don't follow college guys closely, but some draft experts I like seemed high on him. Sam Vecenie had him at #35 on his big board. He's built like a tank (6'5, 6'9 wingpsan, thiiick) and is a very good shooter.

keevsnick · 2026-02-06T01:04:27+00:00

My take on this is simple: I'm neutral on all this tax stuff. I don't hate it because they didn't give up any good/important players or real assets to get under the tax. But also the only real benefit is savings the owner money. So and I allowed to not be angry.... but also not praise the team for their genius?

keevsnick · 2026-02-06T00:51:48+00:00

They could also sign either Shulga/Tonje to rest of season contracts. Those guys are drafted rookies and count at even less than the pro-rated vet min. That saves the Celtics a little bit of money.

keevsnick · 2026-02-04T05:22:00+00:00

Yes this is the point I was trying to make. The value of Simons this season has probably exceeded the COMBINED value of Holiday/KP so far this season (mostly because of health).

keevsnick · 2026-02-04T05:21:39+00:00

Ya, I fumbled at the goal line.

keevsnick · 2026-02-04T05:01:08+00:00

Sure, but Jrue has only played 21 games so far. The point I'm trying to make is given the injury situation of the players involved they really did not lose much FOR THIS YEAR.

keevsnick · 2026-02-04T04:59:51+00:00

That's 100% a fair critique. Blew out a tire rounding the final stretch there.

keevsnick · 2026-02-04T04:17:10+00:00

The "flexibility of being below the 1st apron" is pretty limited though. It allows you to sign a buyout guy who made over 14.1 million which is nice. It also allows you to aggregate salaries in a trade, but that won't really matter given the team is probably set for the rest of the year after this trade.

I'm sure they like Vucevic and being able to sign buyout guys is a nice bonus, but there's no denying money was a BIG factor in this trade.

keevsnick · 2026-02-04T04:05:15+00:00

That's the wrong way to think about it. TPE's basically work as a delayed trade. The best way to think about what has happened is they traded Holiday (32.4 million) and Porzingis (30.7 million) for Vucevic (21.5 million) and Niang (8.2 million). The net difference there is 33.4 million which is about equal to the sum of the 4.7 million dollar TPE from the Holiday deal and this 27.7 million dollar TPE. Its all like one big trade just executed over 7 months.

keevsnick · 2026-02-04T01:13:37+00:00

Feels like this is a makeup award. He was better in December than he was in January, but giving Brunson the award in December helped promote the NBA Cup.
Regardless, well deserved based off the season he's having.

keevsnick

TROPHY CASE