First, the news: the Celtics and Jrue Holiday reached an agreement to sign a contract extension for four years and more and an extra $135 million for the Californian guard. Champion with the Bucks and Olympian less than three years ago (a double that he hopes to repeat this season), Jrue is 33 years old (he will turn 34 in June, in the middle of the NBA Finals if, as they should, the Celtics reach them) and He has become the fourth player of that age to sign an extension of more than 100 million. LeBron James, Stephen Curry and his teammate Al Horford did it before.
A huge defensive player, Jrue will earn more than $380 million in NBA contracts alone with this new deal. The latter, with a player option in the fourth season, guarantees him a star salary until 2028, at 37 years old. Twice all star and three times a member of the Best Defensive Quintet, Jrue was key in the Bucks’ ring in 2021 and ended up in the great rival of the Wisconsin team in the East in recent years, a Celtics that took advantage of the movements produced by the transfer of Damian Lillard. The Blazers received Jrue and redirected him to Boston, where they are clear that they want to maintain the core that is performing at an extraordinary level this season (more than 60 wins, great favorite for the title) at whatever price is necessary.
With less offensive responsibility (a problem for him in the last two years in the playoffs) than in the Bucks, especially when Khris Middleton was missing due to injury, Jrue averages 12.5 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.9 assists and is in his best numbers from the three-point line in his entire career, 43% that jumps to an extraordinary 62% on shots released from the corners. The Celtics have replicated what they did with Kristaps Porzingis: first the transfer, then an extension that in the case of the Latvian was two years and 60 million, which guaranteed him 96 million alive until 2026.
The Celtics are connecting the dots before the climax of the season, the playoffs, and are preparing to keep (with a lot of money) intact the block that has fit together wonderfully. In the same way that Porzingis did not reach the maximum possible in his extension (any margin is appreciated), Jrue rejected his player option of 37.3 million to sign a new agreement that will put him at 30.1 next season. Oxygen in the accounts of the 2024-25 season for the Celtics who are going to have to get used to living with very high luxury tax figures and, surely, in the sporting restrictions that the second limit has brought with the new agreement ( second apron) of extra expense.
Pressures in a new contractual framework
Now, the NBA has a ceiling of 7 million above the luxury tax level and another of 17.5. Teams that exceed the first apron face restrictions on transfers and signings, penalties that become truly draconian in case of crossing the second limit: the mid-level luxury tax payer exception cannot be used, the first seven-year rounds cannot be transferred, you cannot use money in transfers or add or combine salaries to make a trade for a player with a higher salary, there are also restrictions in the buyout market… In addition, the Who surpasses that second apron three times in a five-year period will see his next first-round pick moved to the last spot in that batch.
For next season, the salary limit will be around (until July the exact figure will not be known) 141 million dollars (in this year it is 136), an increase that does not reach the maximum of 10%, which slightly limits the figures. of the contracts that come into force and that are calculated in percentages of that cap. The limit of the luxury tax will be 172 million in staff salaries, the first apron at 179 million and the feared second, at 190.
The Celtics, of course, are going to pay a lot and are going to have to pull their weight. But his ambition is plausible. This season, they are already at more than 183 million in salaries, the fourth figure ahead of the Bucks (just over 182) and behind the Suns (about 188), Clippers (around 200) and Warriors (more than 205) . If the luxury tax amounts are added, we obviously have the most expensive rosters in NBA history: the Warriors are at 176 tax (381 in total), the Clippers at 142 (342), the Suns at 68 (360 ), the Celtics at almost 40 (223) and the Bucks at 51.9 (234). On a sporting level, there is a huge difference between the performance this season of the Celtics and that of others. So, for now, the effort is worth it while waiting to consummate that 18th ring of the franchise (the first since 2008 and the second since 1986) that continues to resist.
The extensions of Jrue and Porzingis are added to that of Jaylen Brown, famous for being the first that could have reached 300 million although it will not ultimately be that much: with the increase in the cap below 10%, Brown’s new contract remains at around 285 million for five years with more than 49 million next season. And comes Jayson Tatum, a franchise player who aspires to another super maximum (he will get it, of course) for five years and more than 330 million until 2030 (giving up his player option for the 2025-26 season). If this agreement is taken for granted, as it should be, there is only one fringe left in the green quintet: Derrick White only has this season and another (for a 19.5 million contract), he could not close an extension in October and He will have to sit down and talk to the franchise again in the summer. We will see how much money there is and if it is better for him to sign or wait to hit the market as a free agent in the summer of 2025. He is 29 years old compared to Jrue’s 33, Porzingis’s 28, Tatum’s 26 and Brown’s 27. Horford (37) also has a contract next season (9.5 million), so they will continue to be very important substitutes with manageable contracts like Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser…
Because with those figures that are handled for next year (141 million cap, 190 in the second apron), the pressures will be maximum. The Celtics are almost guaranteed to move within that second restrictive limit, although with Jrue’s downgrade (by rejecting his player option and having a lower salary next season) they could try to get below it before the next winter shutdown. You have secured around 163 million for your starting quintet, to which we must now add the salaries of Horford, Hauser, Pritchard… Making a reliable rotation will be very difficult this summer and even more so a year later, when Tatum’s extension comes into effect. and maybe White’s. With the Jays over 100 million between them, they will have guaranteed more than 170 million in just four players: 53.7 for Brown, about 54.6 for Tatum, 30.7 for Porzingis and 32.5 for Jrue. If we add a hypothetical extension of White that would undoubtedly have to be above 20 million annually… As I said: maximum ambition, minimum margin. That’s usually how it is.
A quintet worth almost $200 million starting in 2025? The Celtics appear on that horizon, who will have to operate in this new scenario that the recently signed agreement has created for those who have no problem spending and spending (the persecuted: Warriors and Clippers): punishments and sporting restrictions so that the pain hurts. planning, not just the pockets of some owners who either have all the money in the world (Clippers) or have created a system that does not stop generating to create more, and vice versa (Warriors). The Celtics take it all for granted, for now. If they do not culminate their great season with a title, there will be talk about the risk taken, some ages and how and how much can be changed. But today they can’t think about that, only about winning this year… and in the coming years. And the best formula to do it, from what they know right now, is to bet on what they have. Which is a lot… and increasingly expensive.
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2024-04-13 16:06:13
#expensive #Celtics
