Celtics trade Fab Melo for Donte Green (non-guaranteed contract)

[LooseCannon]

I don't know why anybody would be happy that we just dumped a project center we spent a 1st round pick on just a year ago for absolutely nothing (Greene will get cut).

That #22 pick from last year just went from "probably a waste" to "definitely 100% a waste."

Good job by Danny here. Greene's contract is non-guaranteed, allowing us to waive him and get our salary count down to 71.5 million (0.2 million under the tax threshold). This helps us avoid paying the harsh penalties of going over the luxury tax next year. If we go into the tax this year, that makes three years in a row and we'd have to pay huge sums of money if we wanted to go over the tax in future years.

We didn't need to get under the tax until the trade deadline.  I would have preferred to wait to see if there was a dump we could have made with Bass / Humphries / Lee where we get back less salary.

Technically, the Celtics didn't need to get under the tax until the last day of the regular season and some teams have made trades after the trade deadline for that purpose.

Making a small deal now means that Ainge is freer to walk away from negotiations involving those players if the other team insists on getting something like a first round pick as part of the trade.  Other teams lose leverage if the Celtics are not as desperate to shed salary.

[Boris Badenov]

I don't know why anybody would be happy that we just dumped a project center we spent a 1st round pick on just a year ago for absolutely nothing (Greene will get cut).

That #22 pick from last year just went from "probably a waste" to "definitely 100% a waste."

It gets the Celts below the luxury tax and avoids the repeater penalties, so that makes this trade worth it.  Danny could have gambled that we could make a similar trade at the deadline, but he must be thinking that there's a chance that the asking price for taking on Melo's contract would have gone up later in the season.

We couldn't get Washington to take on Melo for free last year.  Luckily, we found a sucker this season.

Do we have enough room to stay under and re-sign Shav?

Nope.  We've got around $480k available, according to the numbers on shamsports.  Let's say there's some wiggle room in that; there *might* be enough for a rookie minimum, but not enough for anybody with more experience than that.

If nothing else changes this would give us the option to sign someone mid-year on one of Danny's famous "multi-year" contracts. Right?

[PhoSita]

I don't know why anybody would be happy that we just dumped a project center we spent a 1st round pick on just a year ago for absolutely nothing (Greene will get cut).

That #22 pick from last year just went from "probably a waste" to "definitely 100% a waste."

Good job by Danny here. Greene's contract is non-guaranteed, allowing us to waive him and get our salary count down to 71.5 million (0.2 million under the tax threshold). This helps us avoid paying the harsh penalties of going over the luxury tax next year. If we go into the tax this year, that makes three years in a row and we'd have to pay huge sums of money if we wanted to go over the tax in future years.

We didn't need to get under the tax until the trade deadline.  I would have preferred to wait to see if there was a dump we could have made with Bass / Humphries / Lee where we get back less salary.

Technically, the Celtics didn't need to get under the tax until the last day of the regular season and some teams have made trades after the trade deadline for that purpose.

Making a small deal now means that Ainge is freer to walk away from negotiations involving those players if the other team insists on getting something like a first round pick as part of the trade.  Other teams lose leverage if the Celtics are not as desperate to shed salary.

Yeah, that's true, but I don't expect that we'd be driving a hard bargain as far as Bass / Lee / Hump are concerned.  If somebody is willing to take them and give us less salary / shorter deals in return, I would expect Ainge to go for it.

I still don't see the urgency of making this deal right now.  If you're going to dump Melo, why not dump him later?

The only explanation is that they actually think that some other guy they could sign for the minimum would be a better investment of a roster spot, now and in the future.  If so, they basically admit that the pick was a complete waste.

[staticcc]

I don't know why anybody would be happy that we just dumped a project center we spent a 1st round pick on just a year ago for absolutely nothing (Greene will get cut).

That #22 pick from last year just went from "probably a waste" to "definitely 100% a waste."

It gets the Celts below the luxury tax and avoids the repeater penalties, so that makes this trade worth it.  Danny could have gambled that we could make a similar trade at the deadline, but he must be thinking that there's a chance that the asking price for taking on Melo's contract would have gone up later in the season.

We couldn't get Washington to take on Melo for free last year.  Luckily, we found a sucker this season.

Do we have enough room to stay under and re-sign Shav?

Nope.  We've got around $500k available, according to the numbers on shamsports.  Let's say there's some wiggle room in that; there *might* be enough for a rookie minimum, but not enough for anybody with more experience than that.

Agree. Shav's out unless a team signs him and waives him in the future. Only possible way to get a veteran is for a team to waive said veteran (who makes 1 - 1.5 million a season) around the middle of the season and we sign him then or near the trade deadline. We only pay a fraction of his salary (1/2 if we add him mid-season or around 1/3 if we add him near the deadline).

[EJPLAYA]

I don't know why anybody would be happy that we just dumped a project center we spent a 1st round pick on just a year ago for absolutely nothing (Greene will get cut).

That #22 pick from last year just went from "probably a waste" to "definitely 100% a waste."

I'm kind of happy we won't have to spend another year discussing his potential.

I'm surprised we were able to move him. I wonder whether Memphis sees something in Fab, or maybe it's just Chris Wallace doing the C's a solid to build good will for the future.

Oh - just saw that there was cash involved. That makes more sense.

Yeah, that's all good and well, though I never really felt the discussion about his "potential" was reasonable on either side.  People either wanted him to become an All-Star or felt he was never going to be an NBA player.

I still think there's a chance he becomes a decent 10-15 mpg backup. 

The thing that irks me really is that he was a guy we invested a draft pick and a year of development into and we gave him away.

Funny how people are upset about a guy who would have to make huge strides and improvement just to become a decent 10-15 mpg backup...

Melo will float around the league for a few years and never do anything. He can't do it physically. At best the guy will be a 15th man at the end of the bench. If he was 8 inches shorter he wouldn't have even been able to play college ball let alone be an NBA player.

[staticcc]

I don't know why anybody would be happy that we just dumped a project center we spent a 1st round pick on just a year ago for absolutely nothing (Greene will get cut).

That #22 pick from last year just went from "probably a waste" to "definitely 100% a waste."

Good job by Danny here. Greene's contract is non-guaranteed, allowing us to waive him and get our salary count down to 71.5 million (0.2 million under the tax threshold). This helps us avoid paying the harsh penalties of going over the luxury tax next year. If we go into the tax this year, that makes three years in a row and we'd have to pay huge sums of money if we wanted to go over the tax in future years.

We didn't need to get under the tax until the trade deadline.  I would have preferred to wait to see if there was a dump we could have made with Bass / Humphries / Lee where we get back less salary.

Technically, the Celtics didn't need to get under the tax until the last day of the regular season and some teams have made trades after the trade deadline for that purpose.

Making a small deal now means that Ainge is freer to walk away from negotiations involving those players if the other team insists on getting something like a first round pick as part of the trade.  Other teams lose leverage if the Celtics are not as desperate to shed salary.

Yeah, that's true, but I don't expect that we'd be driving a hard bargain as far as Bass / Lee / Hump are concerned.  If somebody is willing to take them and give us less salary / shorter deals in return, I would expect Ainge to go for it.

I still don't see the urgency of making this deal right now.  If you're going to dump Melo, why not dump him later?

The only explanation is that they actually think that some other guy they could sign for the minimum would be a better investment of a roster spot, now and in the future.  If so, they basically admit that the pick was a complete waste.

Again, there's a lot of uncertainty with Bass and Lee. They do not have expiring contracts. Teams may not want them.

[Boris Badenov]

I don't know why anybody would be happy that we just dumped a project center we spent a 1st round pick on just a year ago for absolutely nothing (Greene will get cut).

That #22 pick from last year just went from "probably a waste" to "definitely 100% a waste."

Good job by Danny here. Greene's contract is non-guaranteed, allowing us to waive him and get our salary count down to 71.5 million (0.2 million under the tax threshold). This helps us avoid paying the harsh penalties of going over the luxury tax next year. If we go into the tax this year, that makes three years in a row and we'd have to pay huge sums of money if we wanted to go over the tax in future years.

We didn't need to get under the tax until the trade deadline.  I would have preferred to wait to see if there was a dump we could have made with Bass / Humphries / Lee where we get back less salary.

Technically, the Celtics didn't need to get under the tax until the last day of the regular season and some teams have made trades after the trade deadline for that purpose.

Making a small deal now means that Ainge is freer to walk away from negotiations involving those players if the other team insists on getting something like a first round pick as part of the trade.  Other teams lose leverage if the Celtics are not as desperate to shed salary.

Yeah, that's true, but I don't expect that we'd be driving a hard bargain as far as Bass / Lee / Hump are concerned.  If somebody is willing to take them and give us less salary / shorter deals in return, I would expect Ainge to go for it.

I still don't see the urgency of making this deal right now.  If you're going to dump Melo, why not dump him later?

The only explanation is that they actually think that some other guy they could sign for the minimum would be a better investment of a roster spot, now and in the future.  If so, they basically admit that the pick was a complete waste.

I bet Danny doesn't care much about what this "says" about the pick - it's a sunk cost. I think this is all about option value. Like you say, Danny probably believes that at some point later this year, a player better than Fab will become available - even if he doesn't know who that player is yet.

[Lucky17]

The timing of the deal may well have resulted from Memphis' desire to acquire Melo before training camp.

Ainge got an offer that worked for him, he took it.

[PhoSita]

I don't know why anybody would be happy that we just dumped a project center we spent a 1st round pick on just a year ago for absolutely nothing (Greene will get cut).

That #22 pick from last year just went from "probably a waste" to "definitely 100% a waste."

I'm kind of happy we won't have to spend another year discussing his potential.

I'm surprised we were able to move him. I wonder whether Memphis sees something in Fab, or maybe it's just Chris Wallace doing the C's a solid to build good will for the future.

Oh - just saw that there was cash involved. That makes more sense.

Yeah, that's all good and well, though I never really felt the discussion about his "potential" was reasonable on either side.  People either wanted him to become an All-Star or felt he was never going to be an NBA player.

I still think there's a chance he becomes a decent 10-15 mpg backup. 

The thing that irks me really is that he was a guy we invested a draft pick and a year of development into and we gave him away.

Funny how people are upset about a guy who would have to make huge strides and improvement just to become a decent 10-15 mpg backup...

Melo will float around the league for a few years and never do anything. He can't do it physically. At best the guy will be a 15th man at the end of the bench. If he was 8 inches shorter he wouldn't have even been able to play college ball let alone be an NBA player.

I'm not really upset about Melo.  If we got a player -- ANY player in return for him, that I thought could actually crack the rotation, then I'd be fine with it.

What bothers me is Ainge used a 1st round pick on a guy he must have known was a 2-3 year project and then he dumped him for nothing a year later.  That just looks like bad management to me.

[CelticConcourse]

Ridiculously good deal. Danny is amazing.

[Roy H.]

Ridiculously good deal. Danny is amazing.

Is this tongue in cheek, or are you going for the Hyperbolic Post award?

From my perspective, it's hard to see how dumping one of last year's first rounders for nothing, and actually having to send Memphis cash to balance things out, is ridiculously good.

Ridiculously good would have been getting a #1 for Fab, like we once got for Jerome Moiso.

[CelticConcourse]

Ridiculously good deal. Danny is amazing.

Is this tongue in cheek, or are you going for the Hyperbolic Post award?

From my perspective, it's hard to see how dumping one of last year's first rounders for nothing, and actually having to send Memphis cash to balance things out, is ridiculously good.

Ridiculously good would have been getting a #1 for Fab, like we once got for Jerome Moiso.

Hyperbolic Post award! Woohoo!



We're in a transition year here and with those repeater taxes in the new CBA, it's a good thing we got a taxless year out of the way. When we get back into contention, we're free to re-enter the tax!

Quite a conscientious deal by Danny and it's just another sign that people don't want Brandon Bass for three first roudners or Courtney Lee for Paul George!

[Interceptor]

No way to avoid sending the cash out; had to compensate Memphis for the insurance premiums they'd have to pay on their chairs and doorframes.

[JohnBagleyValueMeal]

Am I remembering correctly that the Celtics could have rolled the pick that they used for Melo over to the next year?

Any reasonable NBA fan who followed Fab at Syracuse could have told you that he was not a good pick for the Celtics, and wasn't a first-round talent. All the talk about potential was wishful thinking. Dude doesn't know how to play basketball. It's not his fault, really, lots of kids don't grow up playing or watching the sport. He could get away with it in Boeheim's system, but the NBA exposes people like Melo.

[WeMadeIt17]

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