From Eric Pincus, who I trust almost as much as Larry Coon: "Most contract language says 'waived by' not cleared by".
I think we're safe in assuming that we'll have until midnight Saturday it seems or so. Not sure if we have Sunday to make the decision as well, but not going to push it.
This obviously means that Danny has some idea that two max level free agents are going to be giving him definitive answers sometime between the 3rd and 7th and he is keeping his options open. Given the timetables for some of the meetings for the max level crowd, this seems like good news. Things definitely looked to be getting close.
Well, there are some things at play here, particularly the importance of July 7th.
This year, the Moratorium period was shortened, which means that the Celtics can trade players once again after July 6, as opposed to previous years where it was July 10. This is a measure that was put in place just recently, so that's probably a reason to negotiate this date.
Another thing that as I was discussing with someone was brought to my attention, is that Amir and Jerebko would most definitely be claimed off waivers by some team. So no matter what happens, Amir and Jerebko have no chance of playing the FA game.
What this further means is that if Ainge releases them, Amir and Jerebko run the risk of being claimed by a bad team.
So the extension give a further opportunity to still be with the Cs this season, it also gives Ainge the chance to trade them to a more desired destination if need be.
With these issues in mind, I'm surprised it wasn't extended even further. But, the July 7 is key since once all the verbal agreements are in place, it gives us one final opportunity to trade them. I'm assuming though that the July 7 date simply means that they can be released on that same day as opposed to released by date (which would mean we'd have to release them on July 6).
But we'll see. In all, there's a lot of particulars on why it would make sense to extend the deadline for all parties involved.