If the best players available are Griffin (too many missed games) and Hayward (good not great), it makes sense why you wouldn't want to sign one to a max deal. If Lebron, KD, Kawhi, and Westbrook were all up for FA, no one around here would care about signing them to the max.
I want the Celtics to wait for the next great player to become available before signing another max deal. This might not be possible.
this is the last summer for max cap space (or near max) unless Boston let's Thomas, Bradley, Smart go.
And Boston just signed a max contract player worse than Griffin and Hayward
The only real issue is that, while signing Horford didn't require we have to sacrifice much (we let go of Turner and Sully), signing either Griffin or Hayward would gut A LOT of this team. (Kelly, Jerebko, Amir, Zeller, Mickey, maybe even Bradley/Smart + Green)
Depth becomes important especially late in seasons and in the postseason, as we're seeing this year too.
It becomes a real thin front court if you sign a max-player AND unless Ainge has another trade lined up for a rebounding big, it would be Horford, Zizic, then nada.
And Hayward/Griffin are great players but obviously not at the level of a Durant.
But Griffin would really fill a lot of our needs even with front court depth leaving, BUT his injury history really scares me.
The only player we gave up for Horford was Sully. After that we could have kept Turner and not re-signed Zeller, Amir and JJ. In fact we could still have signed Zeller at $8m. Letting Turner walk was solely because we didn't think he was worth the price tag.
True, but in this case I also think they valued having some depth, because if they lost all of Amir/Zeller/JJ, this front court would be even worse much of the season, even if we kept Turner in the roster.
But yes, Turner was not at all worth his contract (though I'm happy for him).
We'll have to see what KO demands in the market. If it's more than 15M/Year, I think he's definitely gone.
Isn't that exactly the argument around Hayward this summer though? I understand that Hayward is much better than Turner but the principle is the same. For Durant I would give up my depth, for Hayward not a chance.
Where will our "depth" be in 2-3 years? On an NBA bench or out of the league.
What's the fascination with crappy role players? Guys like Zeller, Amir and JJ are completely expendable. How much are they helping against the Wizards? What about their play makes you prefer them to the guy scoring an efficient 24 ppg?
If there's a chance to add a second star, you do it. Giving contracts to crappy role players won't move the franchise forward.
So this goes back to what we are giving up for him. 100% it's KO, Amir, Zeller, JJ, Young, Mickey. Only KO moves the needle and that's fine to give up. Then depending on draft position we may have to give up Rozier as well to make the cap room. That hurts, but lets go with it. Once Hayward is signed, the cap maths does not lend itself towards keeping all our current core, paying a luxury tax bill of $50m. So Bradley most likely goes too. That's unacceptable to me.
I don't think Zizic is a starter the moment he enters the league so you have to find a starting calibre big for the vet min. Perhaps you trade Bradley for one to minimise the loss? But then you may have the luxury tax issues again... We're still 2 deep at guards and SF, at PF we need a backup to Al.
I also don't think Hayward keeps his numbers up in Boston and I question if he can become more efficient with that lower usage.
If we do let go of Bradley to ease the luxury tax concerns I'm not so sure where an IT, Smart, Hayward, Al, ? lineup gets us. Unless your center can shoot 3s the spacing isn't great.
I d think that someone of the calibre of Paul George could take us to the next level. We'd have similar luxury tax concerns past 2018 but you could legitimately say you have a big 3 that would challenge the Cavs and GS on a talent level. IT, Bradley, George, Al, ? is an excellent lineup. Furthermore you could renegotiate IT this summer before trading for George so that the luxury tax concerns minimise. Or do the same with Bradley.