Hollinger: Celtics are built to thrive in new cap era … at least for a little while

If there’s one lesson I hope we all learned from these NBA playoffs, it’s this: Can we hold our horses and wait a little before immediately anointing anyone who has a successful playoff round as The Next Thing?

In the first round, we thought the Denver Nuggets were inevitable because they beat the Los Angeles Lakers.

In the second round, we thought Anthony Edwards was taking over because the Minnesota Timberwolves knocked out the Nuggets.

In the conference finals, we thought Luka Dončić was an unsolvable riddle because the Dallas Mavericks outflanked Minnesota.

And in the NBA Finals, we learned the Boston Celtics, the team that had by far the best record, was — surprise! — actually the best team the whole time. Even as everyone thought they couldn’t be trusted due to past playoff failures, an unproven coach and the lack of an MVP-caliber centerpiece, Boston won 16 of 19 playoff games despite missing one of its best players for 11 of them.

As we get ready for whatever lies ahead next season, let’s allow 2023-24 to be a humbling lesson. The Celtics tried to tell us all year that they were great and, for whatever reason, everyone ignored the signals. The lack of a full-strength playoff foil in the Eastern Conference probably didn’t help either; rolling through defanged playoff opponents didn’t offer many chances for statement games.

Nonetheless, the Celtics went 80-21 over the course of 101 games, with a historic scoring margin, and were never seriously challenged in the playoffs. They’re our sixth new defending champion in six years but will almost certainly go into 2024-25 as the presumptive favorite to win again.

There’s a good underlying reason for that: Boston is in great shape to withstand the worst depredations of the most recent collective bargaining agreement, at least for one more season. While revisions in the 2023 agreement make it increasingly difficult to keep together championship-caliber rosters like this one, Boston has positioned itself for a multi-year run via smart contracts and timely trades, despite having two of the league’s most expensive players at its core.

Looking solely at 2024-25, the Celtics are in great shape. Unlike other recent champions that almost immediately lost key players — Bruce Brown in Denver, Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. in Golden State, P.J. Tucker in Milwaukee, Danny Green and Rajon Rondo from the Lakers and, of course, Kawhi Leonard in Toronto — the Celtics are positioned to run it back.

All of Boston’s rotation players are signed for next season, with the only free agents being reserve centers Luke Kornet, Xavier Tillman Sr. and Neemias Queta and little-used guard Svi Mykhailiuk. Reserve forward Oshae Brissett has a player option on his minimum deal. Boston also will have a chance to add an inexpensive piece with the 30th pick in the NBA Draft.

I’m told the Celtics would like to bring the centers back if the money is reasonable; regardless, Boston can easily replenish the back end of the roster with other minimum deals this offseason. The Celtics are positioned to end up above the second apron and won’t have other tools at their disposal, but they won’t need them because every key player is signed. (Exception: If 38-year-old Al Horford walks off into the sunset after winning his first ring, they’ll need another big man … but dropping his $9.5 million salary would put Boston below the second apron.)

Where things get harder is if Boston has more dynastic ambitions. The Celtics won’t sweat salaries while trying to repeat in 2024-25, but after that, two elements of the CBA will punish them with increasing ferocity: the repeater tax and the second apron.

Boston would have two future draft picks frozen if it went over the second apron in both 2024-25 and 2025-26 and would see those picks moved to the end of the first rounds in 2032 and 2033, respectively, if it didn’t get back under the second apron each of the following three years.

Less discussed, but perhaps equally significant, is that Boston would be subject to a punishing repeater penalty in 2025-26. Beginning that year, a team that was $22.5 million over the luxury-tax line would owe an estimated $100 million in tax and repeater penalties, roughly double what the same salary structure would cost Boston in 2024-25 as a non-repeater. All at once now: Yikes.

Additionally, the repeater penalty bares its teeth just as the Celtics begin massive extensions for tentpole stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown; Brown starts a five-year deal next season worth a estimated $287 million, while Tatum will be eligible this summer for a five-year pact worth an estimated $315 million that would begin in 2025-26. The exact figures won’t be known until the 2024-25 cap number is established, but based on current league guidance, Tatum and Brown alone would combine to make nearly $108 million in 2025-26.

Fortunately for Boston, it will take a while for free agency to do much to its roster. The Celtics are Team Contract Extension and have prepared themselves well for the upcoming era by locking up most of their best players. Six Celtics are on extensions signed with Boston after they arrived; deals for Brown, Jrue Holiday and Payton Pritchard have each signed through 2028.

Expect that trend to continue. In addition to Tatum, I’m hearing it’s very likely that Sam Hauser and Derrick White will join them. Hauser has one year left for the minimum, on a team option, and will be extension-eligible this summer; he’s about to get more expensive, but Boston sees him as a keeper. One possible cap shenanigan would be to decline Hauser’s team option for 2024-25 and re-sign him for lower money and more years than in an extension that started in 2025-26. Doing so would increase the Celtics’ tax penalty in 2024-25 but lessen the impact of the repeater penalty and manage the second apron in the out years.

Meanwhile, White will be eligible for an extension for up to four years and $127 million this summer, including incentives; league sources say the Celtics are strongly interested in a deal with him and would likely need to offer every cent of that to get it done. (White’s extension amount has been reported as a different number in some places, because the incentives in his deal weren’t considered likely before this season. But based on his 2023-24 season, they’re all likely.)

Looking at the books and the salary-cap implications, an overarching strategy becomes more clear: a spirited run at a repeat in 2024-25, possibly followed by some hard decisions a year later. In particular, if those extensions all come to fruition, the key to continuing Boston’s reign will be figuring out how to build the frontcourt on a budget.

Horford and Kristaps Porziņģis already signed two-year extensions shortly upon arrival, but those will be the first two important Celtics to come off the books. Horford is set to make $9.5 million in what might possibly be his final season. Porzingis’s deal expires in 2026, when he makes $30.7 million.

Coming off a dominant season in a shattered Eastern Conference, the Celtics could hardly be in a better position to defend their title. And yet, even as we acknowledge Boston as a clear favorite, I’ll urge some caution as we head into next season. As I noted at the top, things are never as inevitable as they seem. A Celtics cynic could point out a few things:

• Their system depends heavily on two rare centers, one of whom is very old and the other of whom is very injury-prone.
• While Tatum is great, the Celtics are unlikely to have the best player on the court in any important series.
• The East may not be such a cakewalk next time around: We never saw the Milwaukee Bucks at full strength, the Philadelphia 76ers and Indiana Pacers are positioned to heavily rearm themselves in the offseason and the New York Knicks are building the same kind of ensemble cast the Celtics dominated with. And surely the Miami Heat aren’t going to take all this lying down … right?

So let me conclude by slightly contradicting myself. Yes, the Celtics have proven they should be clear favorites in 2024-25, and the recognition of their historic 2023-24 campaign has been far too late and too muted. As I noted earlier this year, their switchable, five-out lineup is the future, and their front office has continually been a step ahead of the pack.

They’re great, basically. But they’re not inevitable. In a 30-team league, it takes tremendous fortune to survive the playoff meat-grinder even once. Boston is in a better position than anyone else to do it again, but recent history suggests betting on the field might still be the sharper play.

Required Reading

(Photo: Mike Lawrie / Getty Images)