The Celtics had an open offer out to Thomas Bryant to fill the backup center spot in the rotation, team sources tell Jared Weiss of The Athletic, but Bryant opted to join the Lakers on a one-year, minimum-salary deal because he has a chance to become the starting center. Other teams that were interested in Bryant’s services included the Raptors, Bucks and Jazz, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, who reported that Bryant was signing with Los Angeles.
Weiss writes that Bryant was taking a wait-and-see approach to how the Kevin Durant situation might play out in case another opportunity arose, but he decided to accept the Lakers’ offer before it disappeared. As Weiss relays, with Bryant off the board and the free agent center options either aging or relatively unproven, it remains to be seen which player Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens might find to fill the backup role.
Here are a few more notes from Weiss about Boston’s plans for the rest of the roster:
- The Celtics are still considering ways to use the $17,142,857 traded player exception (created by the Evan Fournier sign-and-trade to New York last summer) that expires on July 18, as our tracker shows. However, Weiss reports that the team is unlikely to use it on a high-salary player due to luxury tax concerns. According to Danny Leroux of The Athletic, Boston is $20.2MM over the tax line with 12 players on the standard roster, which amounts to a $45.8MM tax bill. If the team used the full $17.1MM trade exception, that bill would nearly triple, per The Athletic.
- The backup center spot will be important for next season because the Celtics plan to limit Al Horford‘s minutes in the regular season, including sitting out “most” back-to-backs, team sources tell Weiss. Horford turned 36 last month and appeared in 92 games last season (regular season and postseason combined), so ensuring that he’s as spry as he was in the playoffs in 2021/22 is certainly a logical move for a team that hopes to compete for a title again next season.
- JD Davison, whom the Celtics selected 53rd in the draft a couple of weeks ago, will sign a two-way deal with Boston, but sources tell Weiss that Davison will be given the opportunity to earn a standard roster spot over the coming months. Brodric Thomas, who was on a two-way contract with the Celtics last season and is currently a restricted free agent, will also be given a chance to win one of the final roster spots, according to Weiss.
After finding out the 25th-richest NBA team owner is far and away the biggest tax-payer, what exactly are these articles trying to say anymore? That “well, if the owner isnt a cheapskate, they might get a good player”? Thats the only takeaway from pocket-watching in this league, if the 25th-richest owner spends far and away the most, the rest of the owners are just holding the game hostage to their own cheapness – so why even own a team?
Why are these “ooh, we have to be careful to not go over some arbitrary cutoff or else we will lose a slight amount from our massive profits! We HAVE to max out on profits! We cant just make like, 70% more than the year before!”narratives even valid – why did we validate them? These are billion dollar assets, its not some “fun little investment” anymore, that’s long gone. Stop lying about that.
Stop caring about paying too much tax or get out of the team ownership game, period.
Agree. Are these article supposed to make us feel sorry for billionaire team owners or just offer up an excuse? Either way the message always seems like it’s coming straight from the front office.
Agreed, but these owners are business people at the end of the day and are mostly just concerned with their bottom lines. Do you really think they care about the sport or winning Championships as much as their fanbases do?
Right, I’m sure most are just toys, investments, or write-offs to boost their status and ego which is fine but some ownership groups (like the Celts) try to lather up and exploit the passion of the fans with campaigns like #banner18 yet aren’t willing to go all the way so instead we get articles about their tax penalty burdens.
Does the D in JD Davison stand for Davison
Jerdarrian Devontae Davison. Unless I totally missed a joke and you already knew that and there’s a hidden funny thing went zooming over my head…
Another thought is I am inclined to Guess that the D doesn’t stand for his middle name, but rather for the D which is part of his first name spelling. Instead of saying his entire first name they call him JD without even knowing what his middle name is?
The ‘D’ stands for ‘doesn’t shoot well’.
A’sfaninLexington needs to get a clue. He goes on and on about Joe Lacob ranked the 25th richest owner, but of course he’s a little shy when it comes to the reality of finance, nba ownership, and well, life itself.
Some of these numbers are fluid depending on where you get the information, but it’s commonly reported that Joe Lacob only owns 25% of the Warriors. He has a net worth of 1.5 billion.
So how is he able to afford all those rich contracts and hurdle the complex tax implications and fees? Maybe it helps that PETER GUBER, WHO IS WORTH $3 BILLION depending on the source, OWNS 20% OF THE WARRIORS.
You think Guber might have a say in the financial ongoings of payroll and free agent decisions? Yeah maybe a little.
So it matters NOTHING that Joe Lacob ranks 25th in NBA owners wealth. Sure he’s the face of the Warriors ownership group but there is a lot more financial resource behind him than just his own personal net worth.
There are some reports GSW nets close to 900 mill a year, far and away more than any other NBA team
*Still gotta give them props for paying almost 400 mill (tax inc ) But still thats a half Billion profit. Listened to a Micheal Thompson interview recently where he went thru the numbers and was very uspset they let GP3 walk
**If you can believe this guy (A’s fanLex) was worse on the baseball boards but lost interest as its hard to troll when amongst a sea of trolls
Yes Gary Payton was an amazing find this last season. Let’s do it again !! lol. Lacob and ownership are letting Bob Myers do what he does best.., find guys at minimum salaries who are established and want to come over or find that guy like Gary Payton who has been hanging around but not broken through yet. Myers has done it already a couple of times.
Yes it sure is nice when ownership pours profits back into the team. Unlike Donald Sterling who questioned why he had to pay for the player socks lol.
I do have an opinion that’s definitely not very popular and it’s this. Gary Payton is one-dimensional. He’s a stud athlete and lockdown defender. Fans love him for his amazing attitude, tantalizing athleticism, and highlight real dunks.
But he can’t create his own shot, doesn’t have handles at all, and is not a dribble Drive threat. One thing he has worked on is his Corner 3 and that’s pretty fantastic as well.
So to go from minimum salary to $8 million a year times 3 years is quite a jump. Joe Lacob is going to put Myers to work to find another guy at minimum who can fill the role at least partially.
Bottom line though is Payton’s actually a perfect Golden State Warrior when he does those things he’s good at. He definitely will be missed !!
First let’s see what kind of money Poole Wiggins receive and Dubs fans will see how expensive GP2 would have been for the GSW tax and then talk about cheap billionaire moves. Now you got Di Vicenzo to replace GP2 on a good 1+1 deal, but as you pointed out GSW lose 2 vets in Nemanja & Otto + JTA so Myers has now to find this kind of players in a dry FA market (B.Griffin) or being cheap BC of the tax and rely on Kuminga and Wiseman a lot more which i find dangerous… This spend spend spend Warriors cheat code is hard to pursue with so much money in 4 maybe 5 players now cause you are looking each year to find 2 or 3 good minimum vets that you don’t extend. Asking Kerr to win a new cheap with 3 rooks to developp asap inna IQ BB system is quite difficult. i said it before but ‘continuity’ is what GSW needs more after last season.
Yes I can imagine the baseball message board. Those guys can be ruthless over there. I only read the Red Sox stories at MLB rumors so I don’t see A’fan too much. On HoopsRumors I read almost everything and his horrible takes get me going every time.
GSW has the highest revenue in the league so they can pay the tax. Boston’s owners have been cheap but he has stepped up with the Brogdon deal. I hope they will get KO from the Pistons with the exemption. Maybe a Avery Bradley reunion for another spot.
Kelly O returning would be cool.
You don’t get to many opportunities to when multiple championships and the Celtics have that opportunity! The key to a lot of these dynasties is they have a deep bench with players who support the teams stars! This cost money so if the Celtics want to win next and hopefully in the future as well, they going to have to spend! Young good teams are hard to come by so please don’t be cheap and get us a good backup center!
Ok, so vet bigs are maybe out as Boston Celtics President of Operations Brad Stevens is limited. Remember hedge fund owners can’t stand paying up. Why Stevens should have been the Executive of the Year last year in forming a NBA Finals team in spite.
My thought is there has to be a young big out there, maybe in Summer League, who will be delighted to grow & develop behind “Playoff Al” with the idea in a year or two or three, he’ll be the starting Celtics center. Go Celtics!
Named Caboclo
The East is The Beast …….
…. but the West is the Best !!
The West is a joke. The Celtics slogged through the East while the Warriors tippie-toed through the Tulips in the West. This is why I hate conferences. The NHL used to have non-conference playoffs in the mid to late 70s and it was near perfect. It guaranteed the best teams played each other. After the WHA expansion in 1979, the NHL wrecked it.
Just because the East plays grunt ball doesn’t make it better.
Whatever. I don’t GS would survive the East. Another reason the Warriors beat the Celtics was the 2019 draft. I wanted Poole. He the skillset necessary for a long, solid NBA career. The Celtics passed on him twice. I facepalmed the Romeo Langford and Grant Williams picks. I know I can do a better job than most GMs in the NBA. It’s not a boast, rather than a sad commentary of the shortsightedness of many NBA teams. That said, I’ve posted many times that no team drafts better than Golden State. Thier only blemish was taking Wiseman over Halliburton.
Yes but fortunately the jury is still out on Wiseman. Fingers crossed he is healthy this year.
You may have seen it but 28 other teams did not. Warriors got lucky with Jordan Poole. Even took him 2 years to develop his offensive confidence, and he still has a ways to go defensively. But with his work ethic he’ll get there.