Atlantic Notes: Vucevic, Celtics, Minott, Barrett
Celtics center Nikola Vucevic has to wait patiently for his fractured right ring finger to heal, but he’s hopeful he can return to action before the playoffs begin.
“The good thing is I can still do some stuff on the court,” he said, per Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe. “That will help me for when I come back [to be in] shape, and hopefully I get a couple games before the playoffs, get back in rhythm with the guys that week between regular season and playoffs, everything going as smoothly as possible.”
Vucevic suffered the injury on March 6 and was formally ruled out for at least three-to-four weeks.
“So far I haven’t had much pain or anything; everything has been going well,” he said. “The swelling is coming down and been working the range of motion. So hopefully the X-ray is clean at three weeks and I can start doing some stuff and just getting back to being comfortable and building strength in the hand.”
Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- The Celtics are likely to stay under the first tax apron once again next season, Brian Robb of MassLive.com opines. Robb points out that they currently have approximately $185MM committed in salary for 2026/27, $9MM of which is non-guaranteed, while the first apron projects to be $210.3MM. Boston may also be able to operate below the $201.7MM tax line, resetting its repeater clock. It shouldn’t be difficult to shed salary, if necessary, to achieve that goal, Robb adds, noting that the emergence of young talent on team-friendly deals across the roster will be very helpful on that front.
- The Nets dropped a 93-92 heart-breaker to the Knicks, their 14th straight loss to their crosstown rival. Josh Minott was highly agitated by the loss after scoring a career-high 22 points, according to Brian Lewis of the New York Post. “I wanted that s–t so (bleeping) bad,” he said. “Ever since we’ve been here, it’s like every game is an away game. [Friday] was just the night to really just stick it to everybody, man. As an organization, as a team, to show people that we got s–t here, yo. Man, just a sea of blue, a sea of orange. Every game we play, it’s a sea of the other team.”
- The Raptors left their 121-115 loss to the Nuggets on Friday still feeling good about themselves. Heading into their game in Phoenix on Sunday, they hold the fifth spot in the East. “The more we get healthy, the more we play together, the better it’s going to be for us,” RJ Barrett said, per Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca. “I think we’re showing that on a nightly basis. But there are times and moments that we can play better as a team.”
Atlantic Notes: Garza, Raptors, Ingram, Sixers
A star at the college level for Iowa, big man Luka Garza was a two-time first-team All-American and was named the AP’s Player of the Year as a senior in 2020/21. However, due to concerns about how his game would translate to the pros, he fell to No. 52 in the 2021 draft and had trouble cracking the Pistons’ and Timberwolves’ rotations during his first four years in the NBA.
Now 27 years old and in his fifth NBA season, Garza is averaging a career-high 15.6 minutes per game through 59 appearances for the 46-23 Celtics, contributing 7.4 points and 3.9 rebounds per night with a strong shooting line of .569/.436/.770. Speaking to Spencer Davies of RG.org, the veteran forward/center said he had to commit to learning new skills beyond the ones that helped him excel in the NCAA game.
“Every summer, I dedicate myself, and even during the season, to improving myself, especially in the seasons where I didn’t play as much,” Garza told Davies. “That’s my main focus: getting better. I think, especially in the NBA, you’ve got to be able to adapt and change your game or mold it to find a way to have an impact on great teams.
“So for me, that impact is a little different than it was in college. Not playing as much back to the basket, not having the ball in my hands every possession like I did. But I think I’ve found ways to be extremely effective through screening, through offensive rebounding, and through scoring when the ball is in my hands in different moments. Picking and popping, shooting, stretching the floor. Adding the slow step, other stuff into my game has really helped me. And so, yeah, I definitely developed, and I’m a lot better than I was back then.”
The Celtics made Garza a priority in free agency last summer when they traded away Kristaps Porzingis and lost Al Horford and Luke Kornet to rival suitors. He received a guaranteed two-year, minimum-salary contract, meaning he’ll be on a team-friendly $2.8MM cap hit next season before becoming eligible for unrestricted free agency again in 2027.
We have more from around the Atlantic:
- While it might not happen right away, the expectation is that the Raptors, who are currently carrying 14 players on standard contracts, will sign a player to a 10-day deal to fill their 15th roster spot before making a rest-of-season commitment to anyone, reports Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca.
- In his first full season with the Raptors, forward Brandon Ingram has appeared in 66 games and counting, his highest single-season total since his rookie season in 2016/17. While there’s an element of luck involved in Ingram’s availability, he and the Raptors also put a lot of effort into keeping him healthy this year, as Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca details (Twitter links). “It took a lot of work, a lot of preparation, a lot of dedication from everybody,” head coach Darko Rajakovic said. “I am super grateful for the group of people we have that care so much, and for BI and the way he has handled the whole process.”
- Tony Jones of The Athletic explores best- and worst-case scenarios for the rest of the Sixers‘ season, noting that – while it’s a long shot – there’s still an outcome in play where they’re eliminated in the play-in tournament and then move into the top four of the draft on lottery night, keeping their protected first-round pick that would otherwise be sent to Oklahoma City.
And-Ones: Fournier, Mamukelashvili, Queta, NCAA Tourney
Veteran wing NBA Evan Fournier, who currently plays for Olympiacos in Greece after spending 12 seasons in the NBA from 2012-24, said in an interview with L’Equipe that he expects to retire as a player at the end of his current contract, which expires in 2028 (hat tip to Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops).
Fournier, 33, also indicated that he’d be interested in representing France again at the 2027 World Cup and/or 2028 Olympics if the national team wants him on its roster.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Raptors forward/center Sandro Mamukelashvili remains focused on competing in the NBA for the foreseeable future, but he told Ric Bucher of Full Court Passport (YouTube link) that he likes the idea of eventually finishing his career and spending his retirement years in Europe. Specifically, Mamukelashvili is intrigued by the possibility of competing in the NBA’s European league. “The talent will be there, and I think it’s going to compete with college and even the NBA,” the Georgian big man said of NBA Europe, per Eurohoops. “I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops, and hopefully, down the line, I will have my chance to play over there.”
- Celtics center Neemias Queta, Heat forward Pelle Larsson, and Cavaliers swingman Jaylon Tyson are among the role players highlighted by John Hollinger of The Athletic within a story on the unheralded contributors enjoying breakout seasons.
- Mamukelashvili and Queta are two of several minimum-salary players who should be in line for significant raises on their next contracts, according to Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Substack link). Gozlan, who also examines players like Suns guards Collin Gillespie and Jordan Goodwin, suggests Mamukelashvili could earn a starting salary of $8-10MM on his next deal and speculates that Queta’s floor will be the non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($15MM+).
- Sam Vecenie of The Athletic identifies nine players he’s excited to watch in the NCAA Tournament, including top-five prospects like Duke’s Cameron Boozer and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, as well as a few projected to be drafted later in the first round, such as UConn’s Braylon Mullins, Houston’s Chris Cenac Jr. and Alabama’s Amari Allen.
Checking In On Celtics’ Cap Management
The Celtics completed a pair of signings on Sunday, adding center Charles Bassey on a 10-day deal and promoting Max Shulga from his two-way contract to the standard roster.
The moves get Boston back to the NBA-mandated minimum of 14 players on standard contracts. Teams are only permitted to carry fewer than 14 for up to 14 days at a time and up to 28 days over the course of the season. The Celtics had reached both of those limits, having carried 12 players since March 1 following a separate 14-day stretch with just 12 players in February.
The Celtics are carefully managing their cap situation in order to avoid going back into luxury tax territory after shedding significant salary ahead of the trade deadline in order to duck below the tax line. Since the deadline, Boston has made the following four signings, along with their accompanying cap hits:
- Dalano Banton (10-day contract): $131,970
- John Tonje (10-day contract): $73,153
- Max Shulga (two-year contract): $212,145
- Charles Bassey (10-day contract): $131,970
Total: $549,238
The Tonje and Shulga signings were the keys to the Celtics’ plan, since both players were 2025 second-round picks being promoted as draft-rights players from two-way contracts to their first standard deals. That means their rookie salaries weren’t subject to “tax variance” like a rookie free agent’s would have been.
Although the minimum salary for a rookie comes in well below that of a veteran, the NBA doesn’t want teams prioritizing rookie free agents over vets solely to reduce or avoid tax penalties. So if the Celtics had signed a rookie free agent in place of Tonje, that player would’ve earned the same salary on a 10-day deal ($73,153), but for tax and apron purposes, he would’ve counted as if he were a veteran ($131,970). The same goes for Shulga, another drafted rookie — signing a rookie free agent in his place would’ve cost the Celtics $382,712 for tax and apron purposes.
Having used their full allotment of 28 days below 14 players, the Celtics will have to remain at 14 for the rest of the season, which means that as soon as Bassey’s 10-day contract expires, they’ll need to either re-sign him or add a new 14th man. That will happen on March 25, with 19 days left in the season.
As of March 25, a rest-of-season contract for a veteran would carry a cap hit of $250,743. As Yossi Gozlan of CapSheets.com notes, Boston is currently $293,054 below the tax line, so the team will have enough breathing room to keep that 14th spot filled without going into the tax.
Whether the Celtics actually sign a player to a rest-of-season contract on March 25 or opt for another 10-day deal remains to be seen, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if they take the latter route. Going 10 days at a time results in the same daily cap hit as a full-season contract while giving Boston additional roster flexibility late in the season. Bassey is a logical 14th man for now, with center Nikola Vucevic sidelined due to a finger injury, but if Vucevic looks ready to return late in the season, the Celtics may prefer to use that 14th roster spot on a guard or forward.
Meanwhile, another Celtics two-way player, Ron Harper Jr., is a candidate for a late-season promotion, but there’s no rush to get him converted to a standard contract right away. On his two-way contract, Harper can be active for up to 50 games and he’s only at 32 so far — with just 15 regular season games left on Boston’s schedule, he won’t reach that limit even if he plays in all of the team’s remaining contests.
With all that in mind, here are the likely roster moves for the Celtics from here on out:
- Re-sign Bassey or bring in a new player on another 10-day contract on March 25, when Bassey’s first 10-day deal expires.
- Sign Bassey or another player to a rest-of-season contract on April 4, when that second 10-day deal expires.
- Promote Harper into the empty 15th roster spot on one of the last days of the regular season in order to ensure he’s eligible to play in the postseason.
The Celtics won’t be able to back-fill Shulga’s or Harper’s two-way slots in this scenario, so they’d finish the season with just 16 players under contract instead of 18. But their 15-man standard roster would be full for the postseason and they would’ve done it without becoming a taxpayer. That represents their first step toward resetting their repeater clock after having spent the past three seasons paying luxury tax penalties.
Celtics Sign Charles Bassey To 10-Day Contract
March 15: Bassey has officially signed his 10-day contract with the Celtics, according to the team (Twitter link).
March 14: The Celtics intend to sign free agent center Charles Bassey to a 10-day contract, league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
This will be the fourth 10-day contract Bassey has signed in 2025/26. The five-year veteran spent 10 days with Memphis on a hardship deal early in the season and completed a pair of 10-day agreements with Philadelphia in late January and early February.
Aside from his three appearances with Memphis and Philadelphia this season, Bassey has spent most of 2025/26 in the G League. In 20 total regular season games (17 with the Santa Cruz Warriors and three with the Delaware Blue Coats), he has averaged 20.5 points, 12.5 rebounds and 2.1 blocks on .606/.426/.654 shooting in 29.9 MPG.
Bassey was selected by Philadelphia with the 53rd pick in the 2021 draft. He was waived after one year with the Sixers and signed with San Antonio, where he played for the past three seasons.
Injuries were an issue for Bassey during his time with the Spurs — his 2022/23 season was cut short due to a non-displaced patella fracture, then he suffered a season-ending ACL tear in December 2023. The 25-year-old appeared in 36 games in 2024/25, averaging 4.4 points and 4.2 rebounds in 10.4 minutes per night.
The 6’10” big man was a standout with the Celtics during Summer League play this July, averaging 15.3 points and 11.0 rebounds per contest in Las Vegas while shooting 70.4% from the field across three outings.
The Celtics had only been carrying 12 players on their standard roster the past two weeks in order to execute an intricate plan to move below the luxury tax line. They’ll need to sign another player in addition to Bassey, notes Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Twitter link).
Bassey will earn $153,330 over the course of his 10 days with Boston, which will carry a cap hit of $131,970.
Celtics Sign Max Shulga To Standard Contract
March 15: Shulga’s standard contract is now official, the Celtics confirmed (via Twitter).
March 14: Celtics two-way player Max Shulga will be promoted to a standard contract that runs through the end of next season, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania (Twitter link).
Sources tell Brian Robb of MassLive that the deal will be non-guaranteed for 2026/27. Shulga will earn a prorated portion of the rookie minimum for the rest of the season.
The Celtics have been using a 12-man roster over the past two weeks in their effort to remain below the luxury tax line. They’re about to reach the season maximum of 28 days to be below the 14-man roster limit, so two additions have to be made by Sunday. A report earlier today stated that free agent big man Charles Bassey will be signed to a 10-day contract.
Promoting Shulga is advantageous for financial reasons because his rookie minimum salary won’t be subject to “tax variance.” His tax/apron charge will be much smaller than the prorated two-year veteran minimum that would have been imposed if the Celtics had signed a free agent. Boston is projected to be able to add a 15th player on the final day of the regular season without going into tax territory.
The 23-year-old Ukrainian guard signed a two-way deal in July after being selected with the 57th pick in last year’s draft. He has made brief appearances in three NBA games and has spent most of the season with the G League’s Maine Celtics, where’s he’s averaging 16.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game in 23 regular season contests.
Celtics Notes: Tatum, White, Gonzalez, Brown, Harper
The Celtics were down two starters on Thursday at Oklahoma City, with Jayson Tatum (right Achilles injury management) and Derrick White (right knee contusion) both ruled out (Twitter links via the team).
Thursday will mark Tatum’s first absence since he made his season debut on March 6. He has averaged 19.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.0 steal in his first three contests (27.0 minutes per game). Head coach Joe Mazzulla said Tatum’s day off was part of his recovery plan, per Brian Robb of MassLive.
“Just trust in our sport science team and trainers,” Mazzulla said. “The goal was always for him to come back and also to maintain his health as he continues to stay healthy and continue to get better. Just the trust and communication from our team.”
Boston’s next game will be on Saturday vs. Washington.
Here’s more on the Celtics:
- In a story for The Athletic, John Hollinger examines Tatum’s first two games of the season. Hollinger didn’t notice anything awry with Tatum physically, and says with the team already playing at a very high level before he returned, the Celtics don’t need a peak version of the perennial All-NBA forward to make a deep playoff run.
- Hollinger has also been keeping tabs on Hugo Gonzalez, writing that the 20-year-old wing has played high-level defense as a rookie and is a strong rebounder for his size. According to Hollinger, Gonzalez plays with lots of energy and finishes well near the basket, especially in transition, but his jump shot and handle are shaky. The Celtics have had multiple developmental success stories the past two years, Hollinger adds, so Boston was an ideal landing spot for the Spanish small forward.
- On the Cousins podcast with Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady (YouTube link), Jaylen Brown said he contemplated asking for a trade in 2019 after Boston was eliminated in the second round of the playoffs, but McGrady convinced him not to. “Coming and sitting down with Mac, we spent a couple days just working out and talking, having some food, and he’s telling me like, I’m thinking like one thing and he’s thinking like, ‘nah, you need to stay, it’s going to be you.’ He’s telling me all the stuff that all just manifested itself. So, I can’t even like, it’s crazy looking back on it now,” Brown said.
- In a mailbag, Robb of MassLive states that Ron Harper Jr. is “highly likely” to have his two-way contract converted to a standard deal. Robb expects Harper’s promotion to happen on the final day of the regular season (April 12) since he still has two-way eligibility left. Harper scored a career-high 22 points (on 8-of-11 shooting) in 33 minutes during Tuesday’s loss at San Antonio and has been solid defensively for the Celtics, Robb notes.
Checking In On Open Roster Spots
As our tracker shows, the following teams currently have one spot available on their 15-man standard rosters:
- Brooklyn Nets
- Golden State Warriors
- Houston Rockets
- Orlando Magic
- Toronto Raptors
The Nets have an opening after they decided not to re-sign rookie forward Grant Nelson, whose 10-day contract expired on Sunday night. They’re still operating below the salary cap, so there isn’t anything preventing them from signing another player.
The Warriors and Rockets are operating in luxury tax territory, and while they have plenty of room below their hard caps to add a 15th man, they’re probably not all that eager to increase their projected tax bills by bringing in someone who won’t play at all.
The Magic and Raptors are both operating less than $1MM away from the tax line, but each team has enough room to bring in a minimum-salary veteran on a rest-of-season contract without becoming a taxpayer, so if there’s someone out there they like, they don’t necessarily have to wait.
Toronto is expected to hold off at least a few more days though, in order to avoid a scenario in which the team wins a couple playoff series and Immanuel Quickley’s $500K bonus for making the Eastern Conference Finals pushes the Raptors’ salary over the tax line.
The Kings and Jazz are worth mentioning too. Sacramento’s 15th spot is currently held by Killian Hayes, whose second 10-day contract will expire on Saturday night. Utah, meanwhile, has two players — Mo Bamba and Andersson Garcia — signed to 10-day deals through next week.
Finally, there’s one notable team not mentioned in the list above because they technically have three open 15-man roster spots, not just one. That’s the Celtics. Boston is in the midst of executing an intricately timed plan to meet the NBA’s rules related to roster minimums for the rest of the season while narrowly staying out of the tax.
It’s a safe bet that Boston will stick with just 12 players for the maximum allowable 14 days before making a couple roster additions in mid-March. Current two-way player Max Shulga will likely get a promotion at that time for financial reasons (his rookie minimum salary wouldn’t be subject to “tax variance“). If all goes according to plan, the Celtics will be able to sign a 15th man on the last day of the regular season without surpassing the tax threshold.
Celtics Notes: Tatum, Thompson, White, Vucevic
After making an emotional season debut Friday night in Boston where fans celebrated his return 10 months after Achilles surgery, Jayson Tatum was relieved to get back to a normal environment Sunday at Cleveland, writes Jay King of The Athletic. Tatum remained on a minutes restriction, but he scored 20 points as the Celtics posted an emphatic win in a battle of Eastern Conference contenders.
“The other day was such a big deal, and obviously, in a home game in the city of Boston, I had a lot of family in town,” Tatum said. “Today just kind of felt like getting back in the flow of things. And that felt good for me.”
Tatum scored 12 points in the first seven minutes to help Boston build an early lead. Although he missed seven of his nine three-point attempts, he sank a clutch one with about two minutes left to play to stave off a Cleveland comeback. King notes that the Celtics were already playing well without Tatum – holding the league’s best defensive rating and second-best net rating – and have won the two games since his return by an average of 15.5 points.
“I don’t think his game has gone anywhere,” Payton Pritchard said. “I’ve seen him working on it. I think it’s more now, after not playing in a while, you’ve just got to get your flow back. Like, one-on-one reads, stuff like that.”
There’s more on the Celtics:
- After Friday’s win over the Mavericks, Klay Thompson offered some advice to Tatum, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe states in a subscriber-only piece. Thompson has plenty of experience in overcoming major injuries after suffering an ACL tear during the 2019 Finals and a ruptured Achilles tendon the following year. “One of his messages was like, ‘Man, just give yourself some grace,’” Tatum said Sunday. “He said that he wished he would have given himself more grace. Obviously, being elite athletes and competitors that we are, we want it so bad. But I’m still on the road to recovery and this is just a phase of it.”
- Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson views Derrick White as a major reason that the Celtics were able to remain competitive during Tatum’s absence, per Brian Robb of MassLive. “Derrick White, he’s a top-five player in this league,” Atkinson said. “I know no one says that in the standard media, but analytically, you look at all the advanced stuff, he’s (a) top-five player in the league, superstar. Jaylen [Brown] is obviously having a great year. [Neemias] Queta is analytically one of the top 30, probably. They have a lot of talent even without Jayson. So I think if you just kind of look, ‘Oh my gosh, Jayson Tatum’s out, they’re going to be terrible,’ I never bought into that.”
- Speaking to reporters on Sunday, coach Joe Mazzulla shared his advice for Nikola Vucevic, who will be sidelined for about a month with a fractured finger, relays Souichi Terada of MassLive. “Just stay in shape,” Mazzulla said. “Do everything he can with whatever the limitations are. He does a great job in the film room studying. Just continuing to do what he’s been doing. He’s a professional.”
Celtics Notes: Tatum, Brown, Walsh, Harper
Celtics fans welcomed back Jayson Tatum with a thunderous ovation Friday night, but it took a while for him to look like the player they remembered, writes Jamal Collier of ESPN. Tatum missed his first six shots from the field before scoring his first points of the season on a putback dunk shortly before halftime. That helped him settle down as he connected on six of his next 10 attempts and finished the night with 15 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in 27 minutes.
“I really was just kind of grateful,” Tatum said. “I had a real sense of gratitude of just being back on the floor, playing basketball. It just kind of brought me back to everything I’ve been through in the last 10 months. And the fact that I was able to even be out there today was a really big win for me.”
Tatum admits he still has “a long way to go” to get back to his elite status, but he was happy with his performance in the first game since tearing his right Achilles roughly 10 months ago. He told reporters that there’s no set plan to manage his playing time and didn’t give any indication of his status for Sunday afternoon’s game in Cleveland.
He also congratulated his teammates and Celtics management for remaining competitive in what many expected to be a gap year. Several key members of last season’s roster departed in cost-cutting moves, but Boston holds the league’s fourth-best record at 42-21.
“The start of last playoffs, we felt like we had a three-, four-, five-year run with that team,” Tatum said. “It all changed in the moment with that team. … I didn’t know what was next. … Can’t commend the group enough and the coaching staff of how they attacked the season, how they competed and just played together every single night. I don’t know if there’s been a team that’s more fun to watch this season play.”
There’s more on the Celtics:
- On the day before his return, Tatum spoke at a team meeting to express his gratitude to players, coaches and staff members for their help with his recovery, according to Jay King of The Athletic. King notes that Tatum has been a constant presence at practices and games while going through the rehab process. “It was nice for him to get up there and talk,” Derrick White said. “And for him to kind of get his voice back into the team. Because he’s been around, but he hasn’t had that type of voice.”
- During Tatum’s absence, Jaylen Brown took over as the Celtics’ number one scoring option and posted career-best numbers that put him in the MVP conversation. He talked Friday about the adjustments that will have to be made now that Tatum is back on the court, per Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe (subscription required). “It’s going to be a great challenge for me,” Brown said. “It’s going to be a great challenge for all of us. It’s going to test all of our patience. It’s going to test our humility. All of the above. We’ve just got to be prepared for there to be some ups and downs. I’m prepared for that. How you handle adversity will be kind of a measure.”
- If coach Joe Mazzulla sticks with a nine- or 10-man rotation, Jordan Walsh and Ron Harper Jr. are the players most likely to have their minutes impacted by Tatum’s return, Brian Robb of Mass Live states in a mailbag column.