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Offseason Outlook: Boston Celtics

April 28th, 2015 at 1:59pm CST by Chuck Myron

Guaranteed Contracts

Non-Guaranteed Contracts

Options

  • None

Restricted Free Agents/Cap Holds

  • Gigi Datome ($2,275,000) — $2,187,500 qualifying offer
  • Jae Crowder ($1,181,348) — $1,181,348 qualifying offer1

Unrestricted Free Agents/Cap Holds

Draft Picks

  • 1st Round (16th overall)
  • 1st Round (28th overall)
  • 2nd Round (33rd overall)
  • 2nd Round (45th overall)

Cap Outlook

  • Guaranteed Salary: $40,406,846
  • Non-Guaranteed Salary: $1,894,552
  • Options: $0
  • Cap Holds: $47,833,785
  • Total: $90,135,183

The Celtics have made 11 trades since July, and while none of them brought the superstar that president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has openly pined for, all of those moves resulted in a 15-win improvement from last season to this one. Boston has as many as seven extra first-round draft picks coming its way, more trade exceptions than any other team in the league, and a roster that finished just two games below .500. The difficult calculus facing Ainge now is proving that he can do again what he did in 2007 and convert building blocks into a star-studded contender.

NBA: Boston Celtics at Phoenix SunsIt won’t be as easy this time, since the 2007 Celtics already had a resident star in Paul Pierce. Ainge dealt away the last remaining link to the 2007/08 champions when he traded Rajon Rondo in December, but since the swap, Rondo has hardly looked like the star he used to be, and the Celtics have fairly attractive assets to show for it. Jae Crowder, the only player the Celtics have left from the deal, is soon to hit free agency, too, but the Celtics have control in a way they wouldn’t have had with Rondo, since Crowder’s eligible for restricted free agency. The Rondo deal also gave the Celtics one of the many extra first-rounders they’re owed and allowed them to create a massive trade exception that they could use to take in a player making as much as $13MM without giving up any salary in return, as I examined.

It’s that final asset that will require some real creativity and hard decisions from Ainge. The trade exception expires on the one-year anniversary of the Rondo trade in December, so the Celtics can’t sit on it for long. They won’t even have until December if they want to use any cap space this summer. Trade exceptions go away when teams clear cap room, and the Celtics have a chance to open roughly $25.5MM worth, enough for a maximum-salary free agent, or two or three second-tier signings. They could also use cap room to take in players via trade without sending anyone out, so it’s not as if relinquishing the exceptions would leave the Celtics hamstrung. Still, teams can use trade exceptions to help create new trade exceptions, in essence extending their life, as Ainge did when he used multiple trade exceptions to facilitate the Rondo deal and produce the new, massive trade exception that came out of it.

The decision won’t be made in a vacuum, as more than a dozen legacy cap holds, as listed above and explained here, help ensure the Celtics wouldn’t have to open cap room until they know they can sign the free agent targets they want. Some of the players that Boston would like to sign wouldn’t require the use of cap space, since they’re already on the roster. Ainge has sent clear signals that he’d like to re-sign Crowder, who’s expressed gratitude for the expanded role that coach Brad Stevens has given him. Ainge would surely put Crowder on the back burner if a star became available, but given the swingman’s relatively tiny cap hold of less than $1.2MM, he wouldn’t get in the way unless another team swooped in and signed him to a bloated offer sheet of $5MM a year or more.

The math isn’t as simple with Brandon Bass, who’s expressed his desire to stay with the Celtics on multiple occasions in the past few months. His eight-figure cap hold makes him a prime candidate to be renounced if he and the Celtics don’t come to an agreement for a significantly lower figure during the July Moratorium. He’s a misfit for a rebuilding team with his 30th birthday looming on Thursday, but he’d be valuable for the Celtics if they somehow turned into a contender over the summer, and the Celtics clearly have some level of affection for him, or they’d have traded him at some point over the last two years.

A similar situation is at play with Jonas Jerebko, whose outsized $8.55MM cap hold the Celtics would surely renounce if they decide to open cap room. He aided the depth that marked the Celtics rotation down the stretch of the season and pulled down 9.6 rebounds per 36 minutes with 40.6% three-point shooting. The Celtics would probably welcome him back, but they’d be wary not to read too much into a 29-game sample size and pay much more than the minimum. The same could be said for Gigi Datome, the other player the Celtics acquired in the deadline-day trade that sent out Tayshaun Prince. Datome shot a sizzling 47.2% from behind the arc for the C’s in the regular season, but that came on only 36 attempts, and he saw only 14 minutes total in the playoffs.

That’s still more playing time than the four postseason minutes Gerald Wallace logged, and it’s no surprise that the Celtics are willing to trade him and the more than $10MM coming his way in 2015/16, the only eight-figure salary on the books for the Celtics next season. Boston is willing to attach a first-round pick to him to make it happen, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders reported, and there would certainly be worse uses of one of the many such picks the Celtics have to burn than to clear Wallace’s unwieldy cap figure. Wallace’s deal will finally be up after next season, but while expiring contracts have value, they aren’t as sought after as they used to be, particularly since just about every team already has plenty of cap flexibility for the summer of 2016. The Sixers took on a season and change of JaVale McGee‘s contract for a first-round pick that’s guaranteed never to be a lottery selection, but they might charge a higher price to absorb Wallace from a fellow rebuilding Atlantic Division team.

The primary motivation for trading Wallace would appear to be the chance to open even more cap room this summer, and it came as no shock to see the Celtics connected to Kevin Love again this week. Boston’s path to a Love signing was seemingly growing shorter until Kelly Olynyk injured Love’s shoulder, angering the All-Star and leaving him with newfound ill feelings toward the Celtics, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports wrote. Aside from Love, LaMarcus Aldridge is the next best among this year’s prominent free agents who doesn’t seem overwhelmingly likely to return to his team, but Aldridge would appear far more likely to end up in his native Texas than in Boston. The Celtics will reportedly target Greg Monroe, and while there haven’t been recent links between the C’s and DeAndre Jordan, Boston reportedly spoke to the Clippers about acquiring him in the summer of 2013 and at the trade deadline that year. Omer Asik also looms as the sort of rim-protecting center the Celtics have sought, and they talked to the Rockets about trading for him during the 2013/14 season, though he’s not to be confused with a superstar.

There’s no telling if Ainge and the Celtics will find what they seek this summer, but it appears they’ll be just as aggressive in their star search as they were last summer, if not more so. The only safe bet is that the makeshift roster that qualified for the playoffs this spring won’t last until the fall.

Cap Footnotes

1 — Crowder’s cap hold would be $947,276 if the Celtics decline to tender a qualifying offer.
2 — See our glossary entry on cap holds for an explanation why these players listed in parentheses technically remain on the books.

The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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Eastern Rumors: Aldridge, Russell, Raptors

April 27th, 2015 at 10:36pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Celtics should target LaMarcus Aldridge on the free agent market this summer and coach Brad Stevens could be their biggest selling point, according to Gary Tanguay of CSNNE.com. Stevens is a winner and a player’s coach who is adept at making strategic adjustments and getting his team to play hard, Tanguay continues. That should be attractive to a veteran like Aldridge, who probably realizes he cannot win a championship with the Trail Blazers in the loaded Western Conference, Tanguay opines. Adding Aldridge, along with a couple more solid moves, would make the Celtics serious contenders in the Eastern Conference, Tanguay concludes.

In other news around the Eastern Conference:

  • D’Angelo Russell would be an intriguing addition for the Sixers if they draft the Ohio State freshman guard, Mike Sielski of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes. Russell would address a glaring need since they already have two young post players in Joel Embiid and Nerlens Noel but Philadelphia’s draft strategy shouldn’t be based solely on filling that void, Sielski continues. An NBA source told The Inquirer that Russell is the top prospect on the Sixers draft board but Sielski doubts that GM Sam Hinkie has already made up his mind. However, it’s quite possible Hinkie may not be able to pass on a 6’5” point guard with a smooth shooting stroke who averaged 19.3 points for the Buckeyes, Sielski adds.
  • Raptors coach Dwane Casey says DeMar DeRozan must become a more vocal leader, Mike Ganter of the Toronto Sun reports. Casey feels that DeRozan can no long sit back quietly when issues arise and the team is struggling, Ganter continues, and the team’s playoff collapse against the Wizards reinforces that notion. “This is his team,” Casey said during a press conference on Monday. “If something is going wrong in the locker room, speak up, say something. Don’t just complain about it. He is at that stage in his career where he can speak up and be a leader, not depend on someone else to do it. If you don’t agree with something, say something.”
  • The Magic might not hire a head coach until after the NBA Finals, a league source told Larry Ridley of NBC affiliate WESH in Orlando (Twitter link). The Magic fired Jacque Vaughn during the middle of the season, then hired James Borrego as interim coach for the final 30 games.
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Atlantic Notes: Casey, Knicks, Lopez

April 27th, 2015 at 6:50pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Dwane Casey will probably return as Raptors head coach next season even though the team got swept by the underdog Wizards in the playoffs, Eric Koreen of The National Post opines. Casey has one guaranteed year remaining on his contract and Koreen anticipates the team’s management will give him another chance unless a proven coach that GM Masai Ujiri likes, such as the Bulls’ Tom Thibodeau, becomes available. The Raptors will likely cut ties with all of their unrestricted free agents, a list that includes Landry Fields, Amir Johnson, Greg Stiemsma, Tyler Hansbrough, Chuck Hayes and Lou Williams, according to Koreen. The Raptors need to upgrade at the forward spots and improve defensively to become a serious contender, which is why no one on the roster is a lock to return next season, Koreen concludes.

In other news around the Atlantic Division:

  • The Knicks need more veteran leaders in their locker room even if Carmelo Anthony becomes more of a vocal leader next season, according to Ian Begley of ESPN New York. The Knicks had several of those players, including Jason Kidd and Marcus Camby, in 2013/14 when they won 54 games, Begley points out. David West might fit that description if the Pacers forward declines his $12.6MM player option for next season, Begley adds.
  • Brook Lopez‘s strong finish makes his decision on whether to exercise his $16.7MM player option for next season a difficult one, Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops.com reports. It might be wise for the Nets center to opt out and seek long-term security this summer, given his rising stock and injury history, Scotto continues. On the flip side, Lopez might be competing for offers with a number of other high-profile centers who will enter the market this summer, including Marc Gasol, DeAndre Jordan, Tyson Chandler and Omer Asik, Scotto adds. One GM who thinks Lopez would put himself at too much risk for injury if he opts in tells Scotto that he believes the center would merit salaries around $16MM on the open market, essentially mirroring the value of his option.
  • Luigi Datome made a point of praising the Celtics on his Facebook page Monday, Braden Campbell of Boston.com reports, a strong indicator he hopes Boston will re-sign him. Datome, who will be unrestricted free agent this summer, was dealt to the Celtics by the Pistons at the trade deadline. Datome, who praised everyone from the team’s management to arena workers, added in the Facebook post that he would value every proposal that comes his way this summer. He probably won’t get one from Boston, since Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has already expressed doubt that the team would have a roster spot available for Datome next season.
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Latest On Kevin Love, Free Agency

April 27th, 2015 at 5:05pm CST by Chuck Myron

5:05pm: Love will miss Cleveland’s second-round series because of his shoulder injury, the team says, according to Tom Withers of The Associated Press (Twitter link). It’s a left shoulder dislocation, as the team details.

8:58am: People around the Cavaliers and the rest of the league have been of the belief that Kevin Love wouldn’t hesitate to leave Cleveland, but the shoulder injury he suffered in Sunday’s game throws Love’s future into flux, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The Celtics had made up ground on the Lakers on Love’s list of preferred destinations, and while Boston was no certainty for Love, they had a better shot than many thought, Wojnarowski writes. However, the tangle with Kelly Olynyk in which Love was injured, a “bush-league play” as Love described it, left the All-Star with a “legitimate loathing” of the Celtics, as Wojnarowski put it. The Cavs expect Love to miss at least the next two weeks, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com reported earlier.

Love said in January that he planned to pick up his player option of more than $16.744MM for next season, even though there’s a strong chance he could earn more next year on a new maximum-salary deal. However, teams who’ve investigated the possibility of chasing Love are convinced he’ll “minimally explore” the free agent market this summer, according to Wojnarowski. Love was intrigued with the possibility of playing for the Celtics after visiting Boston last spring, and people who know Love and Celtics coach Brad Stevens believe the Celtics would have become the front-runners once Love took a meeting with the C’s, as Wojnarowski details.

The Yahoo! scribe suggests that the confrontation Kendrick Perkins had with Jae Crowder and the flagrant foul J.R. Smith delivered later on Crowder demonstrated that the Cavs were in Love’s corner and sought a measure of revenge for his injury. Still, none of the Cavs went quite as far as Love did in comments about the play in which Love was hurt, with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving probably going the farthest to support Love in saying that it wasn’t a basketball play, as Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal writes in his Final Thoughts column.

“I’ve seen a lot of tie-ups in my day and that tie-in was a little different,” James said. “We were very upset that it happened.”

The Celtics would probably need to convince Love that Olynyk’s move, in which he hooked Love’s arm as they chased a loose ball, wasn’t intended to hurt him, Wojnarowski surmises, having heard private suggestions from the Celtics that it happened in part because of Olynyk’s “uncoordinated,” “awkward” nature. Several Celtics went on the record with similar statements to Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald. Gerald Wallace said it’s simply how Olynyk has to play, and Evan Turner looked at Tyler Zeller and asked, “Tyler? Doesn’t he foul that way every day in practice?” Olynyk denies trying to injure Love, as Murphy also relays.

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Celtics Notes: Wallace, Crowder, Free Agency

April 27th, 2015 at 1:35pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Celtics are willing enough to trade Gerald Wallace that to do so, they would part with one of the seven extra first-round picks in line to come their way, sources tell Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders, who writes in his NBA AM piece. Wallace’s contract is poised to turn into an expiring deal next season, when it calls for a salary of nearly $10.106MM, and while that would ostensibly make it less costly to move, it appears Boston is ready to give up an asset of value to facilitate a swap. Here’s more from Boston one day after a playoff exit:

  • Kyler has heard suggestions that the Mavs will make a run at Jae Crowder, as the Basketball Insiders scribe writes in the same piece. President of basketball operations Danny Ainge made it clear that he’d like Crowder back, and the soon-to-be restricted free agent received an auspicious diagnosis of a left ACL sprain after his injury Sunday, the team announced. That isn’t the serious injury that it appeared Crowder might have suffered, observes A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com (Twitter link).
  • Blakely, in a full piece, examines the relative interest the C’s have in re-signing Crowder, Jonas Jerebko, Gigi Datome and Brandon Bass for next season
  • A first-round playoff exit was just the sort of outcome Ainge feared for the Celtics, leaving them without a lottery pick or having had much of a playoff run, writes Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald. Still, people in the organization are warming to the idea that the postseason berth can help, and they’re hopeful that having been on the playoff stage raises the team’s profile for free agents. Already, Kevin Love had reportedly held Boston in high regard as a free agent destination before a tie-up with Kelly Olynyk left the injured All-Star with a “legitimate loathing” of the C’s, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported earlier.
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And-Ones: Love, Williams, Bass

April 26th, 2015 at 9:22pm CST by Will Joseph

While nothing will be official until the results of an MRI are expected to be announced Monday, the Cavaliers are expecting Kevin Love to miss at least two weeks, Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com tweets. Love suffered a dislocated left shoulder in Sunday’s game against Boston and will be evaluated further, the Cavaliers announced. The Cavs will open their semifinal series on either May 2nd or May 4th, depending on when the Bulls–Bucks series concludes.

Here’s more from around the league:

  • Nets coach Lionel Hollins told reporters, including Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News, that Deron Williams, who was involved in trade rumors earlier this season, isn’t the same player he was four years ago when he was heralded by the team as the league’s best point guard and that’s OK. “That’s four years ago. We’re now. No player is the way he was four years ago. All I’m saying is now is that the guy is playing well,” Hollins said. “Somebody picks out that he has two points [in Game 2 against the Hawks]. So what? He played well. It’s not just about the scoring. If it was just about the scoring, there’s a lot of teams that would be better because they have guys who score a lot of points. But it’s about winning. It’s about doing the right things for the team. And I’ll defend Deron until the end on that and all my players to the end if you think that just because a guy makes a lot of money and is supposed on a level because everybody put him on that level — whether it be the organization, or whomever — it’s still where we are now. And we have to deal with now. And I support him 100%.”
  • Soon-to-be unrestricted free agent Brandon Bass hinted that he would like to return to the Celtics, but acknowledged that it’s not solely his call, Jessica Camerato of Basketball Insiders writes. “I don’t know what the future holds,” Bass said following the Celtics’ Game 4 elimination to the Cavaliers on Sunday. “That’s up to [President of Basketball Operations] Danny Ainge. But Boston’s been great to me over the last couple years, so it’ll be great for me to come back.”
  • Enes Kanter, Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett were listed by Moke Hamilton, Alex Kennedy and Jessica Camerato of Basketball Insiders as players who are poised to be overpaid as free agents. Hamilton argues that Kanter, a soon-to-be restricted free agent, will cash-in on a small, 26-game sample size. The Timberwolves hold Garnett in such high regard they will most likely offer him a larger contract than teams without previous ties would, Camerato writes.
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Celtics Notes: Crowder, Stevens, Bass

April 26th, 2015 at 6:21pm CST by Will Joseph

The biggest question mark for the Celtics, Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com writes (Insider subscription required), heading into the offseason is this: Can the franchise land a star? Pelton projects the Celtics will likely have $21.1MM in cap space. The Celtics have the cap space to offer a max deal this summer while bringing others (including soon-to-be restricted free agent Jae Crowder and soon-to-be unrestricted free agent Jonas Jerebko) back, Pelton adds. In an ideal offseason, Boston would ink Kevin Love, if the big man chose to opt out of his deal with the Cavs, and also package its pair of first-round picks to move up and draft Willie Cauley-Stein as a rim protector and versatile defender, Pelton writes.

Here’s more from Beantown:

  • In the same piece, Pelton writes that soon-to-be unrestricted free agent Brandon Bass will probably fill the role of a veteran who can knock down the midrange jumper for a different team after playing well for the Celtics this season.
  • Crowder plays with a ton of energy, plays physical and plays with emotion, all of which makes him an ideal player for a playoff-team and someone who would help the Celtics in coming seasons, if the team were to re-sign him, Jimmy Toscano of CSNNE.com writes. Crowder, someone Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said he’d like to have back, averaged 10.8 points per game and five rebounds per game in the four games Boston lost to the Cavaliers.  Boston can match any competing offers for the forward who turns 25 in July as long as they tender a qualifying offer worth only $1,181,348.
  • Despite trading away their two best veterans, Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green, before the season’s midway point, the Celtics made the playoffs and that’s a credit to second-year head coach Brad Stevens, who finished fourth in NBA Coach of the Year Award balloting, Sean Deveney of The Sporting News writes. Stevens, 38, has come a long way since last year, Deveney adds. While Stevens described himself as “clueless” in his first year, scouts told Deveney that the former Butler coach is now a respected leader in the league for both his offensive system and focus on transition defense. The team consistently played hard under Stevens, who, as Deveney notes, is often praised for his even-keeled demeanor. What’s special about Stevens’ offensive system is that it runs 10 players deep, so it will be interesting what role — if any — that has in the Celtics’ offseason plans. It’s very possible Stevens’ coaching style could benefit the Celtics in that regard because, as Deveney points out, Stevens has shown an ability to adapt his style to the players he has.
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Central Notes: Love, Butler, Pistons, Hill

April 26th, 2015 at 4:06pm CST by Arthur Hill

Kevin Love suffered a dislocated left shoulder in Sunday’s game against Boston and will be evaluated further, the Cavaliers announced. The incident happened in a first quarter skirmish between Love and the Celtics’ Kelly Olynyk. Love immediately headed for the locker room and did not return. The Cavaliers said Love will receive “examination, imaging and evaluation at Cleveland Clinic Sports Health over the next 24 hours.” His status for the rest of the playoffs will depend on the results of those tests. Love was wearing a sling after the game, but said his shoulder was feeling better and he hopes to be ready for Game 1 of the next series, tweets Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group. Love wasn’t forgiving toward Olynyk, tweets Dave McMenamin, saying, “I thought it was a bush-league play … I have no doubt in my mind that he did it on purpose.”

There’s more from the Central Division:

  • Jimmy Butler has emerged as the ideal complement to Derrick Rose in the Bulls‘ backcourt, according to Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com. Heading into free agency this summer, Butler has left behind his “role player” days and has become a full-fledged star, Friedell writes. “We have a very strong backcourt right now,” said center Joakim Noah. “Both him and Derrick, it’s very good. I’m very happy to have them as teammates.”
  • After upgrading at point guard with the trade for Reggie Jackson, the Pistons now face the challenge of improving at other positions, writes Keith Langlois of Pistons.com. He praised coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy for being willing to part with depth and three-point shooting to acquire Jackson, who is very much in the team’s future plans despite being a free agent this summer. He also noted that the Pistons seem likely to bring back Anthony Tolliver, who has a $3MM contract, with only $400K guaranteed.
  • The Pacers‘ Solomon Hill took advantage of the opportunity given to him when Paul George broke his leg, writes Andrew Perna of Real GM. The second-year player was given increased court time and responded by being the only Pacer to appear in all 82 games. He is under Indiana’s control through the 2017/18 season.
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Atlantic Notes: Love, Knicks, Valanciunas

April 25th, 2015 at 11:36am CST by Eddie Scarito

Brad Stevens would be a great coaching fit for Kevin Love if the big man chose to opt out of his deal with the Cavs and sign with the Celtics this offseason, Tim Welsh of CSNNE.com opines. “He fits in as a guy that can score, an up-front scorer. They [the Celtics] don’t have that. They’re built on guys, a lot of wing players … they’ve got the two tough guards out front with Avery Bradley and Marcus Smart that can really defend,” Welsh said. “And I think the thing with Kevin Love, too — and other free agents will obviously look at — is what Brad Stevens has done. He’s kind of resurrected a lot of different guys here in a short period of time.” Welsh cited Evan Turner, Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder and Jonas Jerebko as examples of players whose games Stevens has elevated.

Here’s more out of the Atlantic Division:

  • The Raptors have a decision to make regarding Jonas Valanciunas, who is eligible to sign an extension this offseason, Eric Koreen of The National Post writes. The reference point for a new contract would be the four-year, $53MM extension that the Magic inked with Nikola Vucevic last offseason, Koreen notes. If the Raptors do indeed sign Valanciunas to a long-term deal, they have to commit to integrating him a bit more in the offense, because Valanciunas does not provide the defensive value that justifies a salary similar to Vucevic’s, Koreen concludes.
  • Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge believes that Gigi Datome has a place in the NBA, though he isn’t sure if the team will have a roster spot for the Italian next season, Mark Murphy of The Boston Herald writes. “This is a really hard business,” Ainge said. “There’s 400 players in this league, and 60 more who get drafted each year. You’ve got a former NBA player of the week in Jordan Crawford who can’t get back in the league the next year. Now he’s leading [the Fort Wayne Mad Ants] to the D-League finals. So you don’t know. But in my eyes Gigi has proven that he’s an NBA player.” Datome can become a restricted free agent if Boston tenders him a qualifying offer this summer worth $2,187,500.
  • Since James Dolan purchased the Knicks the franchise has continually tried to sell its fanbase on the promise of the future, a trend that continues under team president Phil Jackson, Johnette Howard of ESPNNewYork.com writes.
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Atlantic Notes: Young, Knicks, Crowder, Jerebko

April 24th, 2015 at 11:40am CST by Chuck Myron

Thaddeus Young has said in the past that he’d like to return to the Nets next season, and while he didn’t directly address a question about his future from Steven Simineri of NetsDaily, the forward made it clear he was pleased with the midseason trade that brought him to Brooklyn. Young has an early-termination option worth nearly $10.222MM.

“It was the perfect situation for me, especially with me being good friends with [Nets GM] Billy [King], just knowing him and him drafting me in Philly,” Young said. “So it was a good situation, plus they had the right mix of players for me and I felt like I could be a great complementary piece to a lot of guys on this team.”

It’s a virtual must-win for Young and the Nets on Saturday as they trail 2-0 against the Hawks, and as we wait to see what happens, here’s more from around the Atlantic Division:

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