paul pierce opts back in with the green

[captain insano]

Reports: Paul Pierce Reaches Deal With Celtics - wbztv.com . they are officially making another run.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Those who understand the NBA cap, know that even if Pierce, Allen, and Rasheed were off the books, that we still couldn't be players for any of the max level free agents out there. The best alternative is to try to keep this current ship going as long as they can.

The NBA is weird in that you can go far over the cap to resign your own guys, but the moment you are at the cap you cannot sign any free agents. Because the Celtics have so much money tied up with Garnett and 4 other players, the Celtics basically can't do anything big anyways even if Pierce, Allen, and Rasheed are taken off the books. The best we can do is sign a Brad Miller, and at that point might as well just resign Pierce and Allen.

 

[Real World]

What is it, 4 years and $61 million? Too long a deal, and too much money.

 

[JoeSixPat]

What is it, 4 years and $61 million? Too long a deal, and too much money.

The 4th year may be an option year... whether there's a buy out or not is unclear.

If he's underperforming and they can get out after 3 years I'd look at it as a fair deal.

 

[JoeSixPat]

Those who understand the NBA cap, know that even if Pierce, Allen, and Rasheed were off the books, that we still couldn't be players for any of the max level free agents out there. The best alternative is to try to keep this current ship going as long as they can.

I don't know about that - given the $21 million for Pierce plus the $19 million Allen was taking up this year plus the $13 million or so for Rasheed, I can't see why they couldn't have been players for some of the top free agents.

The issue was probably whether the top free agents were truly available. I might have been interested in Dirk Nowitzki in lieu of Pierce but Nowitzki is probably about as "available" as Pierce was - i.e. he always intended to re-sign with the Mavs.

Now the question is what rebounding help we might get for mid-range money. Seems to me that Brendan Haywood fits that bill nicely... could probably be had for $8 million a season according to some reports

His 9 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks a game would fit nicely here with Perkins out... if Ainge is interested he might see it in his best interest to come here to make a run at a title, get some good minutes with Perkins out and parlay that into a better contract in the future.

If I have to choose between Allen and a rebounder like Haywood I think I'd go with the rebounder, as much as I like Allen's defense.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

If you don't resign Allen, who is your outside threat? You don't have any guards who can play the 2-guard and shoot the ball.

Pierce's contract is actually pretty reasonable. Darko Milicic, absolutely terrible, just signed a 4 year 20 million deal with Minnesota. I'm not a huge fan of Pierce, and I do think his last year or two will be way overpaying him, but given the Celtics cap situation, it's making the best of the situation.

It is not a matter of whether any of the free agents like Dirk will want to sign with Boston. It is simply impossible that Boston can be a major factor in free agency this year.

I know it sounds weird that if Pierce, Allen, and Rasheed's money all come off the books it seems like we'd have a ton of money to play with. But we don't. The NBA is different from the NFL cap.

Take a look at where the Celtics were before re-signing Pierce with their free cap money. They only had 5 players under contract without Pierce, Allen, or Rasheed, and yet were already very close to the cap. There is no way Boston would be able to sign a major free agent as well as field an 8 person NBA team.

 

[JoeSixPat]

If you don't resign Allen, who is your outside threat? You don't have any guards who can play the 2-guard and shoot the ball.

Pierce's contract is actually pretty reasonable. Darko Milicic, absolutely terrible, just signed a 4 year 20 million deal with Minnesota. I'm not a huge fan of Pierce, and I do think his last year or two will be way overpaying him, but given the Celtics cap situation, it's making the best of the situation.

It is not a matter of whether any of the free agents like Dirk will want to sign with Boston. It is simply impossible that Boston can be a major factor in free agency this year.

I know it sounds weird that if Pierce, Allen, and Rasheed's money all come off the books it seems like we'd have a ton of money to play with. But we don't. The NBA is different from the NFL cap.

Take a look at where the Celtics were before re-signing Pierce with their free cap money. They only had 5 players under contract without Pierce, Allen, or Rasheed, and yet were already very close to the cap. There is no way Boston would be able to sign a major free agent as well as field an 8 person NBA team.

I still would think that if we hadn't signed Pierce the space cleared by Pierce, Wallace and Allen could have allowed room for someone like Nowitzki, but that's no longer relevant. That's $46 million next season alone, though I recognize not all of that would count against the cap.

Apparently they're interested and are considered contenders for David Lee, who averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds a game last year, and at age 27 might contribute for awhile. I hadn't thought they'd have cap room for him (thinking all we could afford would be someone like Haywood) but apparently they were serious enough to reach out to him even while working on Pierce's contract.

Perhaps Allen would come back very much on the cheap - he's beloved in the region from his UConn days, is close to his family, set himself up for life with his last contract, and if he's interested in playing for the Celts his desire for another championship is probably what's driving him more than a payday.

Your question about an outside shooter is a good one - but the question remains as to whether Ray Allen - who is often ice cold for 2 games and red hot for 1, is enough of a threat 2/3rds of the time to draw out defenses anymore.

Everything points to him returning to Boston so that's a bit of a moot point... for me its a question of affording rebounding help AND Ray Allen, as the playoffs showed that we can get by without Ray Allen, but we can't get by without better rebounding (and that was BEFORE Perkins was injured and out until December).

 

[Boston Boxer]

David Lee would be a great signing imo. He would not only contribute for this years run...he would be right in the middle of things as we turn over the roster and get younger. I hope they exaust this to the very end as i think Lee could be a huge help.

could they get Lee and Miller?

 

[Kontradiction]

The 4th year may be an option year... whether there's a buy out or not is unclear.

If he's underperforming and they can get out after 3 years I'd look at it as a fair deal.

Technically speaking, he underperformed this year. He was VERY inconsistent in the playoffs and was a ghost the majority of the time in the Finals. That's too many years to give him with too much money unless it comes out that he had some lingering injury in the postseason.

 

[IcyPatriot]

I still would like to see Paul Pierce move to SG ... you also would get max value out of him if he plays SG as opposed to SF. If the team could find a SF that was a decent rebounder we would be in very good shape for rebounds. Perhaps having the top rebounding backcourt in the league with Pierce and Rondo.

I love Ray Allen but he's worth $$$ to a team or two out there ... more than we can pay him.

Don't be surprised to see Travis Outlaw here either if the Allen talks fail.

Ainge would then surely let Tony Allen move on with Allen and the rookie Avery Bradley would find himself in a very prime backup position ... our defense would equal what we had this year and Pierce would move his numbers up and perhaps Baby could do the same also.

 

[Boston Boxer]

PP would be a great SG. He can still play great D and if in fact we could get a SF, we would be doing well. Excuse my ignorance and laziness for not looking it up, but is Lee a SF or PF. Either Lee or Big Baby at SF would work.

I love the off season of every sport, where you can dream up some rediculous things.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Ray Allen is probably the best conditioned of the Big Three. I don't worry about him, it was a lot to ask of anybody to shut down Kobe on defense while starring offensively as well. The same thing happened to Pierce, guarding LeBron completely affected his offense.

Great suggestion on Lee. I would love to have David Lee, he's a great player who does all the little things too. He'll be too expensive though, we can't fit him in our cap. If Darko, who completely sucks, just signed for 5M per year, Lee will be a near max contract player to get. Rudy Gay just got 80Mill from Memphis too. Lee is a long shot for the Celtics, there is a tiny chance he'll take a dramatic pay cut to play for a championship.

The problem is for contracts under 3 years, you can only offer a new contract 120% higher than the previous contract. Only with 3+ year contracts can a team use Larry Bird rights to resign players to max contracts. It is very unlikely any player will sign with Boston to win a championship and sign a below value contract for 3+ years, and also very unlikely that they would sign a contract under 3 years and stay with Boston after that.

To have some real numbers to look at, here are the Celtics salaries
HoopsHype - NBA Salaries - Boston Celtics

With 5 players under contract without Pierce, Allen, or Rasheed, the C's are already at 42 million. The NBA salary cap for next year is 56 million. This puts the Celtics out of the running for most non-incumbent players who won't play for mid level money.

It doesn't matter if Pierce and Allen resign for huge home town discounts. It doesn't matter if 46 million are coming off the books if Pierce, Allen, and Rasheed all leave. It isn't like the NFL with the hard cap, where if you count 20 million are off the books, you have that amount to play with for other free agents. The Celtics have room for basically one mid-level guy, then can only fill the roster with cheap players, and also resign their own guys.

Ainge understands this, which is why he's going after the only thing he can do, which is keep the current ship going.

 

[captain insano]

Truth is, Paul Pierce’s new deal benefits team - BostonHerald.com