It's been less than a week since the Boston Celtics' season came to an abrupt end in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Fans have gone from talking about championship hopes to fretting about inevitable change.
Though Brad Stevens wasn't looking to talk about it during his media availability on Monday, the NBA's CBA makes it extremely difficult for team's with expensive rosters, like Boston, to sustain their spending.
The Celtics have now been above the dreaded second apron for two straight seasons. If they find themselves above again next season, or in either of the following two, then their first-round pick will automatically drop to the end of the round. That penalty, along with several others, makes the Celtics' objective this offseason simple -- shed salary.
That goal is going to require the team to part with important pieces like Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday.
Holiday's contract may require the Celtics to add picks to any potential trade
The pair is set to make a combined $63.1 million in the 2025-26 season. Moving off of that money is the easiest way for the Celtics to cut the net of roughly $20 million that's required to get below the second apron threshold.
Of course, there will be incoming salary in whatever trades are made, so the cutting of costs likely won't be achieved in just one deal.
Unfortunately for the Celtics, neither of these contracts are super enticing. The Steinline's Jake Fischer reported Wednesday that the Cs will likely have to attach "some form of incentive" to any Holiday trade to help entice another team to take on the remaining $104 million that he is owed.
"Multiple rival executives have passed along that, for all of Holiday's unquestioned championship know-how after contributing to title teams in Milwaukee and Boston, some form of incentive (such as draft compensation) might have to be attached to Holiday's contract by the Celtics to convince someone to absorb the $104 million remaining on the 34-year-old's deal over the next three seasons," Fischer wrote in a recent newsletter.
There's been no guarantee that Holiday will be dealt this summer, but it feels likely. Nonetheless, the two-time champion hopes to be a part of the Celtics future.
"The opportunity to win is now, and I still want to be a part of that," he told the media Saturday.
Fischer added that Porzingis' $30.7 million salary for the upcoming season may not be as difficult to move. With his contract expiring, it will likely be easier to convince another team to take a swing at the big Latvian, despite the "post-viral syndrome" he's been battling for the past few months.
“Yeah, no, I don't think anybody was more frustrated than him,” Stevens said of Porzingis. “And I felt for him because the way it was described to me was just post-viral syndrome, which is just lingering effects of a long illness. And I think we've seen that and probably all read too much about that over the last several years.
“But I think that, unfortunately, I thought he had really turned the corner there towards the end of the regular season. We went to Madison Square Garden, [and] he was so good, and then even in the first round. And then, for whatever reason, he just didn't feel as good there early in the next series, and never really felt great.”
There's still a lot of offseason left, obviously, so, for the time being, all anyone can do is just sit back and wait for the first domino to fall.
