The Money
The NBA’s salary cap is slated to go up to about $102 million next season, and while no official projections have been released further out than that, it’s safe to assume that the cap will stay in that general range. Looking ahead to the summer of 2018 when Thomas will hit free agency, the Celtics will only have about $37.5 million on the books, according to Hoopshype, which doesn’t sound like a lot…except when you consider that it’s just for two players.
Horford will be due about $29 million in 2018-19, while Jae Crowder will still be criminally underpaid at just over $7 million.
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After that is where it gets messy, as Bradley and Smart will be up for new deals in 2018 as well. We can conservatively estimate Bradley’s next contract starting in the $20 million annual range, while Marcus Smart, a restricted free agent, will clock in at around $15 million per. If the team doesn’t deal away Crowder (who may be a deal-breaker in any Butler/George trade), they can probably afford to let one of Bradley or Smart walk.
Even then, a core of whichever one remains plus Crowder, Horford, and Thomas (now inked to a new deal starting north of $30 million) will eat up between $85-$90 million of the cap. That’s a lot for a core that doesn’t guarantee you a thing.
But wait…they’ll have George, Butler, Hayward, Griffin or whoever else they end up getting with assets and/or cap space. At that point, you’re looking at a capped-out team for the foreseeable future that might be good enough to make a Finals or two. Again, most teams would sign for this without thinking twice. The Celtics have to think differently.
Capped-Out
If they re-sign Thomas and sign Hayward or Griffin, their salaries plus Horford essentially take up the whole cap. That means Bradley is gone, and maybe Smart too, in order to put together something like the third best team in the league with a collective core on the downside of their careers.
The alternative is to trade for George or Butler. In either scenario, one Nets pick is gone, plus two really good current rotation players. The team will still be capped out, and still be too top heavy to be guaranteed anything.
Of course, nothing in the NBA is guaranteed. Just ask the Thunder. But in every scenario in which Thomas is brought back, the Boston Celtics seem to come up just short.