How new CBA could force Celtics to make tough roster decisions originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The NBA's new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) will go into effect on July 1 and add a significant wrinkle to the offseason.
Essentially, as salary cap guru Ryan Bernardoni explains in an in-depth explanation of the new CBA, the agreement is designed to break apart high-cost rosters. It significantly increases financial penalties for ownership groups willing to pay the luxury tax and adds challenging roster-building restrictions for high-payroll teams.
This will directly impact the Boston Celtics, whose two stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, are due for lucrative contract extensions. Brown could sign the supermax this summer and Tatum's new deal would come a year later. If the Celtics intend to keep both players around long-term, they will need to surround them with a less expensive supporting cast.
Bernardoni joined our Chris Forsberg on a new episode of the Celtics Talk Podcast to discuss the new CBA, and what it means for the C's, in more detail.
Celtics Talk: How new CBA could force Celtics to make tough roster choices sooner than later | Listen & Subscribe | Watch on YouTube
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"It's a difficult rule set for the Celtics in particular and other teams that have sort of landed where they landed with high payrolls," Bernardoni said. "And I think it's a tough situation for them to be in because the rules are pretty significantly different in some important ways from the previous CBA, and the ramp-up period between basically now and when those rules kick in, in full force is, in my opinion, not long enough. ...
"They don't want teams like the Warriors and the Clippers that are way above the tax. They want to pull everybody into a narrower band of full team salaries, which is fine. You can design your league that way if you want, but you can't have decades of letting teams operate in one way and incentivizing one type of team building where you build up your salaries over time."
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If Brown and Tatum sign their max extensions, their contracts will account for 35 percent of the salary cap. Does it make financial sense for the Celtics to commit 35 percent of the cap to two players?
"If you're winning the title, defending the title, OK, you can maybe go over it for a year," Bernardoni said. "Make the sacrifices with a plan to come back down. But you can't reasonably stay above that line for any period of time. And so it's not viable for them to have both Jaylen and Jayson on the team making that amount.
"But that doesn't come for two years. So that's a different question than does it make sense to extend (Brown) as opposed to trying to trade him now, which in my opinion they will and probably should.
"... So, I think that's probably where this ends up: I don't even think there will be a full year where both of them are making 35 percent of the cap while on the Celtics unless they win the title between now and then."
You can listen to the full discussion on the new CBA in the episode.
Also discussed in the episode: Reaction to Joe Mazzulla remaining head coach, the future of Jaylen Brown, and offseason priorities for the Celtics.
Check out the latest episode of the Celtics Talk Podcast on the NBC Sports Boston Podcast Network or watch it on YouTube.
