The Celtics had a relatively quiet two draft nights after a week of dealing, landing three players with just one (Hugo Gonzalez) expected to be on the 15-man roster next season. The moves capped off a busy week for the franchise, with Boston trading away Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis in separate deals that achieved some much-needed cost savings to get Boston some team-building flexibility under the second apron.
However, with free agency approaching and the Celtics prioritizing bringing back free agents Al Horford and Luke Kornet, league sources tell MassLive that the Celtics are expected to remain active in the trade market while retooling their roster. The team is expected to explore their options with newly acquired talent like Anfernee Simons and Georges Niang and other parts of the roster including Sam Hauser.
Boston’s current payroll commitments stand at $203 million, just $4.5 million shy of the second apron threshold. There are also some pretty glaring holes in the team’s depth chart after the draft and trades of Holiday and Porzingis.
Here’s a look at the team’s current depth chart with 13 players under contract and 11 (mostly) guaranteed deals.
CELTICS DEPTH CHART FOR 2025-26
Guards: White, Pritchard, Simons, Davison (non-guaranteed)
Forwards: Brown, Hauser, Niang, Scheuermann, Walsh (non-guaranteed), Gonzalez, Tatum (injured)
Bigs: Queta, Tillman,
Two-ways: Miles Norris, Max Shulga, Amari Williams
Free agents: Al Horford, Luke Kornet, Torrey Craig
That’s one very shorthanded frontcourt without Horford and Kornet signed at the moment. The Celtics have no means of replacing either Horford or Kornet on the free agent market beyond offering someone the veteran’s minimum, so barring a sign-and-trade situation, Boston is at risk of losing either player without a return if they elect to sign elsewhere.
The Celtics also currently sit about $15 million over the luxury tax line ($187.9 million), which currently leaves a $50 million luxury tax bill thus far even after the Holiday and Porzingis cost-cutting moves. For every dollar spent by Boston with their payroll at this level, it will cost another $5.50 in repeater tax penalties. That’s a very high price to pay for a team expected to be without its All-Star forward in Jayson Tatum for a season. The Celtics became a ‘repeater’ tax team for the first time this year, a penalty which is triggered by a team being over the luxury tax line for at least three of the past four seasons.
These repeater tax penalties also have a potential impact on Boston’s free agency pursuits. Currently, if the Celtics sign Al Horford to a one-year deal at $5 million, that would cost the team an additional $27.5 million in luxury tax penalties with the $5.5/1 repeater tax penalty ratio. Even a veteran’s minimum salary ($2.3 million) gets expensive in a hurry when those types of tax penalties are factored in.
The Celtics can solve some of this issue by further trimming payroll to lessen the level of repeater tax penalties (the ratio of penalties goes down the closer you get to the tax line). The possibility exists that Boston could try to get under the luxury tax line entirely per sources, which would create some potential team building benefits for the future, such as starting to reset the repeater tax for Boston. If the Celtics stay under the tax line in any two of the next four years, the tax penalties reset to far less punishing levels.
Here’s how the penalties compare between a regular team and a repeater tax rate team for different amounts.
EXAMPLE 1 ($5.7 MILLION OVER TAX LINE)
Standard rate: 5.7 million over tax line (1/1 dollar penalty) Total tax penalty: $5.7 million
Repeater rate: 5.7 million over tax line (3/1 dollar penalty) Total tax penalty: $17.1 million
EXAMPLE 2 ($17 MILLION OVER TAX LINE)
Standard rate: 17 million over tax line (3/1 dollar penalty) Total tax penalty: $33.7 million
Repeater rate: 17 million over tax line (5.5/1 dollar penalty) Total tax penalty: $66.7 million
Trimming salary via multiple deals doesn’t all have to happen right away. Boston can make deals during the season that reduces payroll, but it’s generally easier to make cost-cutting moves in the offseason when more teams have needed roster space and spending flexibility than at the trade deadline or midseason.
A trade involving Simons would need to involve salary matching to some degree since his deal ($27.6 million) is too big for any team to absorb outright. Smaller contracts like Hauser ($10 million) and Niang ($8.2 million) could be moved to plenty of teams around the league via traded player exceptions or mid-level exceptions without Boston needing to take back salary.
It’s evident however that Boston would be looking for future assets in any of these deals, something Brad Stevens emphasized repeatedly on Wednesday night when talking about the offseason.
“I think the biggest thing is there clearly is a need to prioritize regaining our flexibility and maximizing, from an asset standpoint, what we can,” Stevens said Wednesday night. “But as far as whatever moves that those are a part of, they’re all separate and hard and things that are going to be – you’re just going to have to do your best to make sure you put yourself in the right positions. But I do think that this is about what we do have to. And we knew this was coming, right? This isn’t a huge surprise. We have to make sure we prioritize that flexibility.”
The Celtics’ new ownership group are committed to spending big, according to Stevens, but this isn’t a year when it makes much sense for Boston to spend much into the tax with Tatum recovering on the sidelines. The Celtics clearly want to rework their roster to have a contender in place for Tatum’s eventual return. Looming moves this offseason will likely be made with an eye towards that and maximizing that next contending window.