BOSTON — The Celtics are in a transition period not just because they’ve significantly altered their roster this summer, but also because of their recent ownership change. The Grousbeck family sold the team to Bill Chisholm, though the sale still needs to be formally approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors.
Naturally, there are questions on how the new ownership group will operate going forward — and, namely, how willing they are to spend money to compete. The Celtics, led by governor Wyc Grousbeck, pushed deep into the luxury tax the past few seasons for the chance to win a title. That resulted in the 2024 NBA championship.
Celtics president Brad Stevens, speaking Tuesday at the Auerbach Center, shed more light on how the new C’s ownership wanted the organization to operate this summer.
“Bill has been pretty clear from the get-go that he wants to make sure that we’re prioritizing basketball assets and the ability to retool this thing at the highest level that we can,” Stevens said. “Again, the most important acquisition that we’re going to be able to make in the next couple of years is getting Tatum out of a boot, right? We’re not beating that one, so that’s going to be the best thing that can happen for us.
“We have most of our first-round picks still other than the 2029 one. We have a lot of seconds now, so we have some flexibility there. We don’t want to take away our chance to use those to become the best that we can be over the next few years just to make a move to help save money. I think that that’s been very clearly stated to me. We’ll continue to look at how we can make things a little bit better or tweak things around the edges and maybe something comes up in the next couple weeks, but that’s been our mindset.”
The Celtics were able to successfully offload Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday’s contracts this summer. As Stevens noted, they didn’t have to attach a future first-round pick or any other draft assets as part of those deals. That means, should the Celtics want to push all-in again in future years, they have the flexibility to do so.
After the C’s made their cost-cutting moves this summer, there was some speculation that they could dip under the luxury tax line entirely. For now, that hasn’t been the case as they couldn’t find the right deals to continue cutting payroll. But on the flip side, that means the Celtics have maintained their core members who will help them in the future like Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser.
While the Celtics aren’t expected to compete in 2025-26, once they get Tatum back on the court and fully healthy, they could reload the roster as they see fit. That’s been the balancing act this summer for the front office as they cut costs but also kept an eye on the future for when their perennial All-NBA talent returns to the court.
It remains to be seen how Chisholm and his ownership group will operate going forward from a money standpoint. The Celtics were going to have to cut costs this summer regardless of the ownership change due to the heavy basketball penalties that comes with being in the second apron of the salary cap. For now, it’s a positive the Celtics were able to maintain their flexibility as they didn’t need to blow up their future to cut costs.
“There’s benefits to (going under the luxury tax), but it’s not the priority, right?” Stevens said. “The priority is continuing to make sure that we have our future firsts and all these things that are in play for us so that we can then use those to build.”
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