Like Jaylen Brown in Game 6, Garden Party is making an early exit.
Like Jaylen Brown in Game 6, Garden Party is making an early exit.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
This story first appeared in Garden Party, a daily-ish playoffs newsletter from Boston Globe Sports.Click here to join the fun.
Hello 👋 Welcome back to Garden Party, a newsletter that suddenly has a lot of free time
Well folks, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
Our Garden Party is at a much earlier end than years past, as the Celtics going down to the Knicks in six means the lights at TD Garden will be dimmed until the fall.
(Unless you’re going to, like, a Stevie Nicks concert — who is much superior to the Knicks, in my opinion — this summer. But have you seen those ticket prices? Crazy!)
A formative summer approaches for the Celtics, one which once held the promise of another championship parade down Boylston Street but which now instead expects the breaking up, partial or total, of the best team this city has seen in a while.
(If you still want your Celtics fix once or twice a week, make sure to join us over at Court Sense, our year-round Celtics newsletter.)
Spring will return to Boston again, and with it our Garden Party. Until then, thanks for spending a small part of your days with us this month — we hope you had fun, even if the party was briefer than expected. We know we did.
Let’s get into it.
About last night and what’s on deck
You reckon Leafs fans just have nightmares about Brad Marchand?
You reckon Leafs fans just have nightmares about Brad Marchand?Nathan Denette/Associated Press
Death, taxes, and Brad Marchand bouncing the Maple Leafs in Game 7
Here’s what else you need to know.
🏀 The top-seeded Thunder survived seven-game slugfest against the Nuggets, crushing Denver in Sunday’s Game 7 to reach the Western Conference finals against the Timberwolves, which begin Tuesday (8:30 p.m., ESPN).
🏀 The Eastern Conference finals between the Knicks and Pacers begins Wednesday night in New York (8 p.m., TNT).
🏒 The Panthers buried the Maple Leafs in a 6-1 win in Game 7 in Toronto, heartbreak No. 417 for this generation of Leafs fans. It’s the fifth time Brad Marchand has beaten Toronto in a Game 7, so of course he had to do a little trolling of his opponents’ “BeLeaf” slogan for the second straight year.
🏒 The Stars bounced the Jets over the weekend, sending the Presidents’ Trophy winners packing with a Game 6 winner in overtime. Dallas will take on Edmonton in the Western Conference finals, with Florida facing Carolina in the East.
🏒 The PWHL Finals open Tuesday between the Ottawa Charge and defending champion Minnesota Frost.
In the know
Chad Finn on a potential roster reset
Brad Stevens will meet with the media on Monday afternoon.
Brad Stevens will meet with the media on Monday afternoon.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
Globe columnist Chad Finn is heading to today’s Brad Stevens end-of-season press conference, so we caught up with him ahead of a summer of change for the Celtics.
Amin: There’s been a lot of speculation around what the Celtics will do this offseason. If you had to break out your crystal ball, do you see the Celtics leaning more toward shedding a salary or two but trying to keep most of it together, or could we be heading for a larger-scale demolition?
Chad: Well, the Jayson Tatum injury may have drastically changed the calculus on this. Even if they had gone back-to-back this year, they almost certainly would have shed an important player or two to get under the dreaded and punitive second tax apron. With Tatum likely out for most — if not all — of next season? It makes it more palatable, and maybe even logical, to do a full reset and get out of the tax penalty altogether, which would mean trading almost all of their core and putting the fanbase on AJ Dybantsa Watch.
I’m very curious how new owner Bill Chisholm views this. The kind of person who can rustle up $6.1 billion to buy an iconic basketball franchise surely has a history of making ruthless decisions. But I doubt he wants to come in and look like the bad guy right away by gutting the roster.
Amin: You’ll be in attendance for Brad Stevens’s end-of-season press conference this afternoon. What are you most interested to hear about from Boston’s basketball ops boss?
Chad: Any clue on how the team plans to proceed regarding the tax situation would be welcome, but I doubt he gives much away there, especially since so much is in flux.
I’m curious if he has any further information on what Kristaps Porzingis has been dealing with health-wise. It’s crazy to me that he was trying to play through an illness that apparently still remains somewhat of a mystery.
For the group chat
Aprons? What is this, MasterChef?
It might be an uncomfortable first season in charge for Bill Chisholm (center).
It might be an uncomfortable first season in charge for Bill Chisholm (center).Charles Krupa/Associated Press
OK, so, before I let you go, I’m going to do my best to explain this second apron stuff in less than, like, 1,000 words. Buckle in.
The most recent collective bargaining agreement introduced a new luxury tax “apron” that would impose harsher penalties on teams that spend a certain amount past the salary cap.Boston has been well into that second apron for multiple seasons, which is punished through a few roster-building restrictions, including limiting the team’s ability to use trade exceptions, trading future first-round picks (in, like, 2032, though), and more.
But the real kicker here is the luxury tax, which makes it just about impossible for the Celtics to keep this team together.
With Jayson Tatum’s extension kicking in this summer, Boston is looking at a total salary of around $230 million if it keeps everyone, more than $40 million past the second-apron threshold of $188 million.
The problem is that the excess isn’t taxed at a 1:1 ratio. As a repeater — the Celtics have been over the cap for a couple of years now — Boston is subject to even harsher penalties, with its luxury tax calculations starting at $3 for every $1 over the second apron and escalating from there.
You can think about it a little bit like income tax brackets: Every $5-6 million or so, the penalties get steeper. The first few million are taxed at a rate of 3-to-1, then 3.25-to-1, all the way until the Celtics are paying close to nine times their excess salary in luxury tax.
The last $6 million or so that Boston is paying players in salary will cost the Celtics close to $50 million in luxury tax.
You can find some more specific numbers and how the tax brackets are broken down here. But that, in a nutshell, is how the Celtics’ $230 million roster could cost around $500 million to keep together. You can see why it seems incredibly unlikely new ownership would be willing to do it, especially as Jayson Tatum’s injury throws the team’s competitive viability into flux.
If Boston parts with Kristaps Porzingis and his $30.7 million salary (in a hypothetical where the Celtics don’t have to absorb a salary in a trade) and Al Horford and his $9.5 million paycheck (retirement, perhaps), the Celtics would save $40 million in salary and somewhere in the range of $250 million in luxury tax. It is insane.
The point of the second apron was to stop the formation of super teams through mega-rich owners eschewing the soft salary cap and throwing ridiculous money at superstars. Instead, Boston is being punished for excellent drafting and smart trading, which wasn’t really the idea.
So good luck with all that, Bill Chisholm!
Go deeper
Three stories you shouldn’t miss
[PHOTO]
**💰 Mo Money Mo Problems:**Salary cap rules mean the Celtics have some very difficult decisions to make this summer. Adam Himmelsbach breaks down the incoming roster reset.
**🕺 An ugly Last Dance:**If this is it for this version of the Celtics, it was an ignominious end to an era of Boston basketball that promised so much more, Christopher L. Gasper writes.
🏀 Dime a dozen: Without Jayson Tatum, the Celtics might not be a favorite — just another contender. Gary Washburn has more.
Amin Touri can be reached at amin.touri@globe.com.