This morning, Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck set off a new storm of trade speculation when he stated that there are strong feelings around the league that Russell Westbrook will be traded before the season, and that the most likely destination would be Boston.

From Oklahoma City’s perspective there are a myriad of issues in trading Russ, starting with that it may kill basketball in one of the smallest markets in the league. Still, if they feel they’re going to lose him next summer then they would have to pull the trigger on a deal. The issue then becomes that they would be trying to trade a player on an expiring contract into a market where many franchises will have cap space next season, meaning potential trade partners will either think they can wait a year and sign him without giving up anything, or will trade for him and then have him signed away.

For obvious reasons that hurts OKC’s leverage and will limit their trade return. The Celtics, who have tradable assets that will turn into high potential players on long-term controllable contracts, should not pay a ransom for one season of Westbrook, especially considering that the team would still not be the favorite for the title next season.

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However, there is a way for the Celtics to get Westbrook for more than one season while also holding a strong bargaining position in the trade talks…

Renegotiate and Extend

A veteran player who is three or more seasons into a contract of more than four seasons can renegotiate their deal. Contracts can only increase in value and the team needs to have cap space to cover the increase in that season. Additionally, players in that contractual situation can extend their contracts for up to two additional seasons using their renegotiated salary as a starting point.

Westbrook is entering the fifth season of a contract he signed back before the new cap landscape and when he had less than seven years experience. That means there’s a lot of space between his current salary and what his max would be if signing this season. If he were to renegotiate his contract up to his max this season and then extend it out two more seasons, Russ would stand to make more money in the next three years than he would be projected to make if he were to play out his current contract then sign for the max next summer.

The final year of the extension could would be a player option, too. That would guarantee Westbrook a big short-term windfall without giving up much future flexibility. The problem for the Celtics is that he would almost certainly opt-out at that point. He would then be a 10+ year player putting him into the highest maximum salary tier and the cap will likely be even higher than $102M by then. The Celtics would have his full Bird Rights, but two years is a short window if you’re giving up players who could be under your control for the better part of a decade.

CBA Opt-out

Under normal circumstances this would be a relatively straight-forward decision for Westbrook. The complicating factor is that the CBA will likely be renegotiated next year and among the topics that could be on the table would be increasing the salary cap and/or raising max salary levels. If either/both of those things were to happen it may not be as financially beneficial to take an extension now. If he views this as adding only a single year to his deal that would be an increase of over $7M from the current projection, and it’s unlikely that there’s a CBA change that makes that dramatic of a difference to him. Still, if he (or his agent) believe that something like the abolishment of max salaries could go through, he may like the idea of gambling on that instead of locking up the extra dollars now.

Trade Considerations

What we’re left with is an asymmetric trade negotiation. Oklahoma City would be trading a player with one year left on his deal who may have told them he is leaving after that. Boston (or another team with the cap flexibility to do the renegotiation) would be acquiring a player for two years, but with no guarantee beyond Bird Rights past that, and the slight downside risk of an expensive player option that would only be invoked if the player had a serious injury.

Still, the player in this situation is worth more to the acquiring team than the selling team (in pure contract value, not in “value to the franchise and market”) so a trade becomes possible. The Celtics would have to give up less than two seasons of Russell Westbrook is worth, but the Thunder would get more than one season is worth. Westbrook gets a pay raise; everyone has done well for themselves.

I won’t throw out any trade proposals because they would be less than speculation, but it would be important that the Celtics ship out at least $15M in salaries (or holds if Jaylen Brown were included) either as part of this deal or in a side-trade so they would have the necessary cap space to complete the renegotiation part of renegotiate-and-extend. If they could do this, they would add a perennial MVP candidate to the mix for two guaranteed seasons with the potential for more. If you think Russ would stay in Boston beyond those two years you have to pull the trigger. If you think you’re giving up the future just to put yourself in OKC’s situation two years down the road, you tread lightly. In this case, the pieces at least make sense.

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