It may seem strange for a team that's spent the past decade above the salary cap and the past seven years negotiating the luxury tax but the Celtics need to start considering how they'll reach the salary floor in 2016-17. Some Celtics fans may not even realize that it exists (it's never been even a minor concern) but the CBA mandates that all teams carry a payroll of at least 90% of the salary cap. While the penalty for a team that doesn't reach the floor is simply that they pay out a surcharge of the shortfall to their signed players, no one wants to give away free money when they have the ability to spend it instead.

This past week Granltand's Zach Lowe interviewed the new Player's Association Executive Director Michelle Roberts on his podcast. In it they dance around some 2016 salary cap projections where Roberts admits that even the league's "cap smoothing" proposal would put the figure at over the "high $70 millions" that Lowe suggests he's heard. They both mention a possible cap as high as $90M in 2016. I've been operating under the assumption that the cap would be around $82.5M just based on some quick math but I'm now going to revise that and assume the cap will be $85M for the rest of this post.

If the cap is $85M that means the salary floor would be $76.5M. To put that into perspective, it's over 20% more than this season's salary cap. It's functionally the same as this years luxury tax level. Only three teams currently have a payroll above the projected 2016 salary floor.

It may seem easy to spend money in the NBA but there's a simple reality that the CBA is built to suppress salaries. In many ways it's hard to significantly increase payroll in a short time unless you're looking to just burn money on overpays or are lucky enough to draw multiple free agents of real value. Rookie salaries are set to scales developed when no one would have believed a $90M cap was possible. All contracts have limits on their raises so even a player signed to a free agent contract can't possibly keep up with a 30% increase in the cap. Contract revisions are a tricky subject filled with arcane rules.

When you consider the salary floor the seemingly excessive contract extensions to players like Alec Burks, Kemba Walker and Ricky Rubio start to make sense. The Jazz were looking at 2016 salary commitments in the $40-50M range if they let Burks and Enes Kanter go. Utah isn't going to sign big free agents and Trey Burke and Dante Exum are going to be on their rookie contracts past 2016. The team simply couldn't spend $30M on the free agent market unless they went mad and gave $10M contracts to $4M players. Under those circumstances, they might as well give $11M/year to Alec Burks if they have to spend the money no matter what. At least he's got the potential to maybe live up to it. It's a convergence of the "Utah tax" and some simple cap projections.

The Celtics don't have as severe a problem as a team like Utah that has no chance of drawing a premium free agent or Minnesota who are already full of rookie contracts but they may find it a challenge to get to the salary floor for at least 2016.

2016 Starting Point

It's entirely possible that we'll trade out some of these picks but I'm just trying to create a baseline. In this case we make our two picks plus the Clippers and Nets picks and carry through one of our many 2nd rounders. You can add Phil Pressey and/or Dwight Powell but their contracts are so low that they don't help the cause. You can see that from this point it could be difficult to reach a $76.5M floor.

Rajon Rondo

Let's just get this out of the way and say that this is yet another reason that the Celtics are going to offer Rajon the max. They aren't going to trade him to the Knicks in a ridiculous contract dump because they have no need to dump contracts. They probably won't trade him at all. If they move him for expiring contracts and young players they're probably going to end up either below the salary floor and giving money away or lavishing contracts on players who are worse than Rajon just to get up there. The money has to be spent or given away and Rajon is the most obvious candidate to spend it on.

Add in $20.5M for Rondo and were still only at $46.5M out of $76.5M.

Jared Sullinger

Sully is going to get PAID. If he stays healthy and posts 15/9 for the season his extension talks start at 4/$50M. His entire extension will be post cap increase, unlike guys signing now who have a year under the current deal, and there will be so much money on the market that even as an RFA he'll get a big offer if it comes to that. He may decide to test that market but we'll probably sign him to an extension above what players of similar profile are signing for now. If Faried got 4/$50M and Vucevic got 4/$53M a year ahead of the increase you can bet Sully pulls in at least that.

Add $12.5M for Sullinger in 2016 and we're up to $59M out of $76.5M.

Tyler Zeller

Tyler is 7' tall and doesn't look terrible at basketball. He's not going to get Sullinger money but he's going to get "never have to worry about money again" money. With all the available funds that will be floating around he might get $8M even if he's playing 18 minutes a night. I have no idea where contracts for this class of players are going to go. It's very hard to project but will probably be "higher than you think."

I guess we can peg him at $6M if we keep him and jump to $65M out of $76.5M.

Jeff Green

And now for the tricky one... when does Jeff hit the market? Seeing all these extensions does he opt out after the season into a market with no wings and go for 4/$44M with the chance of hitting free agency again at 32? Does he wait it out to see what happens with an $85M cap and go for broke all at once? I don't think anyone is wild about locking up Jeff to another long term contract for $10+M a season. If we do that and keep Rondo and Sullinger and Zeller we get up to the salary floor but no longer have the cap space to pursue a big free agent.

That's part of the trick in all of this: the cap jumps only once. After that we go back to 3% annual increases. If you go all out because you don't want to miss out on free agency and end up paying out to get to the floor, you may hamstring yourself for the following two years. Do we do that for Jeff Green and Tyler Zeller or do we make a real run at a big-time free agent like Marc Gasol or Al Horford with the fallback of overpaying lesser lights to take very short deals?

2016 Early Projection

Player Name Contract Rajon Rondo ~20,500,000 Jared Sullinger ~12,500,000 Avery Bradley 8,269,663 Tyler Zeller ~6,000,000 Marcus Smart 3,578,880 Kelly Olynyk 3,094,014 James Young 1,825,200 2015 #1 ~3,000,000 2015 #1 ~1,000,000 2015 #2 ~845,000 2016 #1 ~2,500,000 2016 #1 ~2,000,000 TOTAL ~65,000,000

Putting It All Together

The Celtics are currently in a strange spot of having to negotiate the luxury tax this season (it was nice knowing you, Will Bynum) while they clear the contracts decks before having to plan for how to hit the salary floor in only two years. If we don't just lock up our current team, which clearly isn't good enough to achieve anything without a serious turn in lottery luck, then we'd basically have to sign a max free agent or end up writing a check giving away free money. A lot of teams are going to be facing this dilemma and there aren't enough max free agents to meet the demand (not that there ever are). If we strike out on Gasol, Horford and others does ownership bite the bullet and pay the floor tax for a season to set up a better position the following year when the cap jump is small and lots of other teams have spent their funds?

This is going to become a serious concern for multiple teams. You're going to see people say there's "no penalty" but those people aren't writing $76M in checks for $60M in talent. Teams are going to try to spend their "free money" and the Celtics might be one team doing that. A team with eight players on rookie deals is hard-pressed to make the salary floor in 2016 so look for a change in mindset to trade picks for veteran players, look at salary dump trades with more suspicion than usual and think about that there might be a strategic advantage in acquiring players who expire the year after the initial cap bonanza if you don't believe the Celtics can attract a star free agent. If we can find a SF who expires the year after everyone is trying to build their cap space (does Washington move Otto Porter in their Durant fever) it's worth considering. Also, get comfortable with a $20M/year Rajon Rondo.