It’s been a busy few days for the Celtics and the NBA but now, with Al Horford en route to Boston and Kevin Durant heading to Real Golden State, Danny Ainge and the rest of the front office have some decisions to make and challenges to overcome in a relatively short amount of time. The immediate cap considerations are relatively straight-forward. How to complete the roster for this season and how the team continues to move forward are not.

2016-17 Cap Management

At the moment, the Celtics appear to have 12 roster spots spoken for. Assuming Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko go forward as Celtics, John Holland does not, and Jaylen Brown joins the team they have about $12.7M in cap space left. If Ante Zizic comes to the NBA this year that drops to $11.5M; I’ll leave Guerschon Yabusele out of all of this as indications are that he’ll spend at least one year in Europe. Demetrius Jackson and Ben Bentil have hope of making the team, too. Jackson would ideally be signed with a small slice of cap space; Bentil should be happy to take the minimum salary if he makes the cut.

If you add Zizic, Jackson, and Bentil to the 12 slots already accounted for, that’s a full 15 man squad. That would also be a very young team and unlikely to be what we see. That also doesn’t take Jared Sullinger and Tyler Zeller into account. Both seem like afterthoughts in the wake of the Horford signing but there may still be a place for Sullinger in particular.

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To keep Sullinger the team would have to reserve $5.7M in cap space for his hold; for Zeller they would have to reserve $6.5M. If the team intends on keeping either player they could be signed for more than those amounts once all other business is taken care of.

In short, the team still has the ability to clear significant cap space but there are no players left on the market who are worth doing that for. Cap considerations will take a back seat to on-court team needs and roster management.

2017-18 Cap Management

The one caveat to that: Danny is very unlikely to add salary that extends past this season unless it’s in a trade for a star player. He’s going to chase max free agents until the team is either winning titles or he’s no longer the GM. At the moment, that means keeping cap flexibility going forward. The team will have an easy path to over $35M in cap space again next year and they will not throw that away lightly.

Team Needs

As the roster currently stands, there are 2.5 clear needs. The team may decide to address one of these now and hope for internal development or a future trade to cover the others.

Rebounding

As Al Horford has aged and modified his game, he has become a poor rebounder. The Celtics’ best rebounder last season, by a distance, was Jared Sullinger. If they view Horford as basically a straight swap for Sullinger then this will be a very bad rebounding team. That opens the door for Sully to return but that desire to keep future space open probably takes precedence. With his Bird Rights, the team could offer something to Sully for this year with a second non-guaranteed year attached, like what Amir and Jonas originally signed. That may mean Sullinger accepting a bench role on top of fewer guaranteed years and it’s hard to judge what any player values.

If not Sullinger, the team will need to decide if they want a rebounding PF or C to fill the need. If they think Horford will be taking minutes at PF, Golden State has to give Andrew Bogut and his one remaining year away. Festus Ezeli will also not be matched and could be offered the single-year massive salary, though I doubt he takes that and it would require waiving Amir Johnson which defeats the purpose. The solution may be the return of Kris Humphries, who’s already been rumored to be on the team’s radar, or a cheap alternative like Willie Reed or Thomas Robinson now that the Nets have moved for Trevor Booker.

The ideal solution here is an internal one. If Jordan Mickey can take a big step forward and contribute, or Ante Zizic can arrive and immediately bring energy and rebounding, the need is lessened. My guess is that they’ll look for a low cost player with a bit more experience to at least be early-season competition for Mickey, or one high-cost season for Sullinger.

Wing Shooting

The problem that simply never goes away. Cheap rebounders can be found; cheap shooters not so much. Adding Jaylen Brown to the rotation seems unlikely to help with this problem. With a lack of roster spots and no long-term money available, it’s very hard to fix this. Lance Thomas could be a good fit as he shot well last season and could play SF with Jae Crowder taking minutes at PF. With minutes likely available on a playoff team, would Thomas take $11M guaranteed for one year? As with other options, that seems unlikely. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, maybe a guy like Damjan Rudez or Justin Hamilton could be the next players to enter the Bradjuvenation machine.

Playmaking

This is the “half issue.” With Evan Turner off to Portland the team appears to be missing a second unit ball handler. This needs to be Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier. Two 1st round picks have been invested in point guards and they need to be given that role to sink or swim. There’s simply no resources or roster spots available for a veteran in this role.

Roster Crunch

It certainly seems like a trade is coming in the near future. If Zizic stays in Europe for the year it’s less pressing, but if he comes directly over the team will simply run out of roster spots. The obvious move is to just dump James Young but in a league where 6’7″ players are in high demand, it’s not as easy to give up on one who’s only 21 years old as most fans would have you believe. If they just simply believe he can’t play he’ll probably be gone, but it’s hard to say. He also likely has very little trade value.

R.J. Hunter is two years older than Young, plays a position of less need on the team or in the league, shot the ball poorly last season, and yet may have more value than Young. If the only goal is to open a roster spot it probably doesn’t matter, but if you can’t get anything for Young and can get a 2nd round pick for Hunter, it could be better to ship out R.J.

The best solution here is what people have been waiting at least a year for. An “asset consolidation” trade including players currently on the roster could add a new rotation player that helps with one of those team needs while opening a roster spot to fill the other need and make the inclusion of Zizic easier.

A Path Forward

The rumor mill won’t stop anytime soon for this team. We’ll continue to hope that a game-changing player comes available on the trade market; Russell Westbrook is now on the list but I just can’t see any way that the Thunder trades him knowing that losing KD, Russ, and Ibaka all in the course of a month would functionally kill professional ball in Oklahoma City. Maybe they’re forced to listen but with extend-and-trade no longer a viable option for teams, whoever trades for him will be taking a massive risk and would have to price that into their offer. Horford is really a center so DeMarcus Cousins doesn’t make a ton of sense even if the Kings did listen to offers. Jimmy Butler and Paul George and James Harden aren’t available now but maybe one will be in the next year.

The clock really starts ticking now. The team has until February 2018 to make the next major move or else this is a draft-and-develop rebuild with Horford and Isaiah Thomas hiding that reality. That’s fine, but probably not what Ainge is envisioning. If things drag out beyond that trade deadline we get to core pieces hitting free agency and the cap flexibility dries up.

Putting aside any major trades, the rest of the offseason could play out something like:

Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko have their salaries guaranteed. Jared Sullinger signs an offer sheet and the Celtics choose not to match so they keep flexibility long-term. A Kris Humphries-type arrives as this season’s Amir Johnson for 2/$21M with the second year non-guaranteed. Ante Zizic takes his rookie scale deal and comes to the US. The team uses the last bit of cap space to give Demetrius Jackson a four year deal, like Mickey’s, with only the first two season guaranteed. Ben Bentil forces the team’s hand by taking his tender offer at the league minimum. A fringe-NBA shooter like Rudez or Hamilton is given a non-guaranteed minimum salary contract to come to camp and try to win a spot.

That puts 18 players in camp with a reasonable hope of making the team. At the start, Young, Bentil, and Hamilton are on the outside. If the team sticks like that, Young would be traded for nothing and Hamilton and Bentil released. If Bentil is willing to stay out of the NBA and not demand his tender offer, he can be stashed and his rights help. There’s nothing exciting there but you have $35M in cap space next season and the Nets to root against. The team enters next season looking to win 50+ games and unseat Toronto at the top of the Atlantic Division.

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