Getty Marcus Smart, Grant Williams, Robert Williams, Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics will head into the upcoming off-season armed with multiple TPEs, and considering their limited cap space, will likely lean on them to make any future additions to their roster.
Right now, the Celtics are surging up the Eastern Conference standings, and the notion of adding or subtracting from this roster feels incredibly counter-productive. But, every team has to continually improve if they wish to keep climbing the mountain, and the Celtics are no different.
With that in mind, Brian Robb of Masslive recently floated the idea of the Celtics acquiring Dillon Brooks of the Memphis Grizzlies in the summer, using one of the team’s TPEs.
After last week’s trades, the Boston Celtics have 10 Traded Player Exceptions (TPEs):
B. Bol – $2.2M
M. Brown – $500K
P.J. Dozier – $1.9M
B. Fernando – $1.8M
E. Fournier – $17.1M
E. Freedom – $1.7M
J. Hernangomez – $6.9M
D. Schroder – $5.9M
T. Thompson – $1.4M
K. Walker – $1.0M
“The Celtics left the door open for a mid-level type salary like that by keeping the Evan Fournier TPE open past the trade deadline. Memphis has a bunch of talent at the wing and could explore moving Brooks for an asset or two if they want to open up some cap room for a splashier free agent signing this summer,” Robb wrote.
Does Adding Brooks Make Sense, Money Wise?
The Celtics don’t project to be a cap space team this summer, per Spotrac, which is why utilizing the TPEs at their disposal makes perfect sense. But, after spending the majority of this season making moves to be financially flexible, it’s unlikely that Brad Stevens decides to throw caution to the wind a few months later.
“The problem for the Celtics would be their payroll from that standpoint. If you assume Al Horford is going to be under contract next year for his full salary of $26.5 million, Boston will already be a team a few million dollars into the tax before making any offseason signings and trades. Brad Stevens will certainly be open to making moves based to reduce that on how the remainder of this year and postseason goes.
However, I’m not sure the Celtics will be in a spot where they are willing to pay Brooks’ big money to be a backup when they are already paying Derrick White a lot for a similar role,” Robb detailed.
For @celticsblog, I kicked off a three-part series looking at where Brad Stevens has Boston’s roster cap & tax-wise now and the next two seasons. The Celtics took on a lot of long-term money to add good players now, with roster flexibility for the future:
While the money side of a deal for Brooks may be deemed nonsensical, the notion of adding another proven scorer to the bench unit is rather desirable – especially if the Celtics want to close the talent gap on the likes of the Brooklyn Nets or Philadelphia 76ers.
Brook’s Fits The Celtics Identity
Brooks is known as a high-confidence guy who leads by example, while he’s also known to be a leading voice in the Grizzlies locker room. Stevens and Udoka have moved to add multiple leaders to the Celtics roster this season, as they bid to build a high-character organization – both on and off the court.
In a recent episode of JJ Redick’s Old Man & The Three podcast, the Grizzlies Desmond Bane described what it’s like to be around Brooks on a day-to-day basis, “Even with him being sidelined for the majority of the year, you’ve felt his presence. I don’t know how much you can say that about other guys on our team, that if they’d missed this much time, they would still be able to contribute. From an attention to detail standpoint and eagerness to win standpoint, he’s a winner, through and through.”
Brooks is in his fifth year with the Memphis Grizzlies after they drafted him with the 45th pick in the 2017 NBA draft. So far in his career, the 26-year-old is averaging 14.4 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists per game on 42% shooting from the field and 35.1% shooting from deep.
Brooks will also be entering the final year of his contract next season, and will be eligible to hit unrestricted free agency the following summer, which means the Grizzlies will be unable to command much in return should trade discussions ever take place.