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After signing and trading Evan Fournier to the New York Knicks last summer, the Boston Celtics have a $17.1 million trade exception in their arsenal until July 18, 2022. With less than a month until the exception expires, the Celtics did not use the trade exception during the 2022 NBA Draft. On June 23, President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens explained why they opted not to.
With this trade exception, Boston will be able to absorb one player worth the value of the TPE, or split it into small segments to acquire multiple players, as they did when they used the Gordon Hayward trade exception to acquire Fournier and Josh Richardson.
The total incoming value of contracts cannot total more than the TPE + $100K due to a technicality. It’s worth noting that you can’t use a TPE to sign a player via free agency – a TPE can only be used via trade or to claim a player off waivers. Furthermore, there are some rules when using a TPE exception, and the main one is that you cannot aggregate a player’s salary on top of a TPE, so if the TPE is worth $17.2 million, then all incoming salaries cannot surpass that amount (plus the $100K).
Because trade exceptions aren’t typically that big, the Celtics are expected to use the one they got from the Evan Fournier sign-and-trade because they could absorb bigger or more contracts than most trade exceptions do. While Stevens acknowledged above that they are looking at what their options are, he added that even if they don’t use the Fournier trade exception, they still have others at their disposal to use next season.
Boston has six exceptions that expire around the trade deadline, including Bol Bol, PJ Dozier, Enes Freedom, and Bruno Fernando, but those range from $1,669,178 to $2,161,152. The exceptions that Stevens is most likely referring to are the ones that they got from trading Juancho Hernangomez ($6,907,815) and Dennis Schroder ($5,890,000) because they can absorb bigger contracts.
However, because the Evan Fournier trade exception is big as it is, the Celtics will have many options to choose from. One option that was brought up was Evan Fournier himself.
New York Reportedly Offered Fournier to Boston
On June 23, John Gombadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Phoenix said that the Knicks offered Fournier to the Celtics into the trade exception the Celtics created last year by trading Fournier to New York. He added that the Knicks made this offer to free up cap space to chase Jalen Brunson.
Gombadoro later clarified that the Celtics turned the Knicks’ offer down.
Because Fournier makes $17.1 million, he does fit into his own trade exception on paper. That will be until July 1 when the next league year starts. When that happens, Fournier will be paid $18 million, which will make his salary too big to acquire via the exception.
However, this report made many wonder if the Celtics could legally re-acquire Fournier using the exception they created when they traded him to the Knicks last summer.
Re-Acquiring Fournier May or May Not Be Legal
After Gombadoro reported the Knicks offering Fournier to the Celtics, many were skeptical that such a deal could legally happen under the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement since Fournier was originally traded away from the Celtics to create the trade exception in the first place.
Other well-repped reporters revealed, after doing some digging, that the Celtics legally can acquire Fournier but have a short window to do so.
No one will know for sure unless an agreement is reached. That’s why at the same time, none of this matters if the two sides never agree to a deal before July 1.
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