What’s motivating Celtics’ roster overhaul? Stevens gives clear answer originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Boston Celtics went all-in to contend for a title in each of the last two seasons. Now, they’re facing the consequences.
That was the essence of Brad Stevens’ message to reporters Tuesday when the Celtics’ president of basketball operations was asked about his team’s decisions to trade Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, who played key roles on a championship roster but would have cost a combined $63.1 million on the 2025-26 payroll.
“The second apron is why those trades happened,” Stevens said. “I think that’s pretty obvious. The basketball penalties associated with those are real.”
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Those penalties — a feature of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement designed to punish teams that exceed the luxury tax by a certain amount — are very restrictive to the point of significantly limiting the moves a front office can make.
So, Stevens set about making significant (and difficult) changes, from trading Holiday and Porzingis to letting Luke Kornet and Al Horford walk in free agency. (Stevens said Tuesday it’s “unlikely” Horford re-signs with the Celtics.) After those moves, the Celtics are just barely over the second apron — by less than $1 million — but can duck under that threshold with at least one more minor move.
Based on Stevens’ comments, you can expect the team to get under the second apron in short order.
“It was really important for us to, again, get out of that penalty box in a lot of ways,” Stevens said. “Because you can feel those, and those are real things.”
With so much focus on the second apron, it’s fair to wonder whether Stevens will continue to cut costs to get out of the luxury tax entirely, using 2025-26 as a “reset” season while Jayson Tatum recovers from a ruptured Achilles. It’s also fair to wonder if new lead owner Bill Chisholm has encouraged cost-cutting to lower the team’s massive luxury tax bill.
Yet Stevens insisted Tuesday that Chisholm has issued no directives to trim salary.
“Bill has been pretty clear from the get-go that he wants to make sure that we’re prioritizing basketball assets and the ability to retool this thing at the highest level that we can,” Stevens said.
” … We have most of our first-round picks still. We have a lot of second (-round picks) now. … We don’t want to take away our chance to use those to become the best that we can be over the next few years just to make a move to help save money. I think that’s been very clearly stated to me.”
The Celtics undoubtedly got worse on paper this offseason, ostensibly replacing Holiday, Porzingis, Horford and Kornet with Anfernee Simons, Georges Niang, Luka Garza and Josh Minott. But Stevens believes the flexibility Boston gains from getting out of the second apron will help the team build a better roster around Tatum and Jaylen Brown in the long-term.
“We’ll continue to look at how we can make things a little bit better or tweak things around the edges, and maybe something comes up over the next couple weeks. But that’s been our mindset,” Stevens added.
“… The priority is continuing to make sure that we have our future firsts and all these things that are that are in play for us, so that we can then use those to build.”
That building couldn’t have happened without a mini-roster teardown this summer, which is why Stevens viewed those cost-cutting measures as a necessity for the Celtics.
Watch Stevens’ entire press conference below:
What’s motivating Celtics’ roster overhaul? Stevens gives clear answer
Boston had a clear desire to “get out of the penalty box.”
The Boston Celtics went all-in to contend for a title in each of the last two seasons. Now, they’re facing the consequences.
That was the essence of Brad Stevens’ message to reporters Tuesday when the Celtics’ president of basketball operations was asked about his team’s decisions to trade Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, who played key roles on a championship roster but would have cost a combined $63.1 million on the 2025-26 payroll.
“The second apron is why those trades happened,” Stevens said. “I think that’s pretty obvious. The basketball penalties associated with those are real.”
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Those penalties — a feature of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement designed to punish teams that exceed the luxury tax by a certain amount — are very restrictive to the point of significantly limiting the moves a front office can make.
So, Stevens set about making significant (and difficult) changes, from trading Holiday and Porzingis to letting Luke Kornet and Al Horford walk in free agency. (Stevens said Tuesday it’s “unlikely” Horford re-signs with the Celtics.) After those moves, the Celtics are just barely over the second apron — by less than $1 million — but can duck under that threshold with at least one more minor move.
Based on Stevens’ comments, you can expect the team to get under the second apron in short order.
“It was really important for us to, again, get out of that penalty box in a lot of ways,” Stevens said. “Because you can feel those, and those are real things.”
With so much focus on the second apron, it’s fair to wonder whether Stevens will continue to cut costs to get out of the luxury tax entirely, using 2025-26 as a “reset” season while Jayson Tatum recovers from a ruptured Achilles. It’s also fair to wonder if new lead owner Bill Chisholm has encouraged cost-cutting to lower the team’s massive luxury tax bill.
Yet Stevens insisted Tuesday that Chisholm has issued no directives to trim salary.
“Bill has been pretty clear from the get-go that he wants to make sure that we’re prioritizing basketball assets and the ability to retool this thing at the highest level that we can,” Stevens said.
” … We have most of our first-round picks still. We have a lot of second (-round picks) now. … We don’t want to take away our chance to use those to become the best that we can be over the next few years just to make a move to help save money. I think that’s been very clearly stated to me.”
The Celtics undoubtedly got worse on paper this offseason, ostensibly replacing Holiday, Porzingis, Horford and Kornet with Anfernee Simons, Georges Niang, Luka Garza and Josh Minott. But Stevens believes the flexibility Boston gains from getting out of the second apron will help the team build a better roster around Tatum and Jaylen Brown in the long-term.
“We’ll continue to look at how we can make things a little bit better or tweak things around the edges, and maybe something comes up over the next couple weeks. But that’s been our mindset,” Stevens added.
“… The priority is continuing to make sure that we have our future firsts and all these things that are that are in play for us, so that we can then use those to build.”
That building couldn’t have happened without a mini-roster teardown this summer, which is why Stevens viewed those cost-cutting measures as a necessity for the Celtics.
Watch Stevens’ entire press conference below:
