00:00The absolute best question that was asked during the entire thing is from our next guest.
00:05We just played that clip right there where Brad Stevens was saying,
00:07well, we want to make this trade because we can't have 70% of all of our cap space tied
00:13up within two players.
00:14And then to that, our friend John Corrales asked this.
00:18I know there are salary matching rules, but you talk about how you can't have 70% of the salary
00:23cap tied up into these two players.
00:26Still do.
00:26You still do.
00:27That's right.
00:28So good follow up.
00:30What's next after this?
00:32I think the biggest thing is that it's the, again, it's that plus the picks, plus the optionality moving forward.
00:39Paul's contract is shorter.
00:41You know, he'll have his choice with his player option.
00:44There's that word optionality again.
00:46They could not resist throwing that word from finance classes in there.
00:50But joining us right now is our friend John Corrales from SI.com, Sports Illustrated, the Locked On podcast.
00:59John, look at you shaking the tree, getting in the face of the man and questioning authority.
01:05Well done.
01:08I mean, it's kind of what my job is, right?
01:10So, but yeah, I mean, he said something that was, you know, I think he was trying to, like, sneak
01:16a fastball by us.
01:17And I'm sure a lot of us had that same thought.
01:20I just happen to have a microphone in my hand.
01:22But I think what he's getting at is it's not just the 70% in two players.
01:30It's the 70% in those two players, Jason and Jalen.
01:35And I think the other thing he's talking about is potentially flipping Paul George.
01:42And yes, got the picks.
01:43And the picks are either picks that they're going to make or picks that they're going to flip.
01:47Well, that's interesting.
01:48So do you believe that they are going to flip Paul George anytime soon?
01:54Or do you think that that is something that they're imagining possibly doing after the season's done?
01:59My feeling is that Paul George picking up his player option next summer gives the Celtics $57 million in an
02:11expiring contract
02:12that they can then use to shop around to a team that is in an unfortunate situation of something not
02:21working.
02:21The CBA has strangled another team at the top, but they have to trade one of their stars.
02:28And I think the Celtics will use Paul George matching salary and then maybe these draft picks in combination with
02:37some others.
02:38And maybe that's where if they need to get the sweetener of Hugo Gonzalez, we'll see what kind of year
02:44Hugo has this year
02:46and how that kind of what the appetite is after this season.
02:49But that would be where the younger players, the picks, and that matching salary go out.
02:57Okay, so John, just the basics.
03:01After that press conference, and now that you've had time to think about it, what did you make of all
03:06of that?
03:08So I think, I feel like the CBA, I hate framing everything with the CBA,
03:15but I really think this is at the heart of everything.
03:19We have a couple of forces at play here.
03:22I think the league was expecting the salary cap to go up by 10% a year every year for
03:31like five, six years.
03:32I think the Celtics thought they would have more space, that the combined Jalen and Jason salaries
03:39wouldn't combine for 70% of the cap.
03:42It would be in the high 50s or maybe 60.
03:46Brad talked about it.
03:47He said, if these guys counted for 25% of the cap apiece, we'd be having a different conversation.
03:53And I think because the TV money, specifically the regional sports network, is dying,
03:59because of that, the money's not coming into the league the way they thought it would exactly.
04:04And now Jalen and Jason take up a huge, huge portion of the cap.
04:09Now what that does is, Jalen, he did come off a great year.
04:14He was a second-team All-NBA guy, sixth in MVP voting.
04:18All that was legitimate.
04:19But Jason's back.
04:22You've got Mitchell Robinson.
04:23You've got internal improvement from a bunch of these young guys.
04:27Hopefully Derek White bounces back.
04:29You need him to get the usage so he can bounce back.
04:33I think what the Celtics saw was, Jalen, for all of the shots that he was going to need
04:41and all of the money that he's making, the value has tipped out of Boston's favor.
04:47And so they had to find a way to reset the roster, whether this year or next,
04:53and either get a better player in for that money or find a secondary guy who makes less than that
05:01and break what was Jalen Brown up into two or three guys.
05:06That word usage, John, is very interesting.
05:09Do you think that is a sign?
05:11And did it trigger in the postseason in that series, late in the series,
05:16there was some reporting that they felt, for lack of a better term,
05:19J.B. went rogue and kind of regressed.
05:21Did the usage get out of control and did that rub, do you think,
05:24Tatum and the organization the wrong way, especially in the playoffs?
05:28I don't think Tatum is involved, to be honest with you.
05:31I don't think Tatum said anything.
05:33He has – I'll just leave it at that.
05:36I don't think Tatum was involved.
05:38I do think we all saw a tiny bit of regression.
05:43The forced shots, the turnovers, the trying to do too much by himself,
05:48that's been the knock on Jalen and Jason, by the way.
05:52Jason can fall into that trap too.
05:54But I'm not surprised that when push came to shove that some of the bad habits emerged.
06:02And I like Jalen Brown.
06:06I think he's an excellent basketball player.
06:08But the warts are obvious.
06:12And I think if he were making $40 million a year and the Celtics had more room to operate around
06:21that,
06:21it'd be different.
06:22And unfortunately, again, the collective bargaining agreement is so restrictive,
06:29so punitive, that you have to get these big salaries right.
06:34And when I say right, I mean, you do not have the wiggle room that you had in years past.
06:41So I think there is just – you've got to get it so right that if something falls out of
06:47latch,
06:48like with Jalen, that teams feel like they can't do an extra year or two,
06:55you have to get out ahead of it now.
06:57You'd rather do something too soon rather than too late.
07:02Because when it's too late, no one wants to take this.
07:07And the difference between getting stuck now and stuck in the past is stuck in the past,
07:13you, like, attach a pick or two and you, like, get out of that trouble.
07:16Now, no one wants that kind of money and you end up having to blow the whole thing up.
07:23I think what Brad is trying to do is keep things going and stay into some level of contention
07:29rather than risk having to blow it up now.
07:33John, I remember during the Giannis sweepstakes with the Celtics and the Heat,
07:37you were pretty adamant that this is unlike Brad Stevens and unlike the Celtics
07:42to be putting all their business out on front street like that.
07:44And as that sort of moved over from, all right, well, now you missed out on Giannis,
07:48what to do next, you heard tons of different rumors about all sorts of different kinds of trades.
07:53Do you feel differently about Brad Stevens and the way the Celtics sort of apparatus now operates
07:59when it comes to sharing information and letting stuff out?
08:03You know, look, Brad was pretty adamant that it didn't come from him last night.
08:11And I think some of that applies.
08:16I do think that there is some level of strategic leaking from all people, all sides.
08:23So if you're trying to make a deal, there has to be some signaling through the media,
08:29whether you're refuting something or something.
08:32So I don't buy that Brad is completely blameless here.
08:39But I will say that I think the landscape has made it so everybody has to operate a little bit
08:47differently now.
08:48And with the CBA being what it is, that the old rules don't apply.
08:55And I just don't think that we on the outside have been able to wrap our heads around it properly.
09:04This is not like the NFL or Major League Baseball.
09:09It's just, it's so different, so complicated, and so much more important that we have to, like, really,
09:20I hate doing this because it's so nerdy, but we have to be more in tune to it
09:25so we can understand that some of these deals, they don't make sense in a basketball like a pure.
09:30Paul George for Jalen Brown does not get the Celtics any closer to a championship this year.
09:37But there is a world where Paul George for Jalen Brown doing it now puts the Celtics on a trajectory
09:43to stay in contention longer versus having to blow it up sooner.
09:50And the reasons why are math and stupid legal stuff, and it's annoying,
09:56but that's just the truth of the matter now, and people have to operate differently.
09:59John Corrales, I am very disappointed in you, as you are the only basketball writer
10:05who has not yet written an article about how Peyton Pritchard is the next Jalen Brunson.
10:10Yeah, what the hell?
10:11I don't know.
10:13I don't know how much of a, you apparently are a rebel in the writing world.
10:18Why have you not written that article yet?
10:20Because it seems that everyone thinks that this is the year that he ascends to a level of Jalen Brunson.
10:25Well, because Peyton is a great, but I love Peyton Pritchard.
10:31I think he's great.
10:33I don't, I think, I think we've gotten to maximum Peyton Pritchard.
10:37I think this past season is maximum Peyton Pritchard.
10:40Like, I don't see, I don't see massive improvements from him.
10:44And also, this is not a situation like Jalen Brunson, where he's like the number one guy
10:49and he's going to get a ton of usage.
10:51I think Derek White is a much more important element to all of this, and that'll probably
10:56be one of the next things that I write.
10:58Derek White bounce back season.
11:01And on top of that, I think internal improvement from Baylor Shireman and Ugo Gonzalez.
11:06Like, Ugo is a guy that I, I mean, I'm also very high on.
11:09But I think if those two guys can improve and Derek White can bounce back, you have the
11:16potential for like, oh, wow, this is actually a pretty good season.
11:19But I am factoring into that Peyton Pritchard doing exactly what he did last year.
11:23I don't think Peyton's going to be a 25-point-per-game guy.
11:26I just, because he also has spent a lot of time on the court on his own.
11:30We see some of the deficiencies in the playoffs.
11:34I love Peyton, but I think, I don't want to say his feeling, because there's stuff that
11:40he can do better, but last year was such a great season from Peyton that improvements
11:45at this point, it's like he's already driving 80 miles an hour.
11:50You want to say, okay, maybe he can get to 85 or 90.
11:53That's not going to get you where you're going any faster.
11:55I think that Peyton's great, and this is what we're going to get.
11:59And I'm not going to put that kind of thing on him, because Jalen Brunson is just a different
12:05player.
12:06Real quick, John, are there more cuts to come?
12:08Like, do they still have to get under the repeater tax or something like that to truly
12:12slingshot next year?
12:14Well, I will say that Paul George rejected his trade kicker, which saved the Celtics about
12:21$3.5 million, which basically saved Jordan Walsh's job, I think, because now the only thing
12:27they need to do to stay under the tax is cut Delano Banton.
12:31They do that, they'll stay under the tax.
12:34But I don't think they're going to use that traded player exception.
12:37I think this team is basically set for the summer, and then we'll see in season if another
12:46team does something that piques Brad's interest.
12:49But all they're going to do is cut Delano Banton, who's on a non-guaranteed deal, and they'll
12:54be under the tax, so they'll be fine.
12:56Well, John Corrales, all I can say is it was nice knowing you at those press conferences
13:00because you're never going to be asked back, though.
13:05I'm too big, I'm too big.
13:07I'm here to force my way through, man.
13:09You pushed Shaughnessy right out of the way and said, I'm going to be the one who asked
13:13the good question.
13:14All right, John, great stuff, man.
13:15That was an excellent question, and good stuff, as always.
13:19You can read John Corrales over there at SI.com, also the Locked On podcast.
13:24John, thanks for coming on, man.
13:25We really appreciate it.
13:27Thanks, guys.
13:28Thanks, guys.
