Fans of the Boston Celtics rejoiced when they learned that their team would be acquiring free agent All-Star Gordon Hayward. Everyone began imagining scenarios involving the C’s challenging the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals once again and potentially the NBA Finals against a Western Conference powerhouse. But where there’s good news, most of the time it means there’s bad news on the other side.
With the NBA salary cap number falling just a tad below the number most executives initially projected, the Celtics went from a team who could sign Hayward outright without sacrificing anyone to a team essentially needing to dump an important member of their rotation.
Gordon Hayward is nice but it might come at the cost of Jae Crowder, Avery Bradley or Marcus Smart.
Following comes from Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
The Boston Celtics have been aggressively trying to create enough salary cap room to give Gordon Hayward the four-year, $128 million maximum contract he agreed upon by discussing trades involving Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley, sources told ESPN.
The Celtics have to make a complicated series of moves to create enough to sign Hayward to the full max. But because the salary cap did not rise as much as projected, they will likely have to trade one or more of those three players to sign Hayward. Sources told ESPN that Boston has discussed trade concepts involving those players with at least half a dozen teams on Wednesday.
