The cracks in the foundation are harder to see in the glow of an NBA championship.
Eleven months ago, the Boston Celtics won the title and were immediately listed as favorites to repeat with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jru Holiday, Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Payton Pritchard returning.
The title, a league-best No. 18, capped an eight-year run that included six Eastern Conference finals appearances and two trips to the NBA Finals. With the players coming back, Brad Stevens running the front office and Joe Mazzulla coaching, it was easy to think more, more, more.
Yet, situations change quickly as is becoming custom in today’s NBA. As the league calendar turned on July 1, 2024, the Celtics ownership group announced plans to sell the storied franchise, and the team’s payroll and luxury taxes for the 2025-26 season – approximately half a billion dollars – began seeping into conversations about the Celtics’ future.
Ownership announced in March it reached a deal to sell the team for a record $6 billion valuation to a group led by William Chisholm. Two months later, Tatum ruptured his right Achilles in Game 4 in this year’s Eastern Conference semifinals series against the New York Knicks, sidelining him for about a year.
After the Knicks eliminated the Celtics 119-81 in Game 6 on Friday night, Boston’s future is murkier and the prospect of returning the same roster and paying $500 million in roster salary and luxury taxes for a team that won’t have Tatum for about a year becomes problematic.
Could the Celtics, one of the NBA’s premier franchises, start to unload salary this offseason in ways that once again reshape the league and alter the power dynamic?
With Boston’s playoff exit, it guarantees the NBA will have a different champion for the seventh consecutive season. That has given playoff-caliber teams optimism that with the right move or two, they can capitalize on a Finals window.
If you’re one of those teams, you look at Boston’s roster and see players like Brown, White, Holiday and Porzingis who can help a team to the next level.
Brown is in the second season of a five-year, $285 million contract; Holiday is in the first year of a four-year, $134 million contract (he has a player option for 2027-28); Porzingis has one more season remaining on his contract; and White’s four-year, $118 million extension begins next season.
To express the enormity of the financial situation, Tatum’s five-year, $313.9 million extension starts next season and will pay him $71.4 million in 2029-30. Chatter among executives at the draft combine in Chicago this week zeroed in on Holiday’s availability.
Even deep-pocketed franchises that are worth $6 billion have financial limits. Team-building and roster construction require a fresh approach. Adding star upon star and dollar on top of dollar aren’t viable options.
It illustrates the turbulent nature of today’s NBA – a byproduct of the 2023 collective-bargaining agreement that aimed to “ensure that every team was in a position to compete for championships and had the resources available to do so,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in July.
He later added: “What the fans want to see is great competition. And for fans of whatever team they’re rooting for, they want to believe that their team, regardless of the size of the market or the depth of the pockets of ownership, are in a position to compete in the same way the 29 other teams are.
“So from my standpoint, as long as teams are emerging through strong management, great players, great chemistry, through great coaches and great management of the organization, let the results happen however they play out. I don’t have a predetermined view.
“I do think, though, the fact that we’ve had six different champions over the last six years does speak to the system. It does suggest that through successive collective-bargaining agreements, through changes in our revenue-sharing programs and other things we are able to control at the league, statistically the league has become more competitive over time.”
And the Celtics, one of the league’s storied franchises, are discovering exactly what that means.
Follow NBA reporter Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt
