The big debate around here this season is whether to give Rondo a full five-year, maximum contract offer. Putting aside the critics who want him gone no matter what, there is some debate over whether Rondo deserves the absolute maximum salary of 28% of the Celtics salary cap, and the absolute maximum five-year contract at 7.5% raises.
As I’ve said before, there are a number of factors involved beyond how much a player’s play has earned him this type of deal. There is also the matter of how he fits into the team’s future salary situation. Today, the NBA announced a new television deal that’s believed to be worth $24 billion over 9 years beginning in the 2016-17 season. That means the estimated salary cap will jump from $66.5 million next season to about $94 million the season after.
Back to Rondo…
Brian Robb broke down what a max contract would look like for Rondo on Boston.com.
2015-16: $18.68 million
2016-17: $20.081 million
2017-18: $21.48 million
2018-19: $22.88 million
2019-20: $24.28 million
Total value of Celtics max offer to Rondo: 5 years, $107.4 million
It’s hard to know what the Celtics will look like next season. For all we know Rondo could be traded at the deadline. But we have to make assumption for an exercise like this. So we can assume, Avery Bradley, Evan Turner, Marcus Smart, Kelly Olynyk, Jared Sullinger, Tyler Zeller, and James Young will be back next season. Let’s also throw Gerald Wallace in the mix and assume he’s un-tradeable. That all adds up to $33,340,937 in salary. The estimated salary cap is $66.5 million, leaving about $33.2 million in space and seven players on the roster. Jeff Green can opt out, but let’s assume he doesn’t. Add $9.2 million and that leaves about $24 million. Remove a Rondo max contract of $18.68 million, and the Celtics are left with about $5.3 million in cap space. The Celtics will also have two draft picks, their own and the Clippers pick. If they keep those picks, we can assume some combination of salaries similar to Smart and Young. We can round that to about $5 million and say the Celtics will have almost no cap space and 12 players on the roster if we count the two as-yet-unnamed rookies.
That obviously leaves no room to sign someone outright, so the Celtics will have to get creative in creating more space. One way they can do it is by using the stretch provision to waive Wallace and spread the remaining salary over twice the remaining years of his deal plus one year. Since it’d be the last year of his deal, the Celtics can waive Wallace next summer, and put cap holds of $3,368,618 for the following 3 seasons. That would clear $6.7 million in space, giving the C’s $7 million in total space. That’s better, but not great. That doesn’t include the possibility of a trade, but I’m not going down that road here.
Note: I did not include Phil Pressey or Vitor Faverani in this analysis for next season. They are under contract, but at a combined non-guaranteed sum of just over $3 million. The Celtics could include them, waive Wallace, and have 12 players under contract and just about $4 million in cap space.
This still doesn’t give us a great team for next season. Ideally, I think the Celtics would love for Jeff Green to go out and earn a contract bigger than his $9 million from someone else. A Green opt-out, combined with waiving Wallace and not bringing Pressey/Vitor back would give the C’s nearly $17 million in cap space. So let’s all root for Jeff Green to become a contract-year All Star and opt-out. That would put the Celtics in a hell of a financial position even with Rondo making the max.
The 2016-17 season is where it gets REALLY interesting because Rondo would then make $20.081 million, with an estimated cap of $94 million. The remaining teammates would be: Avery Bradley, Marcus Smart, Kelly Olynyk, Tyler Zeller, and James Young. That’s a total of $31,196,068. Jared Sullinger is a restricted free agent that year, and I don’t know what he’ll earn. Pressey and Fav are also RFA’s if it comes to that point. Regardless of what Sullinger earns, the Celtics will have about $62 million to play with.
Of course, by then, other players will be in the mix and guys will make some more money, but Rondo could make what was once a max contract and have that be well in line when compared to the rest of the NBA’s stars. LeBron and Durant could make somewhere in the low $30 million range. Kevin Durant makes $19 million this year. LeBron makes $20.6. Rondo makes $13. Paying him $20 million in 2016-17 in a league where LeBron and Durant make $33 million in “superstar” money makes sense.
It’ll be hard to figure out what will happen in the 2017-18 season because we could be looking at an entirely new collective bargaining agreement. Players can opt out in 2017 and after hearing how so many teams were losing money the last time around, I have a hard time believing they’ll sit back and let the league triple its income on the backs of their labor without asking for a bigger piece of the pie. It’s hard for the league to cry poor right now.
Anyway…
The final financial impact of a Rondo max contract, to me, is this: It’ll make things a little tight next year financially, but the Celtics could work around it by waiving Wallace and perhaps working some cap space trades like we saw this year in Cleveland and Philly. Jeff Green opting out and signing elsewhere opens things up a bit more, but we can’t count on that.
After next season, though, locking Rondo up for four more years at $20 million essentially keeps him in line with what he’s making now. His $13 million salary right now is approximately 20% of the C’s cap. In the 2016-17 world, a $20 million salary is about 21% of the cap.
If the Celtics are willing to deal with some challenges next season, they can still give Rondo a huge raise and have him take the same amount of space moving forward as he is in this “cap friendly” deal that is just wrapping up.
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