Deandre Ayton’s SUDDEN Availability IMPACTS Celtics’ Plans | Can they KEEP Kornet?

Deandre Ayton’s SUDDEN Availability IMPACTS Celtics’ Plans | Can they KEEP Kornet?

new suitors for Luke Cornet what’s going on with Al Horford and there’s a new free agent on the center market that could change things for the Celtics it’s all right now on the Locked On Celtics podcast uh-huh be ready it’s the seed who else could it be what they going to say now screaming like JT coral we kept the madness every game every practice prime time Devon T White on the sideline rain and Jay how we started raise a business how we finish locked on Celtics home of the winners hey there welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here on the Lockdown Podcast Network where it’s your team every day your team is the Boston Celtics and I talk about them every Monday through Friday right here on this podcast so make sure you’re subscribed watch the show on YouTube get into the comments section share your thoughts with me i’m John Corales beat writer for Boston Sports Journal i’ve been covering the Celtics for about 20 years now written a couple of books on the Celtics so I uh that’s my job i talk about the Celtics uh today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel uh make your first $5 bet if it hits you get $150 in bonus bets at fanuel.com later on in the show we’ll talk about Samhouser a little change in the Samhauser discussion that’s in the third segment second segment DeAndre Aton is hitting the free agent market we’ll dedicate that segment to him we’re going to start with Luke Cornet al Horford free agency begins on Monday evening officially I believe at 6:00 p.m eastern so uh a lot of things are going to happen i don’t know if anything Celtics wise is going to happen but let’s just be clear here before we get started that whatever happens on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday the Celtics are not done this is not the final product uh we we probably won’t get any clarity on what the Celtics final roster is going to be for a little while uh they could carry that into the season that that could even be flexible during the course of the season this is going to be a very fluid operation for Brad Stevens and the front office so uh it’s just be aware of that as things start to happen i think one of the things people love to do is react and be like “Hey oh whoa this that that’s it this is the guy this is who you’re relying on.” Or or Luke goes and like that’s it there’s no one else coming we don’t know yet so let the summer kind of play out the Celtics are doing a lot uh I feel like we can trust Brad Stevens he’s proven to be trustworthy when it comes to making moves he knows more than we do and so far so good I think with him so uh they’re probably going to move uh Anthony Simons they’re they’re I I expect them i’ve been expecting that since the beginning if you lo watch any of my reaction podcasts there I would expect them to move George Nyang which I’ll I’ll get more into in the third segment i I don’t know that those guys are going to stick around so uh there there’s always going to be something else coming here it’s a perpetual motion summer for Boston but Luke Cornette is a priority brad Stevens called it a priority and it’s it’s something that the Celtics want to do they want to keep Luke and he’s going to have a lot of suitors i’ll repeat myself a little bit here when it comes to Luke’s value you look around the league Steven Adams got three years $ 39 million so you’re looking at $13 million a year for him uh Luke is probably in that range bobby Portoris got a $44 million extension uh Nas Reed is is better than Luke obviously but five for 125 gets him $25 million a year it the the question is where does Luke fit where is Luke between Stephen Adams and Nas Reed if you’re building out a a graph and Nas Reed is at one end and Luke or Steven Adams is on the other where does Luke fall into that kind of uh that graph that that line uh there’s the potential that he will take less than his value to stay with the Celtics so if he’s valued at 14 he may take a little bit of a haircut there to stay in Boston because he’s he wants to stick around if the Celtics are willing to pay him that the just to clarify some things I know they’ve been moving a lot of money around they don’t have to stay under the second apron after this move right they don’t they’ve moved money around in the the Porzingis trade in the holiday trade to get under the second apron they can resign Holiday let’s whatever number let’s just say it’s 10 million that would put them back over the second apron but that’s okay because as I’ve said a bunch they have time they have all summer they have all year basically up until the last day of the regular season to figure out a way to get back under functionally that’s the trade deadline but still February is is the the deadline to make all of this work so they don’t have they’re not bound by Second Apron they’re not capped at the Second Apron just yet they haven’t done any moves that cap them at the Second Apron so they they can sign Luke if they see a number if if the the final number let’s just go with Mark Stein’s reporting saying San Antonio and the LA Clippers are teams to watch teams to kind of keep an eye on that may be targeting Luke okay in his reporting the the Spurs have their full 14 plus million dollar traded player exception i don’t know that they’re going to use the whole $14 million on Luke i don’t think he’s a full mid-level player uh but maybe they do maybe they they do think he is if if that’s the case and the Celtics say we’re going to keep him if he takes 10 they can give him 10 that will put him three million over the the second apron they could turn around and maneuver make some other moves maybe the uh Simons Simons goes out he’s at 27 and change he goes out for a guy that makes 20some or low 20s and that can that could be the number to get you underneath and that covers the Luke Cornet difference you can move George Nang you can do other things and clear space to stay under the second apron so they don’t have to do that yet the Celtics can figure things out number one figuring out what Luke Cornett’s market is and what teams are willing to pay for him what the offers are and then adjusting being like “How much money how much less what’s your line to come back to Boston?” If you’re getting 14 from San Antonio is your line 12 is it 10 is it seven what’s your number i think Luke is at a place where he wants to be happy he wants his family to be happy and that’s the priority at the same time you’ve got to maximize your value and if if the Celtics are saying most we can do is seven and someone’s giving you twice as much you just might have to say “Look man I love everybody here i love the city but we’re going to have to do this because an extra $7 million you know minus all the taxes and stuff especially if it’s San Antonio where there’s no state income tax in Texas you could say that that’s just a lot it’s too much money to pass up so it it’s the the value Luke Luke’s market has to set itself so where he falls in that what a team is willing to pay him what the Celtics are willing to pay him it’s all part of the thing we still don’t know adam Himlsbach tweeted out that Al Horford continues quote continues to mull potential options for next season and does not appear to have a final decision done by the first day of free agency so they’re gonna have to see what the market is for Al Horford as well is somebody coming in with the taxpayer mid-level or the non- taxpayer mid-level what number is it five is it six is it more is it less it’s a lot of money uh and if the Celtics are saying “Hey we’re only going to offer the minimum three and change or maybe they’re saying we can offer you five but that’s it.” Then Al has to make a decision his decision also based on family all that stuff because you just don’t know at this point is is Al going to prioritize one more run one more legitimate run with a contender where what contender is going to give him the money and is he going to bounce for a year to try to get a second a second ring I I I think you can get Cornet at I don’t know 10 maybe less it’s so hard to say it’s so hard to say and and now that DeAndre Aton is involved it makes it even more difficult to say let’s get into the DeAndre Aton stuff when we come back today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel summer sports are in full swing so whether it’s baseball under the lights golf on the green high stakes soccer actions FanDuel is the best way to make every game even more exciting you follow all the action why not make the game a little bit more thrilling fanduel can get you in on the game while your friends are getting sunburned on the beach you can use FanDuel to track your favorite matchups keeps it uh the app keeps it fresh with new daily promotions uh it’s easy to use fast to pay out makes even regular season games feel like mustwatch events so you can put a same game parlay on a game uh or you can let a bet ride into the ninth inning fanduel makes it look like or feel like you’re part of the action make sure you’re setting your limits set your budget that they give you the option when you first sign in so make sure you take that right away only bet you can afford to lose and that way if you have a cold streak you protect yourself you’re just trying to have some fun here and if you’re new to FanDuel new customers can bet just $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins open the FanDuel app today or visit fanuel.com to get started thanks for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen every day this normally would be a mailbag Monday podcast but I thought free agency especially with the DeAndre Aton news I thought it would be uh especially I I I thought I might miss something basically so I postpone the p the the mailbag podcast but you can still submit your questions i will get to a mailbag this week johncurales.com johncarales.combag so DeAndre Aton is going to be a free agent he will clear waver waiverss on Wednesday uh there’s no threat of somebody claiming him on waivers because he makes $35 million with the Blazers they’re giving him a buyout whatever he’s negotiated uh if you claim claim him on waivers you’re paying him all of that money so nobody’s going to claim him why should they now there are potential suitors for Luke there are potential suitors for Al Horford deandre Aton represents I mean he’s he’s better than than both those guys i mean he’s the number one pick recently uh and still he’s still better than both those guys uh at $35 million not worth it but at something much less then yeah you know you can roll with that now I don’t know what he’s gonna make again first of all if you hear me saying a lot like I don’t know what he’s gonna make th this market th this is the second apron you know the first summer of second apron true second apron impact i why I don’t know we’ve never seen this before we don’t know what the overall impact of second apron watching your money looking at the the potential uh basketball penalties and how is that going to impact what money is going out i have a sense of you know what guys under the old system I under the old system I’d be like Luke Cornette getting $12 million makes perfect sense under this system does it make sense is he Is he going to get a big contract from a team looking to get to the salary floor is somebody going to come in and give him $20 million just to get to the salary floor is somebody going to give him a better opportunity and say “Hey give us two three years uh like the Spurs like put you next to Wemby or you could back up Webby we you know we’re making our move.” Other team the Clippers you know they say we’re we’re making our move we They just got an agreement from James Harden uh you can you having having a good solid backup center could be a a a gamecher for the Clippers and they could sell it as that so I but I don’t know I don’t know what DeAndre Eaton is going to make especially because the buyout is going to like I don’t know what he negotiated as a buyout but he was making 35 million does does he take less whatever it is he’s going to get that money whether he signs he could sign in Boston for the minimum now he won’t because you don’t want to have that that the stink of the minimum attached to you at that age uh but if he did sign for a minimum somewhere he still gets the money from Portland so he can go anywhere somebody could offer him the taxpayer midlevel the Lakers could offer him $5 million uh and he could be like “Yeah sure cool.” Because he’s gonna get the rest of his money from Portland anyway the the whatever a team gives him offsets but let’s just say he’s owed the full 35 the Celtics give him five the Blazers owe him 30 so he’ll get his money so he can go anywhere he could play next to Luca and you know probably increase his value uh he can go after that and sign wherever uh or or he could he could say you know maybe he’s got a deal already point is DeAndre Aton can be can take a suitor away and somebody who was giving Luke Cornet or Al Horford a hard look can now be like “Oh wait a second we’re going to go talk to DeAndre first just hang right there we’ll be right back.” um that doesn’t mean that Luke doesn’t get that same money from somebody else but a team that was looking for Luke Cornett and suddenly says “Oh DeAndre Aton’s available let’s go let’s go take a look at this.” Then that could change things for the Celtics that could allow them to keep Luke there’s the potential just saying that Luke could be getting a you know a big offer from this one team and that team says no no no we’re gonna give this to to DeAndre Aton and now the next team comes along he’s like well we only got 10 million to spend on you Luke Cornet and he goes back to the Celtics and they’re like well we’ll give you the seven if you want to stick around and take a discount and that $3 million is a big difference but you know you could you could talk yourself into well after you know taxes and after my agent takes a cut and after you know this and that I’m getting you know an extra million dollars is an extra million dollars worth me uprooting my family and taking them a place we don’t know if we’re going to like it you can talk yourself into stick me around at that point if if the number extends to double what the Celtics are offering then that’s too rich for their blood the Celtics aren’t going to pay $14 million to be clear the Celtics can pay whatever they can basically match any offer they have bird rights on Luke Cornet so if they wanted to and some team said “Yeah we’re going to give you the full.” If San Antonio said “We’re going to give you $14 million.” The Celtics could be like “No we’ll give you the $14 million.” which is not feasible in reality but it’s technically possible because they own his bird rights so they can play it however however they want but DeAndre Aton you know for all of the there’s plenty of criticism there’s no doubt he’s a a a first uh you know he’s the first overall pick but there’s no doubt he’s a bust as far as that goes uh which what a swing and a miss but he has a chance he’s still really good he’s still really good if he wants to be uh if he dedicates himself and if he’s in the right situation he could he can still be really good and a team would probably should probably take him ahead of Luke Cornett the the problem is for DeAndre Aton is that he and Luke Cornett aren’t as far apart talent wise or production-wise as as he should be as they should be but he’s still going to take some of the interest that was on Luke and push it the the other way there is look the free agent the Celtics I mean the center free agent market you still have Brook Lopez Clint Capella Miles Turner i don’t know what his deal is going to be uh the Magic just declined the option on Mo Vagner he’s recovering obviously from an ACL tear so I don’t know that he I think he’s probably going to stick around you got Kavon Looney you got You got guys out there that are cheap options i’m still I’m still holding out some level of hope that yeah the market for Luke is going to be strong but not so strong that it it prices the Celtics out uh Al Horford is it might be a different story but I I expect him to get somewhere between the veteran minimum which for him is over $3 million or somewhere like five and I think the Celtics can bring him back at that number we’ll have to wait and see how free agency plays plays out the DeAndre Aon thing certainly throws I don’t know want to say a wrench into things but it does disrupt what was the market for Luke Cornet all of this financial talk we’ve been talking about how Sam Hower could be gone uh as part of this financial retooling not so much that’s next thanks for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen every day go check out Lockdown NBA lockdown NBA and Lockdown NBA game night two podcasts on the feed talking free agency basically two NBA podcasts on that feed i’m going to be there Fridays with Jake Madison so make sure you check out Locked on NBA wherever you get your podcast wherever you found this podcast sam Hower i felt like for a while it just was a fatal comple that the Celtics Holiday Holiday and Hower my plan was Holiday and Hower keep Porzingis and you know Hower into cap space made sense and financially it could still happen but a lot of reporting out there now that the Celtics are going to hold on to Hower and which by the way I’m glad I’m glad that they’re going to do that because it just it it allows first of all you keep a good player Sam Hower’s a good player it allows you to potentially depending on how things go how far under the second apron they get you can aggregate them in a trade if you really needed to $10 million is a nice number to get you where you need to go when matching salaries so that’s also an option at some point here but things have changed since the beginning of the Sam Hower uh being traded into an exception discussion had you know was was brought up first of all they s they got under the second apron they they made the trades porzingis was the guy that went and that saved them 20 plus million dollars and flipping Anthony Simons for less can save even more and now George Nyang is here with $8 million that is much more palatable now you can trade him into somebody’s exception to cap space you might have to you probably have to attach some sort of draft asset to make that trade versus Sam Hower you’re probably going to get something in exchange for him but a team looking for hey look he’s a 40% three-point shooter we can pop him in there in a pinch just like I was saying with him in the Celtics you you could talk yourself into that if you’re getting paid to take his contract so it’s it’s much more palatable to trade him he we don’t even know him yet like he hasn’t even shown up there’s no like I’m sure Brad Stevens has been like you know what I know you’re from you know the northern Massachusetts here uh I think he’s from I keep Mthu and Lawrence Haveril that that area uh don’t like get too excited about uh playing playing don’t start buying tickets and stuff for your family just yet because there’s a chance here that they’re you’re not sticking around buddy and it makes much more sense so you can trade $8 million into nothing and save yourself the money that you were going to save when you were looking to trade Sam Hower so I love the idea of Sam Hower sticking around he’s obviously a really good shooter and a better defender than people want to make him out to be i think that that’s a smart move and kind of pulling that idea off the table at this point makes a lot of sense the Celtics have other moves there’s a lot of talk about Anthony Simons being moved and that’s the first thing that I thought once they traded for him i did not I did never think that he was coming to Boston uh kind of interesting that there’s been no uh social media i haven’t seen any social media stuff from him being like “Oh I can’t wait to get to Boston,” or anything like that i think everything’s been kind of quiet for a reason so uh unless I missed something but Simons the that reverse paperclip game you remember the the the guy who uh started with a paperclip and started trading for things so he can get to a house and you know you trade a paper clip for a pencil a pencil for a marker or a marker for a stapler a stapler for you know what I mean you keep trading up up up up until you get something big of real value this is the reverse you trade Holiday for Simons and Simons for the next guy and the next you know there could be two more trades coming from that until you get that player down to somewhere in the teens and hey look if you can save yourself $15 million on the holiday deal and $22 million on the uh Porzingis deal and now you’re at $37 million saved that allows you to go make a lot of moves signing Luke and Al and and doing some other stuff and being able to aggregate tra players in a trade and not worry about that second apron and save a ton of money on taxes so I think keeping Sam Hower around makes makes good sense and I’m glad that that you know the the new reporting is that he’s going to stick around i’d love to see that happen we’ll see how this goes day one of free agency this is a weird one you know you’ve gotten a lot of extensions already guys have opted have opted in uh LeBron’s opted in guys are starting to get contracts i don’t think there’s a ton of free agent player movement to be made so let’s just kind of see how this progresses i will do a mailbag one of these one of these days as things get quiet for the Celtics so johncarles.combag for that and I would love it uh if you got into the comment section uh if you’re new if you’re an everydayer thank you so much for being with me every Monday through Friday if you’re new become an everydayer by subscribing watching the show Monday through Friday we are five days a week for well June is over so all of July August we go down to three days a week september three days a week and then uh once the season gets going in October we are back to five days so that’s the plan for the summer make sure you’re subscribed get into the comments section share your thoughts and then we would love it if you shared the podcast told everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network it’s your team every day

CELTICS FREE AGENCY FRENZY: Kornet, Horford, and Ayton’s Future

Boston’s roster reshaping continues as NBA free agency heats up. John Karalis breaks down the Celtics’ options for Luke Kornet and Al Horford, exploring potential salary ranges and team fits. The unexpected availability of Deandre Ayton shakes up the center market, potentially impacting Boston’s plans. Sam Hauser’s likely return adds intrigue, while financial maneuvering could open doors for more moves.

Tune in for expert analysis on how these decisions could shape the Celtics’ championship aspirations and alter the NBA landscape.

1:30 New suitors for Luke Kornet
4:07 Luke Kornet’s potential contract value
8:15 Al Horford weighing free agency options
15:32 How Ayton impacts Celtics’ center options
20:39 Sam Hauser likely staying with Celtics
24:44 Potential Anfernee Simons trade scenarios
27:16 Upcoming mailbag and podcast schedule

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Locked On Celtics is a daily Boston Celtics podcast by Boston Sports Journal beat writer John Karalis. It’s an inside look at the C’s from a former professional basketball player who is at practices & games.

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