Wyc: Money rings true
CEO will spend to win
Each roster decision will be based on its own relative merits, but it seems safe to assume that money won’t break up the Celtics.
CEO Wyc Grousbeck didn’t want to discuss dollars in a conversation with the Herald, but he let it be known with a good measure of clarity that ownership is willing to spend to keep this team together and bid for championships.
On the most immediate horizon is Marcus Smart and his restricted free agent status. The Celts will undoubtedly give him the $6,053,719 qualifying offer to maintain their right of first refusal, but if the sides cannot work something out before, Smart is expected to command at least twice that in the marketplace.
It is not known precisely what the point is at which the Celtics will believe it doesn’t make sense to match, but the No. 1 choice of both the team and the player is each other.
If the Celts get to keep Smart, it’s hard not to see them moving into the luxury tax bracket, and it’s likely they will be even deeper into it after next season when Kyrie Irving has a player option and Al Horford, too.
And while Danny Ainge is charged with shaping the roster, the financial decisions are made above him on the organizational chart. And the overriding decision appears to have been already made.
“We put winning ahead of everything else,” said Grousbeck. “Every now and then you’ve got to make room and play the kids and get a Gordon Hayward in free agency, and other times you just try to keep a core together and build onto it. And we’re in the latter stage right now in trying to keep this group together and build onto it as best we can.
“We can’t keep everybody if we’re going to keep adding (because of roster size limitations), but everybody who’s watched this team for 15 years knows what we’re about, and we appreciate everybody watching the team for 15 years.
“Everybody knows how we’ve run this team for 15 years, and everybody can just watch and wait and see, and you’ll see then. But we live for banners. We live for rings. That’s what we live for.
“In my first press conference ever, in December of 2002, people asked what does it mean, Banner 17? Why did you name the company Banner 17? I said, ‘Because I’m going win banner No. 17 or I’m going to die trying.’ And nothing’s changed, except it’s Banner 18 now.”
Ainge was understandably reticent to commit someone else’s money when he spoke on Monday in the wake of the Celtics’ Game 7 elimination at the hands of the Cavaliers. But after getting permission to sign max contract free agents in both 2016 and ’17 and trade for another last summer, there was no doubt the club would be pushing beyond the basic salary cap.
“Hopefully we’ll have an expensive roster,” Ainge told reporters. “And I think that we’ve been managing the payroll pretty well up to this point, and we know that there’s some really big, tough decisions going forward.
“We know that in Boston our ownership group has been fantastic, and they’ve been very willing to pay for teams that have a chance. And I think that the way that our team played this year (and) the hope that there is, I think that that will make it easier for them to step forward and realize the potential of this team and be willing to pay the money that we need to to be as good as we can.”
Grousbeck fairly echoed that sentiment with both head and heart. It’s easy to be optimistic about the team that came within several minutes of the NBA Finals despite missing Irving and Hayward and got to better develop people like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier in their absence.
But it seems there is more to it than that for Grousbeck.
“This team, out of the 15 teams, might be my favorite in one way, which is the underdog spirit and the dive on the floor, do whatever it takes,” he said. “Marcus Smart obviously dives on the floor half the plays, but everybody in their own way is going over and above. And they’re all about each other. I haven’t seen one selfish play this whole season that I can remember.
“I’m on fire about this team. I couldn’t love them any more. I’m getting goosebumps talking about them.”
His business instincts may cause a different reaction when the Celtics have to sign the checks in coming seasons, but, then again, winning is generally good business.