The Path, Part II: What a full offseason reboot would look like for Celtics

Editor's Note: As the Celtics enter a critically important offseason, Chris Forsberg is exploring three different paths Boston can take this summer, each with their own pros and cons for the short- and long-term future of the franchise. The first path involved "threading the needle." Today's path: a full reboot.

Let’s preface this with a warning label: We don’t want to write about a reboot. You don’t want to read about a reboot. The mere idea of the Boston Celtics having to overhaul their championship core just one year removed from raising Banner 18 is unsavory on every level. 

But if we’re going to examine all of Boston’s potential pathways this offseason, then we have to include this route. It feels impossible that, just a couple weeks ago, we were pondering Boston’s very real potential to repeat as champs. Now we’re wondering if the best path forward is to strip this thing down for parts. 

Things change quickly in the NBA. That’s not breaking news. But a punitive new collective bargaining agreement is forcing teams to make tougher choices. 

In the second installment of our three-part series examining Boston’s murky offseason, we ponder the case to push the reboot button.

Objectives of this path:

• Get out of the luxury tax by trimming $40+ million in salary this summer.
• Complete the first of two years outside the luxury tax, with a goal of resetting restrictive repeater penalties.
• Dismantle the current core in favor of younger players and draft assets.
• Endure short-term pains for long-term rewards.

The road map:

• Trade Jaylen Brown and/or Derrick White, along with other core pieces.
• Fill out the roster with low-cost, high-upside talent.
• Allow Jayson Tatum to rehab for the entirety of the 2025-26 season.
• Embrace lottery status over playoff contention.

Why this path makes sense:

If the Celtics believe there is no immediate pathway to title contention while Tatum rehabs from Achilles surgery, and with the team already needing to trim at least $20 million in salary to get below the second apron, there is a case for bottoming out rather than residing in the unsavory middle of NBA contention. 

Boston would rebuild the core around Tatum with younger talent, which also would allow the team to organically reset its repeater tax penalties. All of that would position the Celtics to have maximum flexibility once Tatum is further removed from Achilles rehab.

Boston also might be in line to add a prized young player in a 2026 draft that is expected to be particularly flush with talent. 

Why this path might not make sense:

Let’s not sugarcoat it: The mere idea of trading a homegrown Finals MVP just plain sucks. So does the idea of potentially cashing out on a beloved adopted son like White.

There are also no guarantees that bottoming out is the best pathway back to title contention. Trading a pair of certified top-40 players might yield what seems like a bountiful return, but that doesn’t ensure those players/picks reach the same peaks as what’s currently in-house. You'd need a whole lot of help from the ping-pong balls, too. 

And losing a lot of games along the way wouldn’t be much fun, either.

Let's (reluctantly) travel down this path:

If new Celtics owner Bill Chisholm steps to the podium after his $6.1 billion purchase is approved this summer and firmly states that he’s OK with the team lingering in the luxury tax for the foreseeable future, then the nuclear option might not even need to be a consideration. 

But if new ownership, in conjunction with Brad Stevens and his front office staff, determines that the most prudent path forward is to get out of the tax entirely, then difficult choices are inevitable. The reality is that the new CBA simply won’t allow teams to field two supermax players and stay below the tax without stripping to bare bones around them. 

The Celtics are committed to $228 million in salary for the 2025-26 season, and that’s before pondering the futures of free-agent big men Al Horford and Luke Kornet. The luxury tax line next season is $187.9 million.

That means Boston is roughly $40 million over the tax line and staring at a potential tax bill of $238 million if this core is maintained.

In Part 1, we noted how moving Jrue Holiday and Sam Hauser with limited financial return could shuffle the Celtics below the $207.8 million second-apron line next season. But Boston would have to trim another $20 million in additional salary to get below the $187.9 million tax line. Trying to get to that number without moving Brown and/or White is not impossible, but it is a challenge. 

The question ultimately comes down to this: Are the Celtics OK with lingering in the tax for the next handful of seasons to maintain a Tatum/Brown/White core?

That might have been an easy decision a couple weeks ago -- even after a second-round exit this year -- but Tatum’s injury and indefinite rehab adds a layer of complication to the decision.

The reality is that Brown might be at the doorstep of his 30th birthday before Tatum plays his next NBA game. White would be 32 at that point. While the Celtics might not necessarily be able to sell high on the tandem of Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis this summer, the team most certainly could command a more robust haul if Brown and/or White were made available.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NBC Sports Boston (@nbcsboston)

Let's (reluctantly) make some deals:

What would stripping this thing down look like? Well, even that’s not easy.

The Brooklyn Nets are the only team in the NBA projected to have cap space this offseason. Even trying to salary-dump a big contract in exchange for draft assets is virtually impossible without their help. Every other trade partner requires salary matching, which would force Boston to then re-route any undesirable veteran salary to a potential third (or fourth?) team.

Let’s say Gregg Popovich yearns to assemble a new Big Three in San Antonio and believes Brown helps the Spurs hop on the contention accelerator when paired with a healthy Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox. San Antonio can build a package that features young talent (Devin Vassell? Keldon Johnson?) and prized draft assets (No. 2 pick in 2025? Return Boston’s 2028 pick swap?).

The Celtics still take back $48.2 million in that package, saving them just $8.6 million on next year’s cap. In that instance, the Spurs might be more likely to include just one young player and the expiring contract of Harrison Barnes, which would be routed to a third team.

Boston would utilize the No. 2 pick to select Dylan Harper, then lean heavily into his development over the next two seasons. With Vassell earning just 13 percent of the cap near the tail end of his current deal, the Celtics would have more flexibility to keep additional depth pieces around a Tatum core.

You can run the same exercise with the Houston Rockets, concocting a potential reunion of Brown with Ime Udoka. Alas, if Houston deems Amen Thompson as untouchable in deals, it’s harder to see a combination of picks and players that would entice Boston to move a player of Brown’s caliber.

With White making manageable money over the next three seasons, would a more established contender be willing to package a hefty collection of picks to pry him from Boston? The Knicks gave up five first-round picks to acquire Mikal Bridges on the eve of the 2024 draft. Could the Celtics generate multiple first-rounders in exchange for White given his ability to thrive in just about any situation?

The bottom line would be Boston moving off its big-money contracts beyond Tatum and embracing a youth movement in the 2025-26 season. Those deals would open a variety of pathways to proceed from there, with a goal of maximizing the rest of Tatum’s prime years once he’s fully recovered from Achilles surgery. 

The bottom line:

Let’s be absolutely clear: This does not feel like anyone’s preferred path. We’re strangely curious to see how the Celtics look with Brown at the helm next season and find that to be a far more digestible path than tearing apart the core.

But this new CBA will at least force the Celtics to ponder if a reboot is the best path back to surefire contender.

Stevens is paid to make decisions devoid of emotion. It wasn’t easy when he elected to overhaul the core in the summer of 2023, trading out Marcus Smart and Robert Williams III while bringing back the Porzingis-Holiday tandem. Those moves helped immediately deliver Banner 18. 

The perpetual question is, what are the moves that best position Boston to chase Banner 19? And sometimes you have to bottom out to get back to the top.