{"id":187478,"date":"2025-10-03T12:27:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/187478\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T12:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:27:19","slug":"celtics-roster-teardown-wasnt-due-to-second-apron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/187478\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics roster teardown wasn\u2019t due to second apron"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston Celtics\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t“JT\u2019s out pretty much the whole year, so they\u2019re not winning a championship next year.”<\/p>\n

\"Charles
\n\tCharles Barkley believes that Boston’s busy offseason was due in large part to Jayson Tatum’s injury. (Andrew Burke-Stevenson for The Boston Globe)\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Conor Ryan<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 3, 2025 | 8:14 AM\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

3 minutes to read<\/p>\n

The Boston Celtics significantly altered their roster this offseason \u2014 shedding a hefty amount of payroll by trading away two lineup regulars in Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Boston also wasn\u2019t able to retain other key players in free agency, as Al Horford and Luke Kornet signed with the Warriors and Spurs, respectively, out on the open market.<\/p>\n

The writing was on the wall that the Celtics had to augment a significant segment of the roster \u2014 due in large part to the hefty luxury-tax penalties set to hit Boston as a consequence of operating over the restrictive second apron of the NBA\u2019s new salary-cap threshold.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Shortly after the deals involving Holiday and Porzingis were struck, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens acknowledged that getting under the second apron was the primary motivator in those deals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, the second apron is why those trades happen,\u201d Stevens said in July<\/a>. \u201cI think that those are pretty obvious, and the basketball penalties associated with those are real. We\u2019ve all talked about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley doesn\u2019t believe that the second apron was the main reason why Boston tore down most of its roster this offseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really think that\u2019s it,\u201d Barkley told Heavy.com\u2019s Steve Bulpett of the second-apron restrictions impacting Boston<\/a>. \u201cI think they realized that without [Jayson Tatum] they wasn\u2019t going to win the championship, so it\u2019s best to break the team up sooner than later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it had anything to do with the second apron. They had the apron last year, right? So I just think they realized that they\u2019re going to take a step backwards. JT\u2019s out pretty much the whole year, so they\u2019re not winning a championship next year. You\u2019re like, let\u2019s break it up a year early.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2025-26 Celtics suffered a significant setback when Tatum tore his Achilles tendon during the Eastern Conference Semifinals in May.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So far, Boston has not presented a clear timetable for Tatum\u2019s potential return \u2014 with other NBA stars like Kevin Durant missing an entire season after suffering similar injuries over the last few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tatum noted last week that he feels he\u2019s in \u201ca good spot\u201d already in his recovery<\/a>, with the 27-year-old forward posting a video last weekend of himself working out on the court at the Auerbach Center.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

But with Tatum\u2019s expected timeline still unclear \u2014 and his effectiveness likely limited out of the gate even if he returns this spring \u2014 it does make sense that Stevens and Boston\u2019s staff opted to retool this roster ahead of what could be projected as more of a \u201cbridge\u201d year.<\/p>\n

But speaking last week, new Celtics lead owner Bill Chisholm stressed that Boston\u2019s offseason moves were rooted in the second-apron restrictions that the team needed to rid itself of.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say some of those, as a fan, I get it,\u201d Chisholm said of Boston\u2019s roster turnover<\/a>. \u201cThose hurt as a fan, both as good people and obviously great players had to part ways with. And I get it. I get that hurts. I would say, and I don\u2019t mean to be glib, but there are sort of three things I would say: first there\u2019s Derrick White, second is Jrue Holiday, third is Kristaps Porzingis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause if we were in this situation back then, we couldn\u2019t have gotten those guys on the team. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re playing for. We\u2019re playing for the flexibility to do that kind of thing and when the moment is right to do that, we\u2019re going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Profile\t<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.<\/p>\n

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