Brad Stevens and the Celtics front office did their tough work early this offseason by dealing away Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday in cost-cutting moves that slashed Boston’s projected record-breaking luxury tax bill by $210 million for the 2025-26 season.
Boston netted some additional talent in those deals (Anfernee Simons, Georges Niang) beyond the financial savings, but the Celtics are currently in a spot after some minimum free agent savings where the team is signaling they are content to be done dealing for now.
“We’re very comfortable with this group heading into next season,” Stevens said earlier this month.
The fact that Stevens can have that stance publicly despite still having a $207.8 million payroll ($20 million over the luxury tax line) as a repeater tax team is promising news. Boston will ultimately get under the second apron before the season starts, but they have easy ways of doing that such as releasing a non-guaranteed contract and carrying 14 players for next season.
Stevens also inferred this month that the Celtics would not be willing to give up assets to simply move money off their books after the Porzingis/Holiday trades.
“We don’t want to take away our chance to use (our draft picks) to become the best that we can be over the next few years just to make a move to help save money.” Stevens said. “I think that that’s been very clearly stated to me. We’ll continue to look at how we can make things a little bit better or tweak things around the edges and maybe something comes up in the next couple of weeks, but that’s been our mindset.”
That public stance from Stevens is a very encouraging message from an ownership level, assuming it holds true. Boston having the ability to stay in the tax from a financial flexibility standpoint during a non-contending season bodes well for this group’s spending power in the future. Plenty of contenders around the NBA have given up first-round picks to cut some spending and tax bills lately. The Celtics posturing that they will not be one of those teams publicly should at least help Stevens in trade negotiations, where cutting payroll could be a goal.
Despite those remarks, it’s important to consider the financials here for the Celtics moving forward. Currently, they are projected to pay $88.4 million in luxury tax penalties for the 2025-26 season. That would be the biggest tax bill Celtics ownership has ever paid for a team in franchise history by a long shot. The previous high was 2022-23 ($70 million). The Celtics are only $20 million over the luxury tax line with this roster but are still on the hook for $88.4 million in tax penalties for now due to the stiff repeater tax penalties that kick in this season under the new CBA.
Currently, any additional dollar spent on Boston’s roster costs the team $6.75 in tax penalties so you can rule out any more additions to this group that increase the current number. At those ratios, even one more minimum contract costs Boston $15 million plus the salary itself ($2.4 million).
Instead, it’s fair to look at the Celtics’ situation now and infer that further tweaks are coming simply because it does not make sense to spend this kind of money on a team with Jayson Tatum potentially sidelined for the year from a strategic standpoint. Reducing payroll for the 2025-26 season to reallocate that money for next season’s group with a bigger spend for 2026-27 makes a lot more sense (assuming ownership does not have an unlimited budget) than paying the second-highest tax bill in the league ($88 million) for a team not currently projected to be in the top half of the East next year.
BETTING: BetMGM has set the Celtics regular season wins line at 43.5 for the 2025-26 NBA season. Our complete list of the best Massachusetts sportsbook promos will help you choose a sportsbook to use.
How far the team should go with their savings now is a debatable topic. Dipping under the luxury tax for the next two seasons for the sake of resetting the harsh repeater tax financial penalties would be a drastic move since it would essentially be reducing the team’s odds of contending in a window during Tatum and Brown’s prime when both are healthy.
However, a more strategic build for the 2026-27 season would be pocketing some (or all) of that steep tax bill savings for 2025-26 for a year to use in 2026-27 when this team will be full go and need reinforcements after losing four rotation players this offseason.
Boston’s ownership deserves credit for their spending over the last three years, where they’ve ranked in the top four in spending amid a championship window.
Celtics Luxury tax penalties for the last three years
22-23: $70.1 million (4th in NBA)
23-24 $39.7 million (4th in NBA)
24-25: $53.4 million (3rd in NBA)
Whether that type of spending up Bill Chisholm’s new ownership group stays sustainable remains to be seen but the early remarks from Stevens on that front this month are promising. However, it’s evident more moves are coming here for this year when you look at the reality of Boston’s roster outlook and the luxury tax math. Finding ways to trim money now (moving Simons? Niang?) without losing future assets (draft picks) feels like it will be the path for Boston heading into next season. Luxury tax bills don’t lock in until the end of the regular season so in-season manuevering is also very much in play.
Reducing payroll now without hurting the future will help the team put its best financial foot forward once Tatum gets back on the floor. If Stevens finds a way to pull that off in a limited trade market, it might be some of his best work at the helm.
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.