The Boston Celtics are about to face a dilemma in keeping their title-winning core intact.
Finally achieving their ultimate goal of winning an NBA championship in 2024, the franchise is now slated to encounter its next big task: sustaining their success through navigating their astronomical expenses.
As it is, the Boston Celtics will enter the 2025-26 season with a historic payroll. They are projected to pay $445 million in salary and luxury tax penalties which is set to become the largest in league record books.
Interestingly, within these mind-boggling numbers, is a role player in which an ESPN expert argued will occupy a huge $90 million if they chose to retain him.
Upon purchasing the majority stake of the organization from the Grousbeck family, new governor William Chisholm has shown positive intentions to managing the Celtics’ success and stability, even earning the praise of longtime Boston fan and expert Bill Simmons.
The situation cannot be fully assured, however, since he will be the one who is about to shoulder the burden of responsibility in paying all of the team’s all-time expenses.
In the wake of the team’s impending decisions to make about their costs of operation, two Celtics stars are apparently being monitored already as two potential trade pieces that could be dealt, according to NBA insider Jake Fischer.
Fischer wrote: “‘They’re going to have to trade some guys at some point,’ one team capologist told The Stein Line. The two major salaries that league figures are monitoring in possible future trades: Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday.”
2025-26 serves as the final contract year of Kristaps Porzingis in which he’ll get paid $30 million. The case for Jrue Holiday is longer as the Celtics are obligated to provide the star guard a total of $104 million over the next three seasons.
Both Porzingis and Holiday served as instrumental pieces in Bostons’ 2024 championship run, and that extends into this season in which title defense is their main goal.
Holiday remains as the main guard of the Celtics alongside Derrick White. Averaging 11.1 points, 4.2 boards, 3.8 assists, and 1.1 steals, his intense defense serves as one of the factors of Celtics’ dominance.
Porzingis is tallying 19.4 points, 7.0 boards, 2.0 assists, and 1.6 blocks per game. Although he remained injury stricken this year in which he was notably diagnosed with a mysterious illness, most of the Celtics view him as their X-factor in landing a championship repeat.
While they are heavily focused for a major battle that lies ahead of them in the NBA Playoffs, the Celtics can only brace for the inevitable as summertime hits.
