Report: Celtics signing Babb to “multi-year” deal

The Boston Celtics will sign Chris Babb to a multi-year contract, a league source tells Yahoo Sports. His second 10-day deal ends today.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) March 20, 2014

Chris Babb’s status was in doubt considering his four-straight DNP’s and the expiration of his 10-day contract. But Danny Ainge saw fit to sign the kid to a multi-year deal.

Of course, this isn’t really a multi-year deal unless the Celtics want it to be.  I’d be shocked if any of this is guaranteed (though there may be trigger dates for certain portions of it to kick in).

This is a classic Ainge deal for a fringe player like this.  Give the kid a chance to prove himself and keep him on the roster if he blossoms.  If not, he’s out with no repercussions. And oh, by the way, it’s another non-guaranteed deal that can be thrown into a trade to make salaries work.  You never know when you’ll need an extra few hundred thousand dollars in cap space to bring in a guy who will actually contribute.

So don’t be fooled by these “multi-year” deals.  Throw a bunch of these together (Babb, Johnson, Pressey) and you’ve suddenly got a couple of million dollars to throw into a trade that the receiving team can just waive for cap relief.