Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big storyline. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
“I feel like if he does return to basketball, I think that that would be the team,’’ Perkins said of the Celtics. “I heard Kevin say a few times that he wouldn’t want to play for anybody but Doc, so it will be interesting to see. I still think he got a lot more years in him. He got a lot of love for the game and it would be hard to see Kevin walk away from the game right now.’’
When asked if he sensed Garnett wanted to keep playing, Perkins said, “I do. I think he found some kind of new life, what do you call it? The fountain of youth, just how he’s been playing over these last couple of games in the playoffs and in the regular season, he’s almost a 20-10 guy. I hope he does come back. It’s good for the NBA. He’s still an icon in the league and you just like to see what he brings to the table.’’
Globe: Perkins expects Garnett to play again – with Celtics
This is kind of more of the same with KG… We think might come back and if he does it will only be with Doc and the Celtics.
One thing is clear, the Celtics will do virtually no business on the free agent market until the KG situation is settled. Part of that is because he’s the linchpin to the teams entire defensive strategy… and partly because there’s a giant cap hold that the Celtics will need to clear up by either signing or renouncing him.
For those who don’t know what a cap hold is, it’s basically an imaginary number that reserves a space on the salary cap for your own free agents. When you still own the rights to a player, that cap hold for the player’s salary (determined by a formula based on that player’s previous salary) sits in the salary cap space as if it’s reserving a spot on the team for him.
It exists as part of the Larry Bird Exemption which allows teams to go above the salary cap to sign their own free agents. Cap holds are the mechanism that keep teams from having all their big time players contracts expire at the same time, signing a bunch of big free agents, THEN using Bird Rights to re-sign their stars.
It’s all complicated, and it’s explained much better here.
So in a nutshell, KG made $21 million last year, and that makes his cap hold gigantic… so the C’s HAVE to figure him out on the first day of business so they can move forward. Ray Allen, for that matter, would be next since he’s got a huge cap hold as well, and only after those guys are settled, can the C’s really understand what kind of money they have to play with.
The rest of the links:
MWDN: Pierce, Rondo, hoping to avoid flashbacks with the Celtics | Herald: Heat rally past Thunder | WEEI: NBA Draft’s potential Celtics: Zach Rosen | Leon Radosevic | Eric Griffin | Hollis Thompson | Khris Middleton
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