Should the Boston Celtics change their timeline and sign Lebron James?
The NBA season has come to an end, and with it, the much-anticipated summer of Lebron James has arrived. James himself has given little indication where he intends to play, maintaining that he himself does not yet know.
Rumors have been swirling that he will join the Los Angeles Lakers, the only serious contender for his services with the cap space to sign both him and another max free agent.
Add in the fact that he owns two homes in Los Angeles and the rumor that his son committed to playing basketball for a high school in Los Angeles, and the Lakers seem like the easy option.
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There are other popular favorites among media speculators. LeBron could reasonably decide that joining the Houston Rockets’ two superstars on the team that almost knocked off Golden State offers him his best chance to get a ring, in spite of the questionable fit both money-wise and style-wise. San Antonio, with its strong culture and with the presence of Gregg Popovich, will surely lure him as well.
The Boston Celtics, though, with their combination of youth, coaching, and flat-out talent, may be the most appealing option to LeBron. Joining Boston would allow him to avoid the gauntlet that is the Western Conference, while practically stamping his ticket to the 2019 Finals.
This still feels like a pipe dream…but let’s assume, for the purpose of discussion, that LeBron wants to come to Boston. He’s ready to join his oldest rival and compete for championships in green and white.
Would Boston want him?
Now, folks, we get to the fun part.
The Problems
The Celtics are over the salary cap. Even if LeBron agrees to take a large pay cut, Boston would still have to send out significant salary to afford him. The feeling from the media is that Kyrie Irving would be shipped out; he’s only under contract for one more season, and will command a massive contract that will pay him $42.8 million when he’s 32. Considering his injury history, that should trouble Celtics fans.
Oh, and Kyrie kinda left Cleveland to get away from LeBron. Things might be awkward.
Shipping out Irving alone, though, still does not get Boston far enough. They would need to ditch more salary, probably both Marcus Morris and Terry Rozier on top of Irving. Even after getting rid of these three, Boston would only be able to offer LeBron about $22 million (assuming the cap jumps to $101 million, as expected). Maybe that’s enough, but Boston might have to get more creative to find extra space.
In any case, Boston would be losing a lot of depth, and likely filling out its roster with minimum salary players. Boston could use the Larry Bird exception to sign Marcus Smart and go over the salary cap, but would soon find itself close to the luxury tax. Yet more importantly, Boston would be losing a young star. Kyrie has had injury problems, but is only 26. Lebron is 33.
(It’s also completely possible that Boston could trade Gordon Hayward or Al Horford instead, but there’s only so many possibilities one article can cover; we’ll assume, for now, that the media speculation has been correct and that Kyrie would be the one to be moved.)
Danny Ainge famously said after the Irving deal that Irving fit the Celtics’ timeline. Bringing in LeBron would put a wrench in that timeline, forcing Boston to lose the young star at the heart of its promising young core. The Celtics would be in win-now mode with two key wings, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, combining for 41 years of age. Especially given Boston’s unquestionably successful season, many argue that this core should be allowed to grow together.
This narrative, though, is missing a key point.
The Question of Windows
This Celtics team is young, exciting, and very talented. Yet being young, exciting, and talented is not enough, as NBA history proves. Even very recent NBA history is littered with examples of young teams that were expected to blossom into powerhouses but fell short.
The young Oklahoma City Thunder, with its trio of future MVP winners in Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Kevin Durant, looked as promising as any team in recent memory. Salary cap considerations compelled them to trade away Harden, though, and the team, while successful by many measures, never quite reached its potential, failing to reach the finals again after a gentleman’s sweep at the hands of LeBron’s Miami Heat.
The Indiana Pacers looked like a real threat to LeBron’s Eastern Conference throne until Lance Stephenson left for more money and Roy Hibbert fell off a cliff. The 60 win Atlanta Hawks looked like absolute world beaters, but couldn’t get past LeBron (see a pattern) and fell apart as its core players left for greener pastures.
The moral of this story is that great teams fall apart before their time with striking regularity. If Boston fans look down the road, they will notice multiple things: 1.) Horford, who might actually have been the team’s most important player this past year, is not getting younger; and, more importantly, 2.) this team is going to become very expensive in the near future. If Boston signs Irving to a supermax contract, gives Horford and Brown new contracts in two years and Tatum a new contract in three years, Boston will be deep into the luxury tax. Unless Boston is already winning championships, it will be hard to justify that kind of money.
This shouldn’t seem like an indictment of what’s happening in Boston. Danny Ainge has built a phenomenal and promising team. They almost made it to the NBA Finals without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, and Brown and Tatum are only getting better. This team should be a threat in the East next year and beyond.
But when we think about how quickly and unexpectedly windows shut, it’s worth begging the question of which timeline Boston wants. Danny Ainge’s comment about Irving fitting Boston’s timeline made it seem as though he was planning for Boston to win not now, but a bit down the road. When the kiddos are a little older and Golden State and LeBron are falling off, Boston could be right there to steal the throne away with force. Or, it could be falling into the traps that other young, promising teams have fallen into.
Normally, you take that risk as a GM. You search for youth and hope that it will blossom and that the pieces will come together at the right time. But when you have the chance to be special, right now, don’t you have to go for it? Swapping Kyrie for LeBron might mean that Boston isn’t in the championship hunt in three or four years (though it might work out that even if LeBron left and Kyrie was long gone, Boston had enough with Tatum Hayward and Brown to be contenders). It’s a short-term gain and a long-term cost.
But if the ultimate goal is to win championships, maybe you have to do that for a guaranteed window right now. With LeBron in Boston with a core of himself, Brown, Horford, Hawyard, and Tatum, Boston is in the NBA Finals this season. Period. Probably next year, too. It’s anybody’s guess if they have what it takes to get past Golden State, but they certainly feel close.
The fortunate thing is that Boston, after summer upon summer of uncertainty, has a definitive path to follow if it wants it. There is no pressure to make a move. Ainge can see how this core fares, and see what happens. LeBron will probably sign a one year deal this summer and be a free agent again a year from now. Maybe we continue this conversation then, except that time we can just let Kyrie, Morris and Rozier walk instead of playing salary cap gymnastics.
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But Celtics fans should remember that championship windows are almost always short-lived in this crazy, difficult league. If LeBron wants to come here, Boston might be foolish to pass up this chance.