The Boston Celtics can match any offer Marcus Smart gets on the open market
The Boston Celtics could end up with a difficult decision to make with Marcus Smart, but they officially control how things will play out. It will always come down to the price, but the Celtics are in a position to match any offer made to Smart, allowing them to make any final decision on whether or not to bring him back.
The Celtics extended a qualifying offer to Smart, officially making him a restricted free agent. That will allow Smart to test the open market and see exactly how much money teams will be willing to pay him.
This is the route everyone was expecting, and will be the best way to gauge how valuable Smart is to the rest of the league and to the Celtics.
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Smart was always going to want to make sure he gets all the money he deserved, and that is exactly what he is going to do now. With both sides wanting to work something out to get him back in Boston, the qualifying offer will not hurt Smart in any way.
In the end, all this does is protect the Celtics, making sure Smart cannot just go off and join another team, no matter what the Celtics are offering.
It also means the Celtics do not have to offer Smart anything more than he would get on the open market. You would expect Smart to accept the best deal, and then the Celtics will have the opportunity to match whatever that offer might be.
Right now, it feels like there might be some decent interest in Smart. There have been reports about multiple teams thinking about going after him. The more competition there is the worse off the Celtics are, but the price tag will always be the determining factor.
The good news is that this is not shaping up to be a summer of overspending. Teams have been scared off of some of the awful contracts that have been given out recently, and that could easily keep Smart within the price range of the Celtics.
Next: no fear of losing Brown or Tatum
This is the first step and it was the expected step, and it gets us just a bit closer to knowing whether or not Smart will ever play for the Celtics again.