What happens next for the Boston Celtics if Gordon Hayward leaves in free agency?

The Boston Celtics face a nearly $33 million dollar question this upcoming off-season: what happens next if Gordon Hayward signs a deal elsewhere?

All eyes are on the 2021 NBA off-season. That is when the marquee free agents will be hitting the market en mass, in a similar fashion to the explosive 2019 and 2017 free agent bonanzas. The thing is, the Boston Celtics will not likely have the money to indulge in the rapid player movement.

Kemba Walker will have just completed his second season in Beantown. Jaylen Brown would be gearing up for his second year under the $115 million pact he agreed to in October. Jayson Tatum will likely be due for an extension himself. All signs point to Danny Ainge keeping this cost-controlled core for a while.

Add in Marcus Smart‘s $13 million cap figure, and there isn’t too much extra cap space floating around for impact names. As great as it would be to have Giannis Antetokounmpo become the small-ball center that forever changes the NBA as a point-center, running alongside all of the team’s superior finishers, it just doesn’t seem within the realm of possibility. It seems far more likely that the Los Angeles Lakers figure out a way to add him to a big-three that includes a 38-year old LeBron James and an in-prime Anthony Davis to form the greatest Big-3 ever assembled.

It’s the 2020 off-season that will likely see the C’s complete their lineup. There is one giant domino that will determine the future of this franchise for the end of Walker’s prime and the beginning of Tatum and Brown’s: Gordon Hayward.

Looming over the Boston Celtics like an ominous cloud, Hayward’s choice could open up a multitude of different circumstances for the franchise moving forward.

If you factor in his $34 million player option, the Celtics will be operating over the $116 million soft cap with just the team’s top five players. You take his salary away, and–if the team renounced every other free agent–it would actually be able to sign a player at around $20 million per season.

Can you replace Hayward’s production (17 points, six rebounds, four assists on 55/40 splits from the field/3-point line) with a free agent at that rate? On the surface, the answer is no. But, if you look at lineup fits, there are better matches out there that consider that annual figure.

Montrezl Harrell springs to mind. Currently averaging 19 points, seven rebounds and two assists in under 30 minutes per game, the five-year vet will likely earn a sizable salary on his next deal. Being the premiere big man on one of the league’s top four teams could earn him a loyalty pact from the Clippers, or perhaps even more money on the open market.

If he is priced out of Boston, maybe NBA Champion Serge Ibaka could be an option. No longer a starter with Pascal Siakam blossoming into an All-Star and Marc Gasol also ahead of him on the depth chart, perhaps he could be considered on a short-term deal.

Other than that, a trade for Draymond Green seem implausible, and Andre Drummond is a mere pipe dream unless the team plans on including Brown, Tatum or Smart in a sign-and-trade–unlikely given Danny Ainge’s reluctance to part with them for a top-5 player in Anthony Davis.

So that makes Hayward staying, and the team filling their center position with a veteran’s minimum or mid-level exception candidate like Dwight Howard (who appears rejuvenated and has had success alongside Kemba Walker before) or Mason Plumlee could be available.

The ideal situation is Hayward agreeing to a long-term deal at a smaller annual rate, so as to facilitate the signing of a center with more of a two-way presence than Daniel Theis or Enes Kanter. Who knows how free agency will shake out though.

Teams like the New York Knicks and Atlanta Hawks could look to accelerate their rebuild with a high character Swiss army knife who could fill any role in the lineup as a two-way contributor. The Charlotte Hornets could look to finally make him a center-piece after a failed bid to team him with Walker in 2014 during restricted free agency.

Whether he stays or leaves, the Boston Celtics will likely look to solidify the core they have now, barring any trades before then. Unlike last season, there is cohesion on and off the court. There are legitimate title hopes if the team could address a few roster holes.

Hayward’s next move determines how much money the team has to play with–and it could open up another hole in the rotation. Only time will tell how it shakes out, but the possibilities are aplenty for the Boston Celtics either way.