Show of hands, who wants Trey Murphy III?
Yeah?
Me, too!
We all need a pick-me-up right now. Trading Jaylen Brown hurt, no doubt. Sending him to the Philadelphia 76ers, to form what is essentially a Big Three-and-a-half, well, that was borderline treasonous. Murphy would be the ideal mea culpa from Brad Stevens. He’s young, talented, and would complement Jayson Tatum’s game perfectly.
There’s a catch, though. The Boston Celtics are now operating under the hard cap of the first apron, courtesy of using
the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception to sign Mitchell Robinson on Wednesday.
As things stand, the Celtics are approximately $3.5 million over the tax, and $5.1 million under the first apron.
After putting in so much work to duck the tax last season, it’s likely Stevens will ensure the Celtics complete their goal of avoiding the repeater tax this season, meaning some money must be shed before or at the 2027 trade deadline.
Unfortunately, it’s that first-apron hard cap that’s going to make life tough for Boston in any potential Murphy pursuit.
Sure, when looking at Murphy’s $27 million salary for next season, and then remembering Boston boasts a $27.1 million traded player exception (TPE), it feels like the stars are aligned. I mean, how often does your primary target fit perfectly into an exception you just have lying around?
However, using a TPE doesn’t exempt a team from eating the cap hit. The exception removes the need to match salaries, but the incoming cost still counts against the cap sheet. So, the brutal truth of the situation is that the math isn’t going to math.
With just $5.1 million between the Celtics’ current standing in the tax and their hard stop at the first apron, there isn’t enough room to lean on the TPE as a vehicle to acquire Murphy outright. Instead, the Celtics will need to send a sizeable amount of salary back to the New Orleans Pelicans.
That’s where things get tough.
Right now, the only two players who make enough to be a viable trade chip are Derrick White and Paul George. Sam Hauser is making around $10 million next season, Payton Pritchard is in the $7 million range, and everyone else is on a downward sliding scale. Of course, I’m excluding Tatum.
Unless another guard is coming back as part of a trade, I struggle to envision Stevens parting with White in a Murphy deal. After all, the Celtics’ guard rotation was already threadbare before they added Mike Conley Jr., so I doubt they take a step backward there.
That leaves George.
As things stand, Brown’s trade to the Sixers is yet to be made official. Deals won’t be confirmed until Monday. Therefore, Stevens could still look to expand the trade, with George then being rerouted elsewhere, along with some of the picks Boston stands to receive. In return, the Celtics could add a younger, more athletic player or two to the rotation.
I took the liberty of throwing together a potentially expanded trade, just to see how things could look if the Celtics opted to go down this route. The deal would look like this:
Boston Gets: Dejounte Murray and Trey Murphy
Sixers Get: Jaylen Brown
Pelicans Get: Paul George
I’ll leave it up to you to decide where the draft picks would end up, and whether the Celtics would have to throw any additional picks into the deal to effectively avoid a partnership with George.
The downside of a deal like this is that it would further push the Celtics toward the hard cap, thus making it harder for Stevens to duck under the tax later this season. Yet, it would ensure Murphy landed with the Celtics while reuniting the backcourt pairing of Murray and White from their time together with the San Antonio Spurs.
Granted, this trade idea is far from perfect, and it isn’t supposed to be. It’s just an exercise to illustrate the challenge Boston will face in trying to acquire Murphy, assuming that is legitimately something they’re interested in doing, and the reporting isn’t just noise.
My bigger point here is that, even armed with a large TPE, the Celtics are in a position where they’re going to need to match salaries in any sizeable trade both now and at the deadline — it kind of defeats the point of having a trade exception in the first place, doesn’t it?
That’s why I’ve become open-minded to what a George and Tatum wing duo will look like this season. It would be far easier to run with George and Tatum this year, and then, assuming George picks up his player option (which I would imagine he does), look to flip him and his expiring deal next season.
So, back to that show of hands. Keep yours up if you still want Murphy. And now keep it up if you think a deal actually gets done. Yeah, my hand went down, too.
