The latest NBA rumor making the rounds recently has been related to expansion. The league has been flirting with expansion for a number of years, but there may finally be a vote for it this summer according
to this report.
Please keep in mind, these things take time to work out. We’re talking a couple of years at least before it becomes a thing. With that said, I thought it would be a fun thought exercise to go through the roster and see which players the team would protect. (Come to think of it, the team kind of did essentially that with the trade deadline, but I digress)
Before we start, I want to point everyone to the work that Keith Smith did a couple of years ago when this was originally ramping up.
Each of the NBA’s existing 30 teams will be allowed to protect players ahead of an expansion draft. Teams are allowed to protect players who fit one of the following categories:
Players under contract
Players who are restricted free agents (there is a quirk to this that we will cover next)
Players who have a player or team option for the following season
Any player who is a pending unrestricted free agent cannot be protected
There are some more rules related to protecting players:
Each team can protect up to eight players (but can choose to protect less)
Each team must expose at least one player (but can choose to expose more) that can’t become an unrestricted free agent
If a restricted free agent is drafted, they automatically become an unrestricted free agent (if selected, the former restricted free agent can not re-sign with their original team)
Player status is as of the day of the draft (this pertains to players with player or team options)
So with those rules out of the way, and understanding that this is just a “what if” exercise, how would you set up the protections on the Celtics if it was somehow happening this summer?
