Bernardoni: The Growing Josh Minott (Contract) Problem
November 6, 2025
Bernardoni: The Growing Josh Minott (Contract) Problem
24 comments
It’s only a problem if
The article says that the ‘problem’ is that he’s putting up All Defense numbers and will be hard to sign with the restrictions.
Essentially if he continues to break out we will have a very hard time resigning him
>The best they could offer under that scenario would be 120% of his minimum salary
Couldn’t we also use the MLE or at worst the tax MLE to retain minott since he would be an unrestricted free agent this summer after his option was theoretically declined?
We should have access to one or both of those exceptions this summer assuming we don’t keep simons and cut some salary around the edges like Baylor or Walsh
Yeah I called this out a couple weeks ago that he’s only signed through next season and with early bird rights we’d only be able to offer him a bit more than the league average… so about 13-14 per year. If he continues progressing, he could play himself out of our price range. But I mean… do we really think that’s going to happen? He seems like his ceiling might be a high level role player.
Honestly the Celtics need to look at what thunder are doing and sign guys to extensions before they realize their potential. They have guys like Aaron Wiggins, Ajay Mitchell, Isaiah Joe, and a few others who are regularly playing above their contracts. If you let people show their potential and prove themselves, they can price themselves off of cap restricted teams really fast.
Assuming he continues to break out and this becomes a problem at a later date, are there no tree planting companies in the Boston area looking to sign no-show endorsement deals with local athletes?
EDIT: /s for those who took this seriously …
Good grief, live in the now a little bit, sports media. One of the worst byproducts of the rise in player contracts awareness is sports media/analysts/fans/etc. hyper-focusing on end dates. Why are we rushing to the end when this is the *beginning* of something (potentially) awesome? I think we should enjoy what we’re getting from a blossoming young player and keep tomorrow’s problems in tomorrow.
Honestly this is just the nature of the NBA right now. If he can stay healthy and consistent then he’ll have the option to go get his bag or remain with an org that seems to have unlocked him in the past few months. The Celtics will first consider this at the trade deadline.
Glad that at least they have him for 2 years. And wish they had kept the 32nd pick to take Kalkenbrenner with up to 4 years of control.
they need to offer him the max they can extend him for ASAP
EDIT. so they can’t extend him. man fuck this cba
This whole article feels like a bit of a reach when you’re not even 10 games into the year. Also, as the other comment pointed out, the Celtics can offer Minott the tax MLE/MLE and Ryan ignores that in this article.
Also I think the idea of him taking 3/44 is not crazy at all, think Dangercart is way off-base with that one
fundamentally a good problem to have. if he plays this year and next and is so good that us offering $13-14 million per annum is not enough to retain, GREAT! James Posey got paid too!
Just extend him
Maybe the new ownership group could just, like, pay money?
Shocker, doom and gloom Bernardino has something negative to say. This guy is so fucking miserable. His worse day is when the Celtics won it in 2024 cause his baseless theory as to why they couldn’t win it with Tatum proved false.
So I don’t get it. If it’s going to be hard to sign talented guys. Why did we ship off porzingus and holiday? Was it just to save money? Because if now we can’t keep a guy like minott what was the point
I like the MLE option. Decline the option and give Minott a 4/64mil deal. Hard caps you at the 1st Apron, but if we wanted to use the KP TPE, we’d be hard capped there anyway. Also, we may be trying to get under the tax next year.
I don’t think the hurdle with getting use of the Non-Taxpayer MLE is as huge a as u/dangercart makes it out to be. We are 30mil below the 1st Apron as constructed.
Now, the problem is if we want to use the TPE on a big, which I think we all probably want to do.
I think the math is fine if you also want to add a big, but it may require trading Hauser.
Current situation:
– Projected Salaries For Next Year: 180.627mil
– 1st Apron For Next Year: 210.330mil
– Rostered Players: 11
– Space Below 1st Apron: 29.703mil
Let Simons walk, trade Hauser for assets, sign Minott to 4/64, and use KP TPE on a big, (maybe sign and trade):
– Projected Salaries: 207.277mil
– 1st Apron for next year: 210.330mil
– Rostered Players: 11
– Space Below 1st Apron: 3.053mil
*Worth noting that a lot does depend on how expensive our rookie is. Though, I’m down for including the pick in a trade for a big.*
If you only use about 19mil of the KP TPE then you can fill the roster out, while staying below the 1st Apron.
Starters:
– White
– Brown
– Minott
– Tatum
– Big Via KP TPE
Bench:
– PP
– Hugo
– Scheierman
– Walsh
– Queta
– Garza
– Vet min
– Vet min
– 2nd Round pick
Clearly it’s time to trade him straight for Wemby. Who says no?
Guys the Warriors have a big Steph Curry problem. He’s too good so he makes too much money
It’s a good problem to have lol
The more you look at the Celtics financials the more you realize that the biggest question facing the Celtics in the immediate future is whether there’s a mandate to re-set the repeater tax. Since it would require being under this year and next year it would make re-signing Minott with the Non-Tax MLE, finding a starting center and retaining a guy like Hauser simultaneously impossible. You could probably only do one of those things, maybe two, but certainly not all three (at least as long as White/Brown are on the team, and if they trade those guys I will be very sad).
I mean, the only reason we wouldn’t sign him is if we decide we can’t possibly go into the tax in two years. Which makes no sense. If we are actively trying to get under the tax next season and saying our next window to compete is 2027/2028, then this current roster makes no sense. D White would already be gone, likely Hauser and Simons also.
It is much more likely we elect to pick up his cheap option and roll the dice that we have enough flexibility to keep him on a contender when we have our core locked up already besides whatever big we go after to round out this group. It will mean paying some tax, but there is no way to consistently compete in the NBA right now unless you go into the tax, it’s just the 2nd apron you need to avoid unless your team is completely set, which we aren’t.
The thing we have going for us is that he’s under contract at just $2.5M next year so maybe we can offer to decline that option for a more reasonable 3 year deal than he’d get on the open market.
24 comments
It’s only a problem if
The article says that the ‘problem’ is that he’s putting up All Defense numbers and will be hard to sign with the restrictions.
Essentially if he continues to break out we will have a very hard time resigning him
>The best they could offer under that scenario would be 120% of his minimum salary
Couldn’t we also use the MLE or at worst the tax MLE to retain minott since he would be an unrestricted free agent this summer after his option was theoretically declined?
We should have access to one or both of those exceptions this summer assuming we don’t keep simons and cut some salary around the edges like Baylor or Walsh
Yeah I called this out a couple weeks ago that he’s only signed through next season and with early bird rights we’d only be able to offer him a bit more than the league average… so about 13-14 per year. If he continues progressing, he could play himself out of our price range. But I mean… do we really think that’s going to happen? He seems like his ceiling might be a high level role player.
Honestly the Celtics need to look at what thunder are doing and sign guys to extensions before they realize their potential. They have guys like Aaron Wiggins, Ajay Mitchell, Isaiah Joe, and a few others who are regularly playing above their contracts. If you let people show their potential and prove themselves, they can price themselves off of cap restricted teams really fast.
Assuming he continues to break out and this becomes a problem at a later date, are there no tree planting companies in the Boston area looking to sign no-show endorsement deals with local athletes?
EDIT: /s for those who took this seriously …
Good grief, live in the now a little bit, sports media. One of the worst byproducts of the rise in player contracts awareness is sports media/analysts/fans/etc. hyper-focusing on end dates. Why are we rushing to the end when this is the *beginning* of something (potentially) awesome? I think we should enjoy what we’re getting from a blossoming young player and keep tomorrow’s problems in tomorrow.
Honestly this is just the nature of the NBA right now. If he can stay healthy and consistent then he’ll have the option to go get his bag or remain with an org that seems to have unlocked him in the past few months. The Celtics will first consider this at the trade deadline.
Glad that at least they have him for 2 years. And wish they had kept the 32nd pick to take Kalkenbrenner with up to 4 years of control.
they need to offer him the max they can extend him for ASAP
EDIT. so they can’t extend him. man fuck this cba
This whole article feels like a bit of a reach when you’re not even 10 games into the year. Also, as the other comment pointed out, the Celtics can offer Minott the tax MLE/MLE and Ryan ignores that in this article.
Also I think the idea of him taking 3/44 is not crazy at all, think Dangercart is way off-base with that one
fundamentally a good problem to have. if he plays this year and next and is so good that us offering $13-14 million per annum is not enough to retain, GREAT! James Posey got paid too!
Just extend him
Maybe the new ownership group could just, like, pay money?
Shocker, doom and gloom Bernardino has something negative to say. This guy is so fucking miserable. His worse day is when the Celtics won it in 2024 cause his baseless theory as to why they couldn’t win it with Tatum proved false.
So I don’t get it. If it’s going to be hard to sign talented guys. Why did we ship off porzingus and holiday? Was it just to save money? Because if now we can’t keep a guy like minott what was the point
I like the MLE option. Decline the option and give Minott a 4/64mil deal. Hard caps you at the 1st Apron, but if we wanted to use the KP TPE, we’d be hard capped there anyway. Also, we may be trying to get under the tax next year.
I don’t think the hurdle with getting use of the Non-Taxpayer MLE is as huge a as u/dangercart makes it out to be. We are 30mil below the 1st Apron as constructed.
Now, the problem is if we want to use the TPE on a big, which I think we all probably want to do.
I think the math is fine if you also want to add a big, but it may require trading Hauser.
Current situation:
– Projected Salaries For Next Year: 180.627mil
– 1st Apron For Next Year: 210.330mil
– Rostered Players: 11
– Space Below 1st Apron: 29.703mil
Let Simons walk, trade Hauser for assets, sign Minott to 4/64, and use KP TPE on a big, (maybe sign and trade):
– Projected Salaries: 207.277mil
– 1st Apron for next year: 210.330mil
– Rostered Players: 11
– Space Below 1st Apron: 3.053mil
*Worth noting that a lot does depend on how expensive our rookie is. Though, I’m down for including the pick in a trade for a big.*
If you only use about 19mil of the KP TPE then you can fill the roster out, while staying below the 1st Apron.
Starters:
– White
– Brown
– Minott
– Tatum
– Big Via KP TPE
Bench:
– PP
– Hugo
– Scheierman
– Walsh
– Queta
– Garza
– Vet min
– Vet min
– 2nd Round pick
Clearly it’s time to trade him straight for Wemby. Who says no?
Guys the Warriors have a big Steph Curry problem. He’s too good so he makes too much money
It’s a good problem to have lol
The more you look at the Celtics financials the more you realize that the biggest question facing the Celtics in the immediate future is whether there’s a mandate to re-set the repeater tax. Since it would require being under this year and next year it would make re-signing Minott with the Non-Tax MLE, finding a starting center and retaining a guy like Hauser simultaneously impossible. You could probably only do one of those things, maybe two, but certainly not all three (at least as long as White/Brown are on the team, and if they trade those guys I will be very sad).
I mean, the only reason we wouldn’t sign him is if we decide we can’t possibly go into the tax in two years. Which makes no sense. If we are actively trying to get under the tax next season and saying our next window to compete is 2027/2028, then this current roster makes no sense. D White would already be gone, likely Hauser and Simons also.
It is much more likely we elect to pick up his cheap option and roll the dice that we have enough flexibility to keep him on a contender when we have our core locked up already besides whatever big we go after to round out this group. It will mean paying some tax, but there is no way to consistently compete in the NBA right now unless you go into the tax, it’s just the 2nd apron you need to avoid unless your team is completely set, which we aren’t.
The thing we have going for us is that he’s under contract at just $2.5M next year so maybe we can offer to decline that option for a more reasonable 3 year deal than he’d get on the open market.