4-2 conference semifinals loss<\/a> to a New York Knicks team that it had previously dominated this season. The Celtics are now the sixth consecutive NBA champion to fail to make it out of the second round the following season.<\/p>\nJust as painful as getting dethroned at NBA champions was the devastating ruptured Achilles tendon injury to Tatum late in Game 4, which sidelined him for the final two games of the series. The 27-year-old is now staring at a rehabilitation process that will knock him out for most, if not all, of next season.<\/p>\n
It casted a pall not only over the remainder of the New York series but has thrust the Celtics\u2019 future into uncertainty heading into the offseason. That sentiment was clearly on Brown\u2019s mind in the aftermath of their elimination as he tried to offer Boston\u2019s fans some hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis journey is not the end. It\u2019s not the end for me. I look forward to coming back stronger. You just take this with the chin up,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI know, Boston, it looks gloomy right now obviously with JT being out, and us ending the year, but there\u2019s a lot to look forward to. I want the city to feel excited about that. This is not the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it may not be that simple.<\/p>\n
Boston\u2019s payroll this season put it over the salary cap and will make them a luxury-tax team for the third consecutive season. It means they will be hit with a \u201crepeater tax\u201d penalty for being over the cap threshold in three out of four seasons.<\/p>\n
With payroll for next season on track to come in around $225 million, next year\u2019s tax bill would be at almost $280 million. The combined potential $500 million total price tag would be a league record.<\/p>\n
It is unclear whether the team\u2019s incoming ownership will want to keep paying those hefty penalties to maintain the current roster after agreeing to a purchase in March that is expected to have a final price of a minimum of $6.1 billion.<\/p>\n
It could mean belt tightening in some fashion this offseason with 11 players currently under contract.<\/p>\n
Tatum signed an NBA-record five-year, $314 million contract last July that will begin next season and pay him $54 million. Brown is playing under a five-year, $304 million deal that kicked in this season. He will make $53 million next season. That is followed by Jrue Holiday ($32 million), Kristaps Porzingis ($30 million), Derrick White ($28 million) and Sam Hauser ($10 million).<\/p>\n
Of the top nine rotation players this season, only veteran Al Horford and Luke Kornet are free agents.<\/p>\n
But there are concerns beyond the financial ones.<\/p>\n
Porzingis\u2019s health will also be in the spotlight after he was hampered throughout the latter part of the regular season and playoffs with a lingering viral illness that sapped him of strength and rendered him a virtual nonfactor against the Knicks.<\/p>\n
Though he said he doesn\u2019t think it will be a long-term thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing I need right now is just to rest. Just get somewhere in the sun and just let the rest of my system even itself out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One positive sign is that he said he plans to still play for home country Latvia in EuroBasket this summer.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Brown, who entered this postseason dealing with a right knee issue but was able to play through it. He has said he\u2019s unsure whether it will require surgery this offseason.<\/p>\n
Even with that uncertainty, Brown\u2019s optimism remains high, although he acknowledged tough times may be ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cLosing to the Knicks feels like death,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I was always taught there\u2019s life after death.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Losing to the Knicks feels like death,\u2019 said Jaylen Brown after Game 6. \u2018But I was always taught…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,11591,6,11],"class_list":{"0":"post-40503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-celtics-offseason","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114526873541759925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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