Jorge Sierra: The highest-paid No. 55 picks in NBA history. Bronny James could be No. 7 after his first contract if he sticks around the four years of his deal.
Jorge Sierra: The highest-paid No. 55 picks in NBA hist…
July 24, 2024 | 1:33 pm EDT Update
Knicks agree to three-year extension with Tom Thibodeau
Adrian Wojnarowski: ESPN Sources: New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau has agreed on a three-year contract extension that’ll take him through the 2027-2028 season. A two-time NBA coach of the year, Thibodeau has led the Knicks to consecutive conference semifinal berths.
Grizzlies add Jay Huff
Michael Scotto: The Memphis Grizzlies have agreed to a two-way contract with center Jay Huff, league sources told @hoopshype. Huff has played for the Lakers, Wizards, and Nuggets over the past three seasons. pic.twitter.com/ej7SGscj4R
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on recent Nuggets playoff run: We had no gas, we felt like the Lakers should have beaten us
ClutchPoints: “We had no gas. We felt like the Lakers should have beat us. We was down every game.” Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on the Nuggets’ disappointing postseason run in 2024 🗣️ (via @TheVolumeSports) pic.twitter.com/i9QMyxvwfw
So, yes, Haliburton is self-aware about, and grateful for, a basketball career that might never have left Wisconsin, let alone played out on a world stage. He does not take for granted making All-Star games, Olympic teams or Eastern Conference Finals. “There’s a lot to be happy about,” he says. “I’m blessed, man.” Yet spend enough time with Haliburton and something else becomes clear. “I’m greedy, I want to be great,” he says. “So, I mean, what is there to be satisfied about?”
“I’m coming into this year, and whether it’s the case or not, viewing it like everybody thinks my success in the first half of last season was a fluke, and I got to prove it again,” Haliburton says. “And that’s just who I am and that’s how I’m just cut that way. That’s the fun part about it for me: it’s just another chip on my shoulder, [added] to the thousands that are already there.”
Knicks fans were the latest to learn that. “There’s nothing like the Garden,” he says. And throughout New York and Indiana’s Eastern Conference semifinal in May, Haliburton felt one pocket of seats across from the Pacers’ bench was consistently on him the most. As he tells it, a pregame interaction set the tone for their series-clinching win: “So, Game 7 came around, and I’m like, I gotta come up with something to get me going. Like I heard Tom Brady say that one time, like he would look for things to get him going, and Michael Jordan said the same thing—like, sometimes he would make things up. So there’s a dude courtside, he’s chirping to me in warmups … and then he was really talking crazy. And I wasn’t going to say anything, I’m like, I’m gonna let this go. I’m gonna get him later. And then [Pacers teammate and karate black-belt] James Johnson walked over. And James obviously is the muscle of the NBA. And when James walked over, the dude got quiet. So I just went over there. I was like, ‘Why are you quiet now? Like, are you scared of him?’ And then that’s kind of what got us going. “From there I mean, I got hot, I got going and it was like, every bucket I’m looking at him just to keep the blood flowing and keep the juices flowing. And honestly, as a team, we just flowed off that.”
And as currently constructed, the Celtics are headed toward another historic number: the league’s first $500 million roster. After inking Hauser to his extension, the Celtics have 11 players under contract for the 2025-26 season for a combined $225 million. If the roster is filled out with their own first-round pick and two players on minimum salaries — projected to be each worth roughly $2.3 million, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks — that would push Boston’s payroll to about $233 million, more than $45 million over the projected luxury tax line.
The new CBA was designed to help redistribute talent across the league and prevent teams from overloading their rosters with stars for a lengthy period of time. And while Boston’s roster currently defies that logic, the massive tax bills heading the Celtics’ way will eventually do the league’s intended work. For example: From the 2002-03 through 2021-22 seasons, the Celtics paid a total of $52 million in luxury taxes, per Marks. Over just the past two seasons, the Celtics have paid $114 million in taxes, and are set to pay another $66 million this coming season — that’s $180 million over a three-year span, before adding another $280 million for the 2025-26 season. But while keeping this entire team together could prove to be a challenge — if the Celtics win a second straight title in 2025, they’d certainly be inclined to try — having so many players under contract also gives the franchise options.
As it stands now, the Celtics are currently projected to be close to $25 million over the second apron. Starting this season, teams who finish the season over the second apron will begin to have their future draft picks frozen (thus unable to be traded) as part of the penalties to prevent heavy spending over long periods of time. But if the Celtics were to subtract just one of the big salaries from their books moving forward, and replace it either with draft picks or players on inexpensive, rookie-scale contracts, it would quickly become very plausible for Boston to get below the second apron, giving the Celtics flexibility to continue adding to the roster. By comparison, the Suns are in a much different place. Bradley Beal is owed $160 million over the next three years and has a no-trade clause. The Suns’ players on midrange salaries, Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale and Nassir Little, all have limited trade value, league sources told ESPN.
