Everything You Need to Know About the Celtics Luxury Tax Maneuvers
On how the Celtics managed to get under the tax, what they get from it, and a creative plan to remain below it.
The Boston Celtics’ championship roster only played two seasons together. The rising costs to keep all their core players were unsustainable in the new salary cap environment. The new luxury tax modifications and apron penalties forced the Celtics to break up the team.
The 2025-26 Celtics would’ve cost over half a billion dollars to run back the roster. That’s why their offseason was all about subtraction. They traded Jrue Holiday for Anfernee Simons. They traded Kristaps Porzingis for Georges Niang, and then two second-round picks to get off him. The only other additions to their roster were minimum signings and their first-round pick (Hugo Gonzalez).
The Celtics managed to save over $200 million and get under the second apron threshold in the offseason. As a result, they won’t be prohibited from trading their 2033 first-round pick next season. The big penalty to disincentivize teams from exceeding the second apron is to “freeze” their first-round pick seven years in the future. They can’t trade their 2032 first-round pick since they finished last season over the second apron.
This felt like a recipe for a team to take a “gap year” and get a high lottery pick. Surprisingly, they’ve managed to stay at the top of the East and are currently tied for the second seed. But as great as their season has been, it doesn’t make sense to maximize the current season. They’re in all likelihood a second-tier championship contender even if Jayson Tatum comes back. They still should reduce their payroll and get under the luxury tax line.
Yesterday, the Celtics pulled off what was considered impossible back in June 2025. They got under both the first apron threshold and the luxury tax line by trading Anfernee Simons for Nikola Vucevic, and trading Xavier Tillman, Josh Minott, and Chris Boucher without taking any salaries back.
Overall, the Celtics have saved a staggering $325 million between the beginning of the offseason and now. While the savings are nice, that’s not what this is about. They accomplish a couple of things here.
First, they can sign any player who gets bought out. Teams above the first apron aren’t allowed to sign players who make the $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception or more. Now that they’re no longer prohibited, they could theoretically sign a player like Khris Middleton or Jusuf Nurkic if waived.
Second, and more importantly, they are one step closer to resetting their luxury tax repealer clock. Teams that are luxury taxpayers in three of the four previous seasons are designated repeat taxpayers. They have to pay $2 more per tax level than standard taxpayers, resulting in more punitive tax penalties. As an example, if the Celtics were standard taxpayers this season, their $283 million tax penalty shown above would be $193 million.
The Celtics need to avoid the luxury tax both in 2025-26 and 2026-27 to reset their repeater clock. Doing so would make them standard taxpayers from 2027-28, when Tatum will be two years removed from his injury, through 2029-30. This would give the Celtics a three-year window at the end of the decade to blow past the aprons and spend as much as possible. That is their true window to compete for a championship, not now.
This is a masterclass of salary cap management. But as great an accomplishment as it is, there’s another layer of planning the Celtics needed to consider ahead of time: filling up the rest of the roster without exceeding the tax line.
