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Top 25 Boston Celtics TPE targets

NBA: New York Knicks at Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics once again have the NBA’s largest Traded Player Exception (TPE). This time around, that TPE is worth $17,142,857. It was created in the Evan Fournier sign-and-trade to the New York Knicks last offseason. Due to adjusted calendar mapping (for the last time, hopefully!) this TPE expires on July 18.

Brad Stevens recently said that the Celtics front office has “The OK to do whatever we need to do” as far as spending money this offseason. A big part of that “OK” presumably includes spending most of the Fournier TPE to acquire a player via trade.

A few reminders on how TPEs work and don’t work:

· A TPE must be used before it expires. There’s no extending the expiration date.

· A TPE can be used to acquire one or multiple players, so long as their salary/salaries fit within the TPE amount

· A TPE can be used to claim a player off waivers, provided their salary fits within the TPE

· A TPE cannot be combined (aggregated) with other TPEs or player(s) salary to increase the salary-matching on a player being acquired

· A TPE cannot be used to directly sign a player

On the last note: you can rule out sign-and-trade transactions for Boston this offseason. As the Celtics are likely to be above the tax apron, they’ll be unable to acquire a player via sign-and-trade.

It’s also worth noting that beyond the Fournier TPE, the Celtics also have two other TPEs that are considered usable:

· $6,907,815 – Juancho Hernangomez trade – Expires January 19

· $5,890,000 – Dennis Schroder trade – Expires February 10

The list of players we’re going to cover here are mainly targets for the larger $17.1 million TPE. There are 257 total players who will fit within that TPE when the league year changes over to 2022-23 on July 1.

We’re obviously not going to cover all 257 players. But we will cover our top-25 targets for the $17.1 million Fournier TPE, plus a bonus player. We’re also not going to dive too deep into what it would take to acquire most of these players. Assume it would be a combination of draft picks and/or young players to make it work.

Let’s start with that bonus player.

Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

· Evan Fournier – $17,142,857 – New York Knicks: So…this is awkward! Normally, teams are restricted from re-acquiring a player they traded away…

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