Robb: Celtics Trade Bogans, Create Bigger Roster Logjam
BOSTON – Everyone in the NBA world figured that Keith Bogans would not remain a Boston Celtic for the 2014-15 season.
Thursday night, the Celtics made that development official by trading the disgruntled veteran along with two future conditional Sacramento second round picks to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for forwards Dwight Powell, Erik Murphy and Malcolm Thomas, guard John Lucas III, 2016 and 2017 second round picks from Cleveland and a $5.3 million trade exception
The move brings an anti-climatic end to the Bogans era in Boston. The shooting guard was acquired by Boston from Brooklyn back in July 2013 strictly as a way to make the numbers work in the Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett blockbuster deal.
Bogans signed a contract valued at roughly $15 million over three years as part of that transaction, despite the final two years of the contract being unguaranteed.
The unguaranteed years on the deal made Bogans an attractive trade chip for the Celtics this summer. In fact, those years were the only reason that the 34-year-old stuck around on the Boston roster for this long. He played just six games last year before Danny Ainge elected to send him home for the season in December following a reported outburst on the team bus.
Rather than cutting him after the incident, the team paid his $5 million guaranteed salary in hopes he would serve as a key component for any sort of "fireworks" the team could put together this offseason. That kind of scenario never materialized though in the past few months, making Bogans simply an extra expensive body on an already crowded roster heading into the 2014-15 season.
So the team shipped Bogans out to Cleveland, where he'll serve the same purpose as he did in Boston as an expensive trade chip in waiting. He might even get a chance to play for the Cavs once in a while if they aren't able to land Ray Allen in the coming weeks.
One would have hoped that any trade of Bogans would have help the Celtics to start clearing out a bit of their roster logjam, but instead Ainge has just created even more of a roster mess by acquiring four players in the transaction.
Incredibly the Celtics had 23 players under contract, before the team waived Chris Johnson and Chris Babb Thursday night. With the releases of Johnson and Babb, that number is now down to 21 and should drop again shortly. Multiple reports indicate the team intends to waive Malcolm Thomas and John Lucas III, who are both on non-guaranteed deals.
Those moves would bring the Celtics' roster down to 19, giving them room to officially sign Evan Turner and stay under the NBA training camp max of 20.
All of that maneuvering is really just a short-term fix for the roster though, as five more cuts will need to be made by the start of the regular season. Murphy and Powell will have a chance to make the team in training camp, but face a challenging road as the team will have 17 guaranteed contracts on the books once Turner signs for just 15 spots on the roster.
Competition for the final spots will be fierce in the coming days, and you can bet Ainge isn't done dealing before the start of the season. Stay tuned.
Brian Robb covers the Celtics for CBS Boston and contributes to NBA.com, among other media outlets. You can follow him on Twitter @CelticsHub.
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